One hundred years of one house in Chorlton …. part 116 ......... a different Christmas

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since. *

It will be a very different Christmas this year.

But that is only to state the obvious.

The relaxation of lockdown and Tier restrictions will not make it a usual one.  Already the festivals of Eid, Diwali, and Hanukkah were celebrated differently, and this year so will Christmas.

The planned arrival of family from Italy along with our Saul and his partner from Warsaw, will not happen, and given that others of our children work in schools and the NHS, we will not be gathering under the tree to exchange presents or sit around the table for a meal.

Just what the alternative will be has yet to be thought through, but we are no different from countless others.

All of which got me thinking of the last time celebrations in the house were curtailed in the face of bigger events.

And that will have been the six years of the last world war, and the remaining three of the Great War.  

Of course, I have no real idea how Joe and Mary Ann celebrated Christmas, but they moved here in 1915, when the house was brand new, and were still here into the 1970s, so they will have been forced to adapt during both conflicts.

I could have settled on any one of those nine years but in the end decided to explore the Christmas of 1940. 

December 1939 may still have had some of the trappings of previous years, but by the following year with the war having taken a definite downturn things must have seemed a tad grimmer.

Rationing, and shortages of almost everything, the separation from loved ones, and the nightly danger of aerial attacks will have made this Christmas particularly hard.

Added to which there was the Manchester Blitz which occurred just before Christmas.  It is an event that is well documented, and left Chorlton with damaged properties and civilian dead.

In the run up to the festival, the Government had warned that there would be “no extra trains at this period”, and there was “no encouragement for travelling”.**

Nor would local authorities which had received evacuated children encourage “the return of children to their homes in danger areas… [and should] make arrangements for keeping the children happily occupied and off the hands of the householders as much as possible”.***

That said, “normal school holidays would  be given for Christmas”.  This was in part because the “most schools had their summer holidays curtailed and teachers had been working under great strain”.  So “teachers in reception area are to be released for holidays in rotation to enable a sufficient number to be available for supervisory duties when the schools are closed for instruction though open for recreative activities.”

The Scott’s did not have children so never faced the dilemma of whether to evacuate their young ones, but they will have known many for whom such a decision was a real one.

On a more trivial not I wonder if Mrs. Scott decided not to bother with a Christmas pudding, given that according to the press reports “currants, sultanas and raisins will not be plentiful this year”. ****  Every opportunity had been taken to buy supplies from Australia and South Africa and while these would be on sale, “the quantity will be limited, [while] other types of dried fruit such as prunes, apricots and pears will be scarce and figs will not arrive in time for Christmas”. 

But a little more more encouraging was the news that while  the supply of  Christmas cards and calendars was “slightly subdued”  the quality remained high, .  So that while there were  examples of "jokes about rations and blackouts along with good pictures of convoys and the RAF and quotations from Mr. Churchill”, there were plenty of traditional ones.*****

At which point I am well aware that this has erred on the light if not frivolous side of the festivities, but so what?

I don’t know how the war effected Joe Scott’s building business, but I guess he will have switched to bomb repairs, nor what Mary Ann made of “making do”.

But theirs will have been a different Christmas if slightly more dangerous than the one that awaits us.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Christmas 2008, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and wartime cards “All My Own Work By Grimes, 1944, from Tuck and Son, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdbpostcards.org/

*The story of a house, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

**A Hard Christmas Manchester Guardian, December 5th, 1940

***Evacuated Children at Christmas, Manchester Guardian, November 16, 1940

****Less Fruit for Christmas Puddings, Manchester Guardian, October 9th, 1940

*****Christmas Cards and Calendars, Manchester Guardian, December 16th, 1940

Internment of “Enemy Aliens” 1939-45 ....the Chorlton-cum-Hardy contingent .... another story from Tony Goulding

Recently I have been researching the records of the dozen or so residents of Chorlton-cum-Hardy who as citizens of the Axis powers were deemed to be a danger to National Security and placed on an “Enemy Aliens Register”. 

