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/

Just how exotic could Manchester be? ………. memories of 1971

Now you have to be of a certain age to remember the Ceylon Tea Centre, or its equally enticing rival the Danish Food Centre.

An exotic market place, 1957

Back in the early 1970s they were a revelation to me, who until then had really only known Lyons Corner Houses, Wimpey Bars, greasy cafes and the odd forays for a business meal in the Chinese and Asian restaurants around town.

The Tea Centre was a commercial showcase for Ceylon’s products, and it was there that I first discovered a salad could be more than a soft tomato, some limp lettuce and a bit of curly cucumber smothered in salad cream.

Here were rice dishes, some of which were curried and others which contained fruit, nuts and other exotic things.

I remember the one in Regent Street in London but given that I was a student in Manchester it was the one on St Peter’s Square in Elizabeth House which we went to.

Although we did also do the Danish Food Centre on Cross Street, which had opened to a blaze of publicity on November 19th, 1965.

The Guardian ran the story over a full page, reporting that “the Danish Prime Minister with his wife, the Danish actress Helle Virkner, will attend the opening of the new Danish Food Centre in Cross Street tomorrow”, attended also by “the Lady Mayoress of Manchester, who enters as the first Mancunian housewife  to do so”.*

Ceylon Tea Centre logo, date unknown

There were also a host of other invited guests including “representatives of the Danish agricultural organizations, representatives of the grocery and provision trades of Manchester and district and representatives of women’s organizations and other local associations and institutions”.

The Guardian article did the Centre proud commenting on the décor the air conditioning and reflecting that here was a “little bit of Denmark” which was an “ideal place for a coffee and Danwich – the open Danish sandwich”.

Like the Ceylon Tea Centre, it also sold “quantities of Danish foods, [which] can be bought for an office lunch or a party with a difference at home”.”

Looking back now at a city full of restaurants offering up food from around the world, these two food centres seem quite tame.

Elisabeth House, home to the Tea Centre, 1988

But at the time they were both exciting and innovative, because while you could eat at the Armenian on Fountain Street, the Bella Napoli on Kennedy Street and a host of more expensive and down market eating places, these two were open all day into the evening and were relaxed and easy going.

From memory the Ceylon Tea Centre had a self-service as well as a waitress area and each featured those classic large wall mounted photographs of tea plantations and coastal landscapes.

Together they are part of the changing food culture in a city which just a decade earlier was more likely to have offered up visits to a Wimpey Bar, The UCP outlets, or faded tea rooms which competed with coffee bars and transport cafes.

Location; the 1970s

Pictures; the market, 1957 from Looking at Other Children, 1959**Ceylon Tea Centre, logo***, and Elisabeth House, 1988,m04395, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass


*Danish Food Centre opens in Manchester Denmark comes to Cross Street, the Guardian, November 18th, 1965

**Looking at Other Children, Jean and David Gadsby, 1957

*** 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/