The Morecambe Flip …… and other stories

Memories of the Milk Maid in Piccadilly will fast be fading from living memories.

The Milk Maid, 1906

Mine is sitting in the Milk Maid looking out onto the bus station with the gardens beyond.

It specialized in milk shakes, along with frothy coffee and sweet things.

The bar was light, spacious and had a figure of a milk maid picked out on the tiled side wall.

I doubt many others will remember the place.

Or so I thought but over the last few days people have messaged me with their own fond memories.  “Pancakes”, “frothy coffee” and “wonderful ice creams”, seem to be uppermost in what many remember, along with calling in after shopping or waiting to get the bus home. 

And for one it was “tomato soup with a swirl of cream followed by a cake” which characterized the place.

We frequented it in the early 1970s, usually after a day at the College of Knowledge on Aytoun Street.  What we had is lost in time, but I guess it would have been during my frothy coffee period.

I do remember the tiled figure of the giant milk maid.

Just when it opened and when it closed I have yet to discover and I still travel in hopes that someone will have a picture.

So far, I have not found an image of the place, but yesterday an old Union colleague phoned to tell me about The Morecambe Flip which was another of the Milk Maid’s specialities which was a pancake served with shrimps in a sauce.  Now Ray is from Morecambe and couldn’t resist asking if the shrimps were Morecambe Shrimps.  I think he already knew the answer which was confirmed when the member of staff just looked back with an expression of incomprehension.

The Golden Egg, circa 1960s

But he got me thinking again about little history, those events and memories which can claim no great place in history.  They are not high matters of state, earth shattering discoveries or the reverberations of war or natural disasters which roll down the generations.

Instead, they are the trivial recollections of the lives we have led.

They can be seeing the old Queen’s coronation on the telly, remembering exactly where you were at the news of the death of President Kennedy or Ottis Reading, or that first date which turned into a long and happy relationship.

And behind those memories are the bits of our own collective history.

The Ceylon Tea Centre, undated

So, in the case of the Milk Maid I am fairly convinced that it was run on behalf of the Milk Marketing Board, one of the state agencies set up to promote British agriculture alongside the Egg Marketing Board. 

Back then plenty of government agencies both here and abroad vied to entice hungry customers to sample the produce.

In St Peter’s Square there was the Ceylon Tea Centre and on Deansgate the Danish Food Centre, and across the city and beyond there were multiple UCP outlets.

It was years before I realized that UCP stood for United Cattle Products which made sense when you walked past the trays of tripe, sausages and black puddings.

The Golden Grill, Woolwich, 1979

And in the more affluent decades of the mid-20th century there were those other chains of new cafes and restaurants, from Wimpey to the Golden Egg, and out on the main roads the chain of Little Chefs.

What they all had in common was that they offered up  uniform regular dishes, the same whether you were in Scunthorpe, Manchester or London.  

Food purists might dismiss them but for a generation on the move with more money in their pockets than in previous generations they represented all that was new and exciting about the 1960s.

Of course they didn’t have the monopoly, mum would regularly go to a Lyons Tea House in the 1940s, and the Kardomah chain had been selling that blend of food, coffee and light entertainment from the early 1900s.

The lost Kardomah, South Mill Street, 2021

The Manchester Guardian in the 1950s carried several adverts for staff to work at the Market Street Café, which in 1952 was offering a successful applicant between £5-£10 for a 47 hour week, spread over 5½ days.  

No experience was required because “full training will be given”.*

All of which makes me think perhaps I will come across someone who worked at the Milk Maid and if pushed might offer up the answer to Ray's question of where the shrimps for the Morecombe Flip came from.

We shall see.