The Isle of Man

Many of these civilians, mostly Germans (including those born in Austria) and Italians were later interned in several camps on the Isle of Man. Although all these individuals were judged on mass the records reveal some of each person’s individuality.

They range in age from the youngest born in Frankfurt A. M. on 22nd December, 1924 to the eldest born on 1st May, 1878 in Grantham, Lincolnshire who was only included on the list as she had married a German national and as such held a German passport.
     
Some on the list were very newly arrived refugees fleeing the escalating atrocities of the Nazi regime whilst others had resided and worked in Britain for many years.

One of the Chorlton-cum-Hardy “contingent” had lived in Manchester since the Edwardian era working as a chef in hotels and restaurants. In the December quarter of 1907 he had married the Grantham born lady at the Moss Side Baptist Church, Moss Lane East, Manchester. They are shown on the 1911 census living at 40, Beresford Road, Moss Side, Manchester with one daughter born in 1909.
   
It is quite uplifting to see that even in what must have been very dark times for all concerned, love also found a way to break through and blossom. Three of the young females on the list who were residing in Chorlton-cum-Hardy were to marry under the impending threat of internment. In one instance the couple married in the June quarter of 1940 only for the newly married groom to be almost immediately interned.
       

One of the houses on Chandos Road, 2020

The government policy regarding the internment of those on the “Aliens” list was not uniform throughout the war but was to largely reflect the changing “fortunes of war”.

Initially only those who had voiced pro-German or Nazi policies or were engaged in sensitive industries such as shipping or aircraft manufacturing was it thought necessary to intern.  This fairly relaxed attitude perhaps typifies what has come to be known (perhaps mistakenly) as the “Phoney War”.

 Indeed, I was shocked to see as late as 22nd April, 1940 the Birmingham Post carrying fairly glowing reports of Hitler’s birthday celebrations in Berlin alongside news that on Wall Street, Italian Government Bonds had rallied. The country’s mood changed dramatically in the following two months with the Fall of France and the Benelux countries, the Dunkirk evacuation and the growing imminent threat of a German invasion .

In response to the public mood and the threat from Germany the Home Office issued a fresh instruction  in respect of “Enemy Aliens”  in a circular of 21st July, 1940.  This involved the internment of virtually all males on the list (and some females) regardless of prior exemptions.  This event even meant that one Chorlton- cum- Hardy resident was interned less than two months after he had been released from a previous period of internment.
     

Another of the houses on Chandos Road, 2020

As the threat of a German invasion began to recede there started a slow release of some of those interned and I am happy to relate that one of the first to be authorised for a compassionate release was the newly wed groom who was to return to his young bride in South Manchester on the 14th November, 1940. Further happiness was to come for this couple with the birth of a baby girl in the December quarter of 1943.
     
Also revealed by these records are the hardships of the young refugees faced having to leave their families and interrupt their studies or careers in the face of oppression. 

Chandos Road, 2020

In a somewhat counter balance to this horror is the kindness of the number of Chorltonians who offered them a place of refuge. Two of these “refuges” were houses opposite each other on Chandos Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy

The records of those interned subsequent to their release is more sketchy but some returned to live out their lives in the Manchester area with a number recorded as becoming naturalised British Subjects in the 1940’s others appear to have later continued on a migratory path.

Tony Goulding © 2020

Location; Chorlton, The Isle of Man

Pictures; courtesy of Tony Goulding

Bricks, gas pipes and much more ...... memories of the Chorlton Blitz .... Christmas 1940

Now a little bit of the Chorlton Blitz is on display outside the Post Office.

Bricks, pipes and much more, 2018

I say the Chorlton Blitz but the destruction that fell from the sky just before Christmas 1940 was part of the bigger aerial bombardment which has become known as the Manchester Blitz.

On the night of December 24th and into the early morning of December 25th 1940 thirty people died in Chorlton.

They were all victims of the second night of the Manchester Blitz in which an estimated 644 people were killed and another 2,000 injured.

Of the 30 who died here many came from just two roads while the rest were spread out across the township.  Most of the bodies were taken to Withington Hospital, a few to Embden Street mortuary and a few to the Cavendish Road [now Corkland Road] mortuary.

