Badge of the week no.3 .......... celebrating Manchester Airport

The third in the series featuring badges from the collection with a bit of a story.

Now I have to be honest these two are not from the collection but were recently posted by Stephen Marland who like me revels in all things odd, interesting and different.

So here are two badges celebrating Manchester Airport which Stephen thinks date from the late 1960s.

And they offer up a host of supplementary questions from who made them to why were they created.

Of course there will be someone who recognises them and will have their detailed history ready to be told.

I hope so.

Location; Manchester











Picture; Manchester Airport, courtesy of Stephen Marland

Badge of the week no.2 .......... the Red Cross Worker ..... Glassgow

A second in the series featuring badges from the collection with a bit of a story.

Now so far I am struggling with a story.

But I know it was awarded to Alex Scott from Glasgow, so there are a few clues to begin the search for the story.

Location; Glasgow





Picture; Red Cross Badge, courtesy of David Harrop

Badge of the week no.1 .......... the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Brotherhood ..... Edinburgh

A new series featuring badges from the collection with a bit of a story.

This is the badge of the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Brotherhood.

It is an organisation I written about before.*

I had come across the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Brotherhood back in the 1970s in Ashton Under Lyne.

They were what they said they were an organization designed to provide a pleasant afternoon with a Christian slant on a Sunday.

The first seem to have sprung up in the mid 1870s and their first national conference was in London in 1906.

Now this is another of those areas I want to dig deep into.  There was a political dimension  There was a long standing relationship between political Liberalism and Nonconformity which brought active Liberals into the movement.

And in the early twentieth century key Labour and Trade Union leaders became actively involved in the PSA/Brotherhood Movement. Labour MPs Arthur Henderson and Will Crooks, and the Liberal MP Theodore C. Taylor were all present at the founding of the National Association of Brotherhoods, PSAs etc in London in 1906.

Keir Hardie, was also actively involved, he was a main speaker for a Brotherhood Crusade in Lille in 1910. Arthur Henderson MP was elected National President in 1914. The National Adult School Union’s ‘One and All’ journal reported 7 out 9 ‘adult school men’ who stood for parliament were successful in 1910.”**

Location; Edinburgh

Picture; PSA badge, Edinburgh, courtesy of David Harrop

*Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Brotherhood, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Pleasant%20Sunday%20Afternoon%20Brotherhood

** The Early Adult School and Brotherhood Movements in the West Midlands: Adult Education, Evangelism or Social Activism?, European Social Science History Conference, Glasgow, April 14 2012

Badge of the week number 4 ........ the Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Now the home made badge has a long and distinguished history and is one of those instant bits of advertising which makes the point cheaply and effectively.

A round bit of cardboard, some sticky tape and a safety pin and you have a badge.

Easier than that and just as effective is coloured ribbon, so loved of election rallies in the early 19th century, and the Suffragettes, and before ribbon there were bits of plant, flowers and bush, stretching back into the past, all of which were designed to mark out your political preference.

My first was “Lets Go with Labour” which I wore in 1966 but must have been a remnant from the ‘64 election.

It was a shinny plastic badge, with a plastic pin which fixed into the back, and I wore it throughout the campaign knocking on doors in Well Hall.  I was just 16 and such are the things you cut your political teeth on.

And now after a life time of carrying the badge of the week, announcing my opposition to health cuts, nasty dictators, and factory closures, I am all “badged out”.

But that won't stop Peter expecting me to wear the badge advertising our new book the Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

It hit the book shelves last week, and offers up the alternative history of Chorlton and bits of Stretford, Didsbury and Whalley Range.

And while I may be “badged out” he has also ordered up the T shirt, leaving me to wonder when the sandwich board arrives with the rota for my turn to walk up and down Barlow Moor Road announcing the new publication.

But there is one better because not content on producing a badge for the book he has produced three.
The first is for any one who wants to be associated with a] the book, b] thinks Chorlton is quirky, or c] aspires to being quirky.

That just leaves two badges.

One for any one who lives or works or is connected with a building in the book.

And finally one for those who are actually, themselves in the book.

But to find out who they are you will have to buy a copy.

The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, by Andrew Simpson and Peter Topping can be ordered from http://www.pubbooks.co.uk/ or Chorlton Bookshop

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy Badge  Artwork © 2017 Peter Topping