Location; anytime between 1900 and 1980

Pictures; The Milk Maid, from a 1906 picture postcard from Tuck and Son, courtesy of Tuckdb, https://tuckdb.org/  The Golden Egg menu circa 1960s, courtesy of Andy Robertson, the Ceylon Tea Centre, date unknown**, and the rival The Golden Grill, Woolwich, 1979 and the entrance to the Kardomah, South Mill Street, Manchester, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson,The Kardomah, Market Street, 1958, m62093, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 

The Kardomah, Market Street, 1958

*Wanted, Manchester Guadian, October 26, 1955

**Vernon Corea’s visits to the Ceylon Tea Centre at 22 Lower Regent Street London, https://vernoncorea.wordpress.com/tag/ceylon-tea-centre-lower-regent-street-london/

It’s how we did it ……… 1962 …… and a heap of adverts

Anyone who can remember the Colgate advert in the block of ice will know that adverts can date, and is a reminder of how they did things very differently in the past.

In some cases, it is the presentation of the advert, and in others it’s the underlying assumptions which in the 1960s just assumed that housework, cooking and being worried about your children was the preserve of women, and that anyone who was not English was open to be portrayed as a stereotype.

And so, with that in mind here are a collection of adverts from 1962.

Some are those big ones which required a man, a ladder, and a pot of paste, and came in parts, which had to be aligned perfectly.

Today those same hoardings are delivered electronically and change every few minutes.

And then there were the smaller ones, often advertising a newspaper or magazine which were changed daily.

All of which leads me to this collection.  

I have no idea where the pictures were taken but the presence of open spaces would suggest a part of the city undergoing a clearance programme or may be  just some of the bits Mr. Hitler’s bombs did for.

Either way the adverts are fascinating, not least because of the prices advertised, and also the stories being run in the newspapers, which included  a suspense serial in Reveille, entitled “No Chance In Hell” and “A girl called Johnnie, 20 Days in an Open Boat” from the Sunday Express.”

Reveille for those who don’t know was a popular weekly tabloid, which was launched in 1940 as the official newspaper of the Ex-Services’ Allied  Association, and after it was bought by the Mirror Group in 1947 settled into presenting light news story with an emphasis on entertainment.

And I suppose the fun will be to spot those brands and newspapers which are no longer with us, while for the eagled eyed reader there will be the surprising discovery that nearly 60 years ago we were just as likely to discard our litter as we do today.

Added to which as the shop next to the newsagents will testify, this was still a time when something broke you asked someone to mend it, rather than go off and buy new.

Finally there is the question of just where we were back in 1962.  

Enlarging the street sign above the newsagents offers up a number of possibilities, but all seem to fall by the wayside, as this was a road not a street and the listings in the directories show nothing that fits.

But then someone will know and come up with the answer.

Well I hope so.

And John Casey responded with "Rochdale Rd. My old area, moved out in 1963 as part of the slum clearance. The hoardings were erecred about 1958".

Location; Manchester

Pictures,  advertising in 1962, Manchester, 1962 -3554.1 and 1962 -3554.1, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Buying a TV from Park Wireless in the August of 1951

I am looking at an advert for Park Wireless a company which sold electrical goods across south Manchester including Chorlton.*  

The year is 1951 and therein is the first hint that the advert will reveal much about life in the early 1950s.

The war had been over just six years and the consumer boom was yet to take off.  There were still rationing, as well as shortages and plenty of those ugly bomb sites which added to the gloom.

And the distance we have travelled from then to now is summed up by the word wireless.  It was what my parents and grandparents called the radio and it would have been the word I used as well.

When the wireless became the radio I am not quite sure, but within a decade of this advert I rather think radio had taken over and later for a brief moment it was superseded  by the transistor and for a few by the tranny.

So Park Wireless anchors us in those early years of the 1950s with the Home Service, the Light Programme and the Third Programme each with their own distinctive output.

The Home Service focused on the serious stuff ranging from news to drama and talks.  The Light Programme as its name suggests offered up light entrainment and music and was really the continuation of the wartime BBC Forces Programme which had been renamed the General Forces Programme. The Third concentrated on the Arts; commissioned musical works as well as putting on the plays by writers such as Samuel Becket, Harold Pinter, Joe Orton and Dylan Thomas.

Not that any of these feature in the advert which is primarily about television and so pride of place goes to the PYE FBIC Consule retailing at £85.

Ours I remember was similar but had doors.  Now I have never quite understood the doors but I suppose those that suggest it was too hide the screen during the day might be right.
What strikes me first about the advert is the “TV Demonstrations every Friday at Moss Side and Timperley.” 