And I suppose it was the fact that the mortuary on Cavendish Road was just round the corner explains why Mr and Mrs Carr were taken there.

They lived at 549a Wilbraham Road* which took a direct hit from a high explosive bomb.  

Their home and two others which stood on the site of the modern post office were destroyed.

Earlier in the century 549a had been one  of three houses which were originally numbered, 3, 5 & 7 Wilbraham Road.

They had been built sometime after 1885 and were typical of the new sort of properties that were being built to meet the influx of people to Chorlton.

The properties circa 1891

Many of these were professionals; a few owned their own businesses and a lot more worked in the offices and big shops of Manchester.  They were attracted here by a train service which could whisk them into the heart of the city in under 15 minutes and the fields, farms and open country which for many was even closer.

 So along with a surgeon and his family at number 1 the remaining three were the home at various times to a retired cotton merchant, a widow “living on her own means”, Edward Ireland who had  a number of photographic studios in Manchester, and a doctor, dentist and a oil trader.

And the size of the houses reflected the inhabitants.  Number 1 had twelve rooms, 3 and 5 eight rooms and number 7 9 rooms.

Each had cellars, a decent front garden and a longer one at the back stretching down across what is now the sorting office and yard.

The remains of the three houses

But like other stretches of property in this new part of Chorlton they were soon developed with the addition of shop fronts and perhaps with an eye to even greater profits the owners sub divided the shops.

In 1911 at number 3a there was Harvey Goodwin, confectioner, at number 3 Mrs Ethel May, cycle dealer, while at 5a Stuart Gray ran a tobacconist and in number 5 C. &W. Copping advertised themselves as china merchants.

The last of our three had become the post office in 1901 and remained so until the night of December 24th.

And now as work is underway to extend the Pots Office Cafe, some of the bricks, pipes and other bits of the three properties are there to see again seventy eight years after those bombs fell.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; the excavation outside the Post Office, 2018, the properties circa 1891 from the Lloyd Collection, and casualties adapted from official reports on those who died

Another story from Tony Goulding ........ World War 2 Sites of Chorlton-cum-Hardy Part 1 The Beech Road Area

A) Lead Station 

The Lead Station

 The “Lead Station” in its latest incarnation as a Bar/Restaurant.

Originally built as a Police Station for the Lancashire Constabulary it also housed offices of Manchester City Council’s Environmental Health Department for a time prior to its conversion to its present use in, 1995.
  During World War 2 it was the location of 1st. Civil Defence H.Q.
 
B) 49-51 Claude Road.


At number 49, Claude Road Gilbert Medlicott (1) was killed in the bombing on the night of 23rd/24th December, 1940.

A Home Guard volunteer he is one of over 1000 fellow members of that regiment named on the Commonwealth War Graves site. His next door neighbour’s 15 year old daughter, Ethel Jean Rickard, a pupil of Whalley Range High School for Girls, graphically recorded the times spent in her cellar sheltering from feared and actual air raids.

The nightly detailing of the various noises (or lack of) from planes , bombs, and gunfire vividly convey the fear and horror she lived through from the late summer of 1040 through to spring of 1941. Ethel Jean’s father, Arnold Ramsden, was himself a senior A.R.P. warden at his place of work; Tootal Broadhurst Lee’s warehouse, 56, Oxford Street, Manchester.

The son of Charles, a Wesleyan minister, (2) and grandson of James, a tin miner of St. Agnes, Cornwall Arnold Ramsden Rickard was born in Barbados, The West Indies, on 14th April, 1894 and attended boarding school in England viz. Kingswood School, Bath. During World War 1 he saw service in The Manchester Regiment enlisting as a private he was promoted through the ranks and ended the war as a 2cnd Lieutenant.

At the conclusion of the war he resumed his career as a hire powered textile sales representative for Tootal Broadbent Lee of Manchester travelling widely in China and the Far East.

These trips continued after his marriage to Linda Margery (née Gamble) on a trip home in the December quarter of 1923 with his daughter Ethel Jean being born in Shanghai, China in 1925. Ethel Jean’s parents married in The Moss Side/Whalley Range Methodist Chapel on Withington Road, Manchester.

