Two pictures …. a memory …… and a lost landscape

 Memories fade and eventually are lost and so these two images of Manchester on August 1st, 1957, are a powerful reminder of what the city was once like.

Two for one, a panorama of destruction, 1957

Both pictures were taken from the old BBC Building in Piccadilly and look out across the Gardens towards the Town Hall and the business sector.

Looking towards Portland Street, 1957

I would arrive just twelve years later, and Manchester had already shed many of those temporary car parks which were former bomb sites, replacing them with new builds of concrete and glass.

And while I was born and grew up in London, I can remember similar scenes.  

As kids we played on bomb sites and occasionally came across lost treasures pulled from the ground. 

Those open spaces would soon be home to cars and later still towering blocks of offices.

All of which makes me think my generation will be the last to remember that time when the last war transformed our cities and towns leaving acres of prime development sites.

But also, had created those gaps between houses where a single bomb had obliterated a home. In some cases, giant timbers were still in place shoring up the properties on either side, or the remaining houses had been given a skim of cement.

And so back to the two pictures.  

Piccadilly Gardens, the bus terminus and the future  hotel site, 1957

It is fascinating now to view the sheer scale of the devastation in just one part of the City and likewise what appears to be the random nature of the bombing, and what survived.

I won’t be alone in seeing pictures published in the early 1970s of the bits of Back Piccadilly ablaze from end to end which back in 1940 the censors deemed likely to undermine morale.

Now some I know will focus on the soot clad surviving buildings or wax lyrically about the former Piccadilly Gardens which is OK but detracts from pondering on the scale of the war damage, and the relative speed of the rebuild.  Added to which there is that very personal elephant in the room which for me is that simple observation that if you can remember such scenes, you are indeed very old.

Ah well such is the dichotomy from being a baby boomer with one foot in the late 1940s and early 1950s and the exciting and changing times of the decade to come.

Location; Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, 1959

Pictures; Piccadilly from the BBC Building, August 1st, 1957, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

At Victoria