At a time when there were very few sets in people’s homes the pull of a demonstration must have been quite powerful, and this I think is different from a trip to a modern store where you trawl what is on offer comparing price and specification.

Back then the demonstration was as much about selling the idea of a TV as actually selling the box.

As always the prices are interesting and there will be those who will remember how much they took home and what was left for saving up for such things as a telly.

But what also intrigued me was the reference to the “Progress Report on Holme Moss” which turns out to be a TV Transmitting station.  It was launched on October 12th 1951 and covered west Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Derbyshire.

Its opening meant that “television comes within the reach of millions more potential viewers” and with recent tests promising “excellent reception in the Manchester districts” the age of the telly was about to happen.

But then there is the warning about making "sure of your set - they may become scarce" which is less I suspect about hard selling and a very real problem of supply, which of course takes us back to the shortages of the 1950s.

Nor is this quite the end for those old machine with the big valves were not so reliable and if this was to be the age of the telly it was also the age of the telly repair man.

And it was also that powerful smell they could give off, a mix of heat and dust.

But that is for another time.

Picture; from Manchester City News, August 10 1951

*There were branches at Chorlton, Didsbury, Moss Side, Northenden and Timperley.

Looking for "June" The Ladies hairdresser and Busy Bee Stores, sometime in 1930

Looking "June" the Hairdressers on Wilbraham Road

I never underestimate the power of a collection of old local adverts to offer up fascinating stories and pretty much take you all over the place.

So here in front of me are a set of those adverts which appeared on the dust jacket of a book lent out by Mr R. Greig Wilson who owned a newsagents on Sandy Lane and also ran one of our Circulating libraries.

Now circulating libraries were private affairs and existed alongside the local public library, and such was the demand for novels and lighter factual material that many of our newsagents went into business renting books out.

Busy Bee

At home in London mother was a regular at the local bookshop who also traded in lending copies and across Chorlton there were quite a few, from the one that operated on Beech Road, to Mr Lloyd’s on
Upper Chorlton Road and of course R. Greig Wilson’s on Sandy Lane.

It is a topic I have visited quite a few times over the years and no doubt will return to.

But for today my attention has been drawn to Busy Bee Stores  (W. Wellard, Proprietor) at 264 Upper Chorlton Road, and “June” The Ladies’ Hairdresser and Beauty Specialist on Broadwalk Wilbraham Road.

It will take some time to date the collection of adverts and that will involve trawling the directories but I think they will be from the 1930s.

Not that Mr Grieg has been much of a help for he was selling his “Stationary, Tobacco and Picture postcards” along with delivering his newspapers from at least 1911.

That said it will be after 1911 because down on Upper Chorlton Road at 264 was a Mr John Joseph Taylor who was a tailor.

Now Mr Wellard was trading as an iron monger at the shop by 1929 and Charles Slightman who also advertised on the dust cover was selling his newspapers and lending out his collection of over 1,000 books from his lending library on Manchester Road from 1923 through to 1935 so we are in the right decade and a bit.

"June"

And until those directories yield up a definite date I am settling for sometime in the 1930s for it was around then that “June” at the Broadwalk began Permanent Waving by the Nestlé System which was the "Radione" system in which the hair was wound dry and inserted into hollow cellophane tubes sealed at both ends, but contained moistened paper”*

Long along Wilbraham Road circa 1930s

She was in her saloon at 523 Wilbraham Road by 1929 but Karl Nessler who had perfected his alternative method of curling hair in 1905 using a mixture of cow urine and water did not come up with the improvement which he called the Nestlé System until the 30’s.

“June” charged 20/- for the process and also offered "Tinting, Manicure, Face Massage , [and] all kinds of hair work carried out by experts.”

I have often wondered whether her customers were aware that Mr Nessler had arrived in Britain from Germany in 1901 and facing being interned when the Great War broke out fled to America, or that during his first experiments on his wife he managed to burn her hair off and cause some scalp burns.

That advert for an early perm, circa 1905

All of which is a complete digression but is one of the fascinating little journeys behind which there is a serious point because together the eleven adverts will reveal a little bit more about the Chorlton of just eighty or so years ago.