Miss Rickard's Evacauation Label

Her mother, Linda Margery was the daughter of an auctioneer’s cashier turned wood pulp agent, Robert Williams and his wife Linda Maud (née Dyke).: who although born on 3rd August, 1898 in Forest Gate, Newham, East London (at that time part of Essex) came to live in Whalley Range at 3, Burford Road as a young girl. Evidence from the 1939 Register suggests the family made a hurried exit from China, possibly as refugees from the brutal Japanese attack on Shanghai of August, 1937.

The father was living with his in-laws in Grosvenor Road. Whalley Range whilst the mother and children are recorded in Bacup, Lancashire seemingly in lodging.

Miss Rickard’s “Evacuation Label” – now in The Imperial War Museum North.
                  Below her wooden panel records;

From Claude Road

© Tony Goulding 2017

Pictures; supplied by Tony Goulding from various sources
NOTES

1) Gilbert was born in Birkenhead, the Wirral, Cheshire on 27th October, 1897.

He was the youngest of the 11 children of Edward, a house painter, and his wife Jane (née Wright) In the Great War Gilbert saw service as a Private in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. In 1939, Gilbert is recorded as working away from home, as a plumber on a public works contact, in Carlisle.

From Claude Road

His wife, Minnie E. and his 5 year old son Gerald occupied part of the house on Claude Road. Gilbert is buried in Southern Cemetery in grave S 4221 of the Church of England section alongside his son , Peter, who sadly died in his first year of life and was interred on 4th April, 1940.

2) His father’s appointments to different parishes saw the family move back to England first by 1896 to Leicester: in 1901 they were at Thornaby, Nr. Middlesborough, and North Yorkshire then by 1911 the Greater Manchester area, at 35, Greek Street, Stockport.

Gilbert Medlicott’s headstone

The Rev. Charles married the daughter of a fellow missionary, Etta Edith Sykes who was born in what was known at the time as British Honduras (now Belize).

The couple’s marriage took place in the West Indies and their first three children were born in the Caribbean. Etta Edith died on 14th November, 1910 and left to her husband the considerable sum at the time of £1010-5s

Another story from Tony Goulding ..... the bombing of Chorlton-cum-Hardy Christmas Blitz 1940 together with raids from March and May 1941

What follows may serve as a salutary and timely reminder of the human cost of what are now known rather euphemistically as "strategic air strikes." 

A factor it behooves us to reflect on, whether we be for or against, when we consider such actions over Syria, Iraq, or any other "targets"

On the nights of 22/23rd and 23/24th December 1940 Manchester was visited by the German Luftwaffe and Chorlton-cum-Hardy did not escape the resultant death and destruction.

This "Christmas Blitz" was the heaviest attack suffered by Manchester during the conflict but there were several other raids both before and after this one. One such one, and particularly devastating in its consequences for Chorlton-cum-Hardy, occurred on the night of May 1st. 1941
         
These rows of new houses on Chatfield Road (top) and Corkland Road (bottom) were built on void sites, left as a result of these German bombing raids during World War 2.

The present homes were built in the 1970's (1974 - according to one resident) and replaced the "prefab" temporary housing erected in the immediate post-war years.

Those on Corkland Road providing evidence of the impact of the onslaught on that Christmas Eve, Eve 75 years ago.

The destruction caused by the later raid of May 1941 is indicated by the Chatfield Road development.

They mark the sites not only of severe property damage but also of a tragic loss of life.
 
The greatest death toll (1) at a single location was at 1-3, Chatfield Road, known at the time as Chatsworth Road. At no.3, there were four fatalities all middle-aged to elderly ladies, and a Swiss couple Charles Albert and Ida Caspar, both in their 60's, perished at no.1.