And in one of those nice little twist of coincidences, 264 Upper Chorlton Road is again a hardware store specialising in much the same stuff as Busy Bee which along with offering “Glass and China [as] a speciality offered “Electric Vacuum cleaners for Hire.”

But there the coincidences stop for now where “June" permed and manicured the present proprietor offers sweets and newspapers which I suppose has almost brought us full circle.

Pictures, adverts from the dust cover of a book courtesy of Margaret Connelly, Wilbraham Road in 2014 from the collection of Andy Robertson and an  early 20th century advertisement for Nessler's permanent wave machine, transferred by SreeBot, Wikipedia

*Perm (hairstyle), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perm_(hairstyle)

Cycling to a beauty contest …….. “the pretty entrants” of 1937

I bet there will be someone who remembers Riding’s Stores Ltd.

They sold cycles and advertised themselves as “The largest Quality Cycle Specialists in the North of England”, with branches on Deansgate, Corporation Street, Market Street and Swan Street, with shops in Moss Side, Rusholme and Stretford as well as here at 362 Barlow Moor Road.

And in their drive to bring cycles to the world they boasted “No Risk - No Bother – No Fuss – It’s so easy, so simple Riding’s ‘Best of All’ Easy Ways”, which meant that from 1/6 a week you could have any Hercules model , with the added bonus of no deposit and a ”Seven Day Free Riding Trial”.

The advertisement appeared in the Chorlton and Wilbrahampton News for July  16th, 1937, but what caught my eye was an additional notice drawing attention to “More Pretty Entrants in Riding’s Great Northern Cycle Queen Contest”, which featured eleven young women, with one posing with a cycle, another in a swim suit and another talking on the telephone.

And in an act of overkill, the company posted yet another reference to the contest calling on women to “Send in your photographs now!  Adding, “Waste no time. This is a marvelous opportunity for some local girl to gain fame and popularity”.

All that was required was a  name and an address on the back of the picture which was to be sent in a “1½d. sealed envelope to Riding’s” main showrooms on Stockport Road. 

The company also embraced all the modern technology, promising that “Elimination contests will be filmed and the final selection will take place at the New Manchester Hippodrome”, which I suppose opened up the potential for a cinema news story.

But if that was not enticement enough there was the promise “handsome cash prizes” and the simply direct question “Will You Be Queen?”

So, there you have it and by one of those little quirky twists, the Riding’s shop on Barlow Moor Road was just four doors down from Ken Foster’s cycle shop.  Now that is a bit of historical continuity,

Location; Chorlton and Manchester

Pictures; addverts from the Chorlton and Wilbrahampton News, July 1937 from the collection of Maggie Watson

Oysters from London on sale in Smithy Door

It is a long time since I featured an advert from the 1850s. 

So here is one for Oysters sold by William Whitaker who “guarantees the FISH he sells, so that the Public may have confidence in all purchases made at his Establishment.”  Well you can’t say fairer than that.

Picture; from Slater’s Manchester & Salford Directory, 1850

When the 1950’s came back to Beech Road

Daft title I know but the sign outside Etchells’ on Beech Road with its promise of assorted different lollies will resonate with anyone who grew up in the 1950s and 60’s.

Beech Road, 2025

And it is less for those assorted different lollies and instead the pale yellow background, coloured strips and its distinctive blue lettering.

Eldorado, 1959

We were a Wall’s house but I know that other brands were available including Lyons Maid and El Dorado.

But for us it was that family brick with its vanilla, strawberry and chocolate sections called Neapolitan.

That said I had no brand loyalty as a kid and on occasion in Woolworth’s would buy one of those round ice creams in its round cornet which I think belonged to Lyons Maid.

And if really pushed might indulge in a Topper from Eldorado, but the flavour of its inside was bland.

I suppose we also fell on Wall’s because at 1922 it was the oldest and therefore was a brand both mother and father would have recognised unlike its whipper snapper rivals of Lyons which dated from 1925 and the baby Eldorado which only appeared in1952.

Wall’s also appeared in the Eagle comic that go to boy’s paper of the 1950s, which was my weekly read. It had its own picture strip in which Tommy Walls would battle the bad, the very bad and even more bad villains.

Tommy Walls, 1950

At which point I could go into the history of the company’s and focus on all those Italian ice cream makers who worked our towns and cities in the late 19th and twentieth centuries, but I won’t.  Nor will I feature the work of Mrs Thatcher as one of scientists engaged in making whipped lighter ice cream thereby adding more air than white stuff to the finished product.

Although I am tempted to linger on the practice of selling the stuff in small metal containers at a penny ago, but the dreadful knowledge that the said bowls were not washed out between licks is a topic best left to those stern and heavy books on how diseases spread.

And that is it.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; On Beech Road, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and advert for Topper Ice Cream Lollie, 1959, from the Eagle Comic, May 30, 1959, Vol. 10 No.22, and Tommy Walls from the Eagle, April 18th, 1950

The pungent aroma of Brylcreem and Old Spice …. defining an era

My Brylcreem days were limited.  

They lasted for just a few years when mother insisted on using the stuff and then adding a hair grip to keep the quiff in place.

I rebelled early and never went back although dad would regularly brush his hair through with a dab even on days when he stayed indoors.

But Old Spice was different, I used the aftershave, the deodorant and the talc from those distinctive shaped white and red jars.

On reflection I must have cut a powerful presence when meeting Pamela, Jennie or Ann on a Saturday night outside the Eltham ABC on the High Street.

But then my aroma would mix with their perfume and blend into a romantic haze.

Leaving for Manchester and college coincided with growing my hair, and the application of Old Spice became redundant.

I had all but forgotten that ritual of adding the stuff, but it all came flooding back the other day when on a warm summer’s evening I passed the man resplendent in his “going our clothes” accompanied by a cloud of male deodorant.

And in turn that took me back to a moment in the early 1990s when I visited a house full of bedsits each inhabited by a student and each with a different male deodorant which collectively hung in the air making a mis mash of smells.

Judging by the supermarket shelves “smellies” remain as popular, but I think not hair oil.  My generation long ago forsook it, if we really adopted it and nor do my kids, although occasionally one of them will use a gel.

It may be the end of an era, but at least it means the head rests on our armchairs are free from the grease stains which meant the addition of an embroidered cloth covering or even plastic head rest.

Of course I may have got it all wrong and out there countless heads will still have their Brylcreem addition.

We shall see.

Pictures; Advert for Brylcream and Nutriline, 1949, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and 1944 advertisement for the Old Spice Shaving Soap in a pottery mug, Old Spice After-Shaving Lotion, Old Spice Talcum, Old Spice Brushless Shaving Cream, and Old Spice Bath Soap, April 1944, The Saturday Evening Post, 1944, April 1, page 95, Author Shulton, Inc.

What we bought in Chorlton in 1936

Now I have Steve Casson to thank for this page from the 1936 St Clement’s Parish Magazine.

The rest as they say is up to you.

For those who go back a long time, some of the names will be familiar, and search of the locations using google street maps will offer up what has taken the place of these businesses.

All I will comment on is the emphasis on pure milk.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; St Clements’s Parish Magazine, 1936, courtesy of Steve Casson

HAPPY HOMES RENT TV, how we watched in 1961

Advert for Radio Rentals, 1961

Now the advert pretty much speaks for itself.

The year is 1961 and the age of mass television viewing is just over a decade old.  But in that time the number of families owning or renting a set has increased dramatically and the number of channels has doubled with our own Granada TV beginning transmission in 1956.

And in the five years since Granada had begun broadcasting it established itself as one of the most important television companies with a fine range of drama and documentaries.

This of course was helped by its huge audience which covered Lancashire ib the West and the East Ridings of Yorkshire, including the major conurbations around Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield and Doncaster.

"...the North is a closely knit, indigenous, industrial society; a homogeneous cultural group with a good record for music, theatre, literature and newspapers, not found elsewhere in this island, except perhaps in Scotland. 

Compare this with London and its suburbs--full of displaced persons. 