Still another death was recorded at the adjacent house on Cavendish/Corkland Road. No. 19 witnessed the sad loss of David Maitland Hebert, a baby of just 7 months. (2)

This sad toll had almost been matched during the Christmas raids when a massive bomb cut a swath of destruction from the top end of Corkland (then known as Cavendish) Road through to Wilbraham Road, where the Post Office now stands. (3)

On Corkland/Cavendish nos 2-4 were destroyed no 2 being the home and surgery of a prominent local dentist Mr. Stephen Laurence Wilson.

The devastation on Wilbraham Road was worse the old post office building and the adjacent  Martins Bank (nos.553 & 551) were severely damaged whilst more tragically in the flat above 549, four members of the Carr family were killed , the father Ernest, mother Jeanne together with their 9 year old son William died at the scene. 11 year old Hazel died of her injuries the following day in Withington hospital.

Additionally at no.545 a 65 year old widow Mrs. Mary Coffey was also a casualty that night.

It has been speculated that the bombs which fell on Chorlton on the night of 1st. /2nd. May, 1941 came from a "rogue" aircraft.

The pilot, being off course through navigational or error instrument damage, jettisoning the planes bomb load before following the railway line south heading for home.

There are some grounds to support this hypothesis in that on this night there were only 8 deaths recorded in Manchester and all of these occurred in Chorlton-cum-Hardy however, without any hard, documentary, evidence this must remain a matter for conjecture.
       

On the contrary, there could be no doubt that the Christmas Blitz was a concerted brutal attack designed to smash both the infra-structure and morale of the city after which German propaganda boasted the city was a burnt out shell.
           
Mid-way between the blitz of December and the isolated bombing in May there took place another heavier assault on the Manchester area which resulted in a larger number of casualties throughout the city as a whole but with just three fatalities in Chorlton.

This raid was particularly memorable as the stands and pitch at Old Trafford football ground suffered huge bomb damage of such severity that Manchester United were required to play for the first three post-war seasons at Maine Road, the home ground of cross city rivals Manchester City.

A curiosity arising out of this arrangement is that, apart from record aggregate attendances(4) at Maine Road during the seasons concerned, is that the largest number of spectators to attend a UNITED "home" league fixture (and still the national record ) remains the 83,260 who, somehow, squeezed into CITY'S ground on the 17th January, 1948 to watch Them Vs. Arsenal.

On this air-raid, also, a cluster of bombs fell on the Sandy Lane area leaving a trail of death and devastation.

The  impact of some of these bombs is clearly discernible by observing the "new-build" semi-detached houses on Torbay, and Dartmouth Roads.

In these locations were the Chorlton deaths. At 19, Torbay Road young Peter Goodyear was a 2 year old victim whilst in neighbouring Dartmouth Road at no.32, Ida Teer and her 20 year old daughter Barbara Mary died.

My friend David was born, less than 3 years after the bombing, close by the bombsite (and still lives) on Dartmouth Road and although his testimony may be uncorroborated hearsay I still think it worth the telling.

He gives two anecdotes about the event, firstly he relates how his mother was at church (it would have been High Lane Primitive Methodist) as the bombs fell.

When news reached her that a bomb had hit a house at the Sandy Lane end of Dartmouth Road she had rushed home fearing the worst. His second story tells that the two individuals who lost their lives  at 32, Dartmouth Road were sheltering, as per Home Office guidelines, in the cellar whilst the father,

William who was upstairs in the kitchen when the bomb struck was thrown out into the rear garden and survived.

Notes:
1) There was a total of  more than 20 fatalities in the Chorlton district during the two nights of bombing 66-8 Newport Road and 18-20 Cheltenham Road suffered multiple deaths. Casualties were also recorded on Claude Road (where a member of the Home Guard was killed), Silverdale Road, Clarendon Road, and  Saint Werburghs's Road.
2) Another resident of Cavendish/Corkland Road was to also to die in an air raid precisely a month to the day later. Mr Albert Henry Bowers, a 54 year old designer, who lived at no.40 was killed at 80, Cumberland Street, Deansgate whilst carrying out his duties as a firewatcher. He was one of 8 such volunteers to die that night in what proved to be one worst raids on the city with around 45 fatalities in Manchester with a similar number in Salford.
One of these deaths was another Chorltonian , Mrs. Frances Mary Curphey the 33 year old wife of Jack of 84,Whitelow Road. She died at George St./Portland St.
3) My mother, as a young teenager, would have witnessed this devastation at  very close hand as she was living at the time only 50 yards away at 5, Keppel Road. It is very likely she was, at least, acquainted with young Hazel Carr.
4) The population having been starved of any meaningful competitive  sport for more than 6 years,  In the immediate post war year football crowds soared dramatically (to unprecedented and un-repeated heights) and attendances for both clubs regularly passed 60.000 whilst it was not unknown for them to approach and on occasion surpass 70,000