And, of course, if you look at a map of the concentration of population in the North and a rainfall map, you will see that the North is an ideal place for television".*

Radio Rentals on Barlow Moor Road, 1959

And that was also reflected in the number of shops selling and renting televisions here in Chorlton, for along with Ready Radio at 489 Barlow Moor Road, there was Smith’s Radio & Television on Beech Road, and XLent Electricals on Wilbraham Road and there will have been others that I have forgotten.

At XLENTS its double fronted shop was packed with washing machines radios and televisions and the painted sign on the window urged people to Buy! Buy! Buy! for just £3 deposit, and 11/’ a week.

This may have been at the cutting edge of mass entertainment but the sign advertising the offers was hand written with that white wash which butchers, green grocers and hardware stores used to advertise their instant offers.

So not quite the bright new technological future.

XLENT Electricals, Wilbraham Road, 1959

But it was what people wanted and while some at the time were sniffy of "the box" it was and is a powerful medium of entertainment, which for a while seemed to threaten the cinema.

This had not been lost on the Bernstein Brothers who launched Granada and according to one source did so because they believed it would not affect the company's largely southern-based cinema chain.

It may seem odd that people rented TVs but so so really. They were even in the early 1970s expensive to buy, and the option of renting also covered repairs and the option of newer models when they came along.

Now I think Radio Rentals became Visionhire which may have been a change of name or a take over but I remember renting from them at 489 Barlow Moor Road sometime in the early 1980s.

Pictures; advert form the collection of Adge Lane, and Radio Rentals, 489-491 Barlow Moor Road was taken in 1959 by A.H. Downes, m17513 and the Xlent shop by A E Landers, 1959, M18455, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council

* Quoted from an article by Tony Pearson, BERNSTEIN, SIDNEY, British Media Executive from The Museum of Broadcast Communications, http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/bernsteinsi/bersteinsi.htm

Ilford ….. the film of choice

Now, when this advert came out in the Eagle comic in 1959, I wouldn’t have given it much thought.

I was just ten, and  the only camera we had was one of those old fashioned bellows ones, which opened out and I am not sure it was ever used.

Although having said that, we have plenty of snaps of us all in the old house in Peckham, so I guess someone used it.

A full twenty years later I had embarked on photography, and after one false start, fastened on the Pentax X 1000, which was the Morris Minor of cameras.  

Mine travelled across Europe, endured the heat of Athens and Paris, and the indifferent weather of Britain, and plenty of places in between, suffering knocks and more than a few damaging encounters with walls as well as one memorable fall down a hill side.

Along the way I got into developing and printing my own pictures before finally going digital.

During my smelly chemical photographic years I used Ilford films and so the Eagle advert strikes a chord.

I was vaguely aware of the connection with the place of the same name, and assumed the company had a history which I shan’t begin to visit, leaving you to follow the link to an interesting story of Ilford’s past.*

Leaving me just to quote from my Wikipedia that “the company was founded in 1879 by Alfred Hugh Harman as the Britannia Works Company. Initially making photographic plates, it grew to occupy a large site in the centre of Ilford”.*

I now prefer using a digital camera, but know plenty of people who still use smelly film, and while digital images are easier to manipulate, I fear they may do history a disservice, because many pictures taken on a modern camera or phone will never be printed off, and at best stay as an electronic version, stored privately and lost when the device becomes obsolete or is lost and damaged.

And so will never make their way into museums as a record of how we once lived.

Pictures; Picture; Be Snap Happy ….. Buy Ilford, 1959, from the Eagle Comic, May 30, 1959, Vol. 10 No.22, and two Pentax cameras, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* The History of Ilford Film, Analogue Wonderland, https://analoguewonderland.co.uk/blogs/film-photography-blog/the-history-of-ilford-film

**Ilford Photo, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilford_Photo

A little bit of nostalgia has come my way ……Old Jamaica...... Five Boys Chocolate .... and Cadbury's Fruit and Nut

Now the blog doesn’t usually do nostalgia.

2020

This is partly because it is an indulgence which rarely delivers what it promises.

For every rosy tinted memory of the good old days, there is  another which is  dark, miserable and challenging.

So, there might have been a time in many working class communities “when you could keep your door unlocked”, but that was more to do with the total absence of anything worth stealing.

And in the same vein, those who deplore the plethora of TV stations, should be reminded that once within the living memory of many there was a time when there were only two TV channels, both of which were in black and white and closed sometime after 10.30.

1969

Indeed I am old enough to remember when there was only BBC TV which on a Sunday closed during the day, forcing you back to the Light Programme on the wireless with Jimmy Clitheroe, Archie Andrews, and Sing Something Simple.

Of course those like me in receipt of a State Pension, will reply that the same Light Programme, offered up the Goon Show, ITMA, Tony Hancock, along with the Navy Lark, Take it from Here, and the Men from The Ministry.

All of which is a digression from the story which is just a reflection of the chocolate bars I enjoyed as a child, and the now unfamiliar posters which advertised them.

Starting with Old Jamaica, a mix of dark chocolate, with rum and raisin, which was launched in 1970, later withdrawn and is now back again.  The original came wrapped in a packet with a sailing ship on an orangy red background complete with a yellow scroll bearing the product’s name.

It was and is again a favourite of mine.

As is Fry’s Turkish Delight  but which bears little resemblance to the original, and those bars of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut.

1969

Both inspired a series of adverts, some which look very dated and a tad un PC, and others like the “I am a Fruit and Nut” which remain delightfully amusing.

And that is it.

Leaving me to say, I could have mentioned Five Boy’s Chocolate, the one Fry’s did with different fondant flavours, as well as Bandit, Marathon and heaps more.

The label for Old Jamaica, came into the house last week, and the posters date from the late 1950s and 60s.

Pictures; Old Jamaica, 2020, Fry’s Turkish Delight, 1969, Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut, 1960, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,  https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

*Five Boys Chocolate was launched in 1902, and remained popular until the 1960s, and despite an attempt to revamp the wrapper in the 1970s it was discontinued soon after the rebrand.

The ghost of Kardomah

Now there will be plenty of people who have fond memories of the Kardomah chain of cafés, and in particular, those that operated in Manchester.*

I have come across three, and I guess there may have been more.  There was one at 98 Market Street, another in St Ann’s Square, and this one close to  Albert Square.

The sign is on Southmill Street, which was originally called South Street.

What first attracted me to it was that it is a ghost sign, and ghost signs advertised products and businesses which have long since vanished.

Having clocked the sign I stood back to admire the entrance, and the rest as they say is a story waiting for readers to add their own memories and perhaps pictures.

The Manchester Guardian in the 1950s carried a number of adverts for staff to work at the Market Street Café, which in 1952 was offering a successful applicant between £5-£10 for a 47 hour week, spread over 5½ days.  

No experience was required because “full training will be given”.** 

But in the 1950s, as before and later, one advert for staff at the Kardomah on Market Street bounced off the page with its glaring nod to ineqaulities, making it clear that single women were preferred.

Location; Southmill Street, Manchester

Picture; the Kardomah ghost sign, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Kardomah Cafés, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardomah_Caf%C3%A9s

**Wanted, Manchester Guadian, October 26, 1955

When there is nothing new ……. Women’s Weekly sells it as it is … 1911

So, there we were discussing the new range of pressure cookers air fryers, and our cooking range, when I was reminded that Women’s Weekly had got there first in 1911.

And to add to the firsts; Women's Weekly did a pretty neat advert playing on the fear of going bald, and the equally familiar “How I Enlarged My Bust” article.

Location 1911

Pictures; from Women’s Weekly November 4th, 1911

The way we lived in 1949 Part 9

An occasional series showing adverts in the year I was born.

It was ten years since the last world war began and only 4 years since it ended.  And reflecting on that decade Picture Post issued a special edition in which this advert appeared.

I can’t remember Silmos Lollies but I ate myself through enough similar ones.  And like the best memories thinking about Silmos took me back to a tiny sweet shop outside my secondary school where Kay the owner would sell ice cream and if money was tight it was a penny worth of lemon flavoured ice which I think came in some sort of shinny paper bag.