©Tony Goulding, 2015-12-12

Pictures; Corkland Road, Wilbraham Road from the collection of Tony Goulding, and Wilbraham Road from the collection of Tony Goulding, and Torbay Road,08620 & m08621 , 
courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

The Manchester Blitz and a new exhibition at Southern Cemetery

Now the thing about anniversaries is that sometimes there is a danger that in all the hype the real stories are lost.

Manchester bomb damage, 1940

So as we enter the second year of the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War and will be coming up to the 75th anniversary of the Manchester Blitz  it is easy to be overwhelmed by a blur of images and a sleek commentary that just repeat what has pretty much been done before.

And so that is why David Harrop’s planned exhibition on how Manchester prepared and then experienced the Blitz will be a welcome anecdote to the usual material.

I have known David for a few years and am constantly amazed at his collection of the everyday material which people collected during both world wars, including letters and picture postcards home, official communications and the mundane and scary.

So on display will be a leaflet from 1940 advising householders what to do if their house was damaged in an air raid, photographs of Victoria Station after it had been bombed and a series of theatre bills advertising shows at the Palace.

After the Raid, 1940

They are the things we all would have had and seen and are a powerful way of bringing this story of war on the Home Front to people who will only know of the blitz through the odd TV documentary and souvenir editions from the local newspaper.

The added power of the exhibition will be that it is in the Remembrance Lodge at Southern Cemetery where some of those killed are buried.

In Manchester the attacks began in June building up to the horrendous two nights of bombing just before Christmas when late on December the 22nd through to the 23rd and again the following night the raids killed an estimated 644 people and injured over 2,000.

Here in Chorlton 30 people died in the second night of bombing, with 53% of the casualties concentrated on just two roads.

Mrs O'Reilly living on Oswald Road remembers that

“All the windows at the front of the house were broken and the front door blown open by the blast from a land mine that landed on the allotments at the top of Scott Avenue.  Father reckoned they were aiming for the huge water pipe that crossed Manchester Road.

Houses came down at the top of Scott Avenue and Cheltenham Road, two people were killed and a girl I knew had her face badly scarred by shrapnel as she was standing outside the air raid shelter in her back garden.”*

Here in Chorlton, 1940

And Geoff Williams recently revisited the spot of St Werburghs where the night before a bomb destroyed three houses and killed an air raid warden.

Now I had not been prepared for the extent of the bombing here in Chorlton, but the bomb maps which were compiled by the Corporation show the extent of the fires started by incendiary devices and properties destroyed by high explosive bombs.

Today if you look carefully you can match that bomb damage across Chorlton.  In some streets the natural line of late Victorian and Edwardian houses is broken by newer properties some of which only went up in the 1960s.

On the Rec, 1941

In other cases they were never replaced.

So it was with numbers 3, 5 and 7 Wilbraham Road.  You won’t find them today.

They went on the night and early morning of December 24th and 25th and in the process eliminated our post office.

Now that story and others about the bombing have already appeared in the blog and so for now I would just like to make an appeal for any memories, or memorabilia which could be shared and perhaps even displayed alongside David’s extensive collection down at Southern Cemetery later in the year.

Pictures; Blitz bomb damage, 1941, m08608, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council,  http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and barrage balloon on the Rec circa 1941 from the collection of Alan Brown

*Memories of a Chorlton childhood, ....... the Manchester blitz and evacuation, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/memories-of-chorlton-childhood.html

**Chorlton in the 1940s, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%20in%20the%201940s