Silmos Lollies were made by Batger who seemed to have started in the 18th century with a sugar millhouse and in the years before the Second World War had two factories in Cable Street Stepney with their own wharfs and shipped their raw materials along the Thames. "The main factory at 566 Cable Street manufactured jams, bakery sundries and confectionary; best known products being 'Chinese Figs', 'Silmos Lollies', 'Jersey Caramels', and 'John Peel marmalade'. The employees at the other factory manufactured 'Harlequin Christmas Crackers', and all forms of cake decorations for the bakery industry.” John Hearle from BATGER - Before & After - Bryan Mawer / John Hearle, http://www.mawer.clara.net/batger.html

 Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

All that was decent and safe in 1962 ........ the advert

Now we tend to think of advertisng in the past as a gentler form of selling us stuff.

But not so.

Looking at this 1962 advert, it pulls no punches in its determination to sell the raincoat.

It was published in the Eagle Comic in 1962 and was one of a number aimed at the readeship which was boys between the ages of seven to about fourteen.

In this particular edition there were also adverts for Sugar Puffs, a Sturnley Archer bicycle set of gears, Beech-Nut chewing gum and the Wiggli Ball from Weetabix.

In addition Wall’s Ice Cream were selling the “exciting Big Chief Moccasins” which came in kit form and cost just under six shillings, which you could get by sending the money with “any two Wall’s Ice Cream wrappers”.

And to complete the adverts, Shreeded Wheat were giving away “Free Champions of Sport Giant Colour Picture Cards”.

Most of the adverts were from food companies, of which three sold breakfast cereals.

But it is that raincoat ad which I like the best.

Adverts in the comic were often delivered in the form of a strip cartoon with a story so here the two children, go off to the fair, wearing their coats, which was very sensible, spend all their money, including their bus fare and walk home in the cold and the rain.

But they “were not cold”, because “We’ve got our Robert Hirst Raincoats on”.

And to reinforce the ad there was the message that “A Robert Hirst keeps you cosy and dry always – and each coat has a secret safety pocket for boys or a penny safe purse for girls ...... even a fleecy buttin-warmer if you want it”.

Concluding with “Ask mummy to let you see some in the shops” and mindful of being a responisble businesses added “And remember-always keep some money in case of emergencies”.

I went looking for the firm of Robert Hirst and found a listing and an reference to them in the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre for 1960-62, but no indication of what it was.

So I shall go looking for that too.

Location; 1962

Picture advert from the Eagle Comic, August 11, 1962 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Mr. Therm .... a story of gas ........ and the Eagle Comic

Now, if you are old enough to have worn a balaclava, thrilled to the first episode of Ready Steady Go, and felt the light had gone out of the world on hearing the news of the death of Otis Reading and Dr. King, then like as not Mr. Therm will have been a familiar figure.

And for those who don’t, he was the marketing face of the gas industry, having first appeared in 1931, from the Publicity Department of the Gas Light and Coke Company, he went on to be adopted by other companies, and survived nationalization of the industry, only slowing fading away in the 1970s.

I remember him best from the Eagle comic where he often appeared, in adverts like this one.

Back then Mr. Therm would pretty much be the last thing I read, long after Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, the cutaway feature and a host of other exciting stories and was more an afterthought.

Today we assume that the 1950s and early 60s were a more innocent age, and yet continued in its 20 pages the Eagle would have as many as 20 adverts, ranging from small ones to those that took up a full page.

Along with adverts for toys, and plastic model kits, there were those for bubble gum, fountain pens, as well as sweet, books and careers with the armed forces.

And taking centre stage would the breakfast cereals, usually accompanied by a free gift.

So, on September 20th, 1958, Corn Flakes was offering a free plastic spinning top, while Shreddies, went one better with a full page spread announcing “Free!  20 models of amazing Prehistoric Monster”.

Leaving Mr. Therm to compete with Tommy Walls who got into all sorts of scrapes but always came out on top with a Wall’s ice cream.

I had almost forgotten Mr. Therm with his old-fashioned gas meter, but happily have been reunited with him as I once again read through my old copies of Eagle.

Location; the 1950s

Pictures, from Eagle Comic, May 30th, 1959, Vol. 10 No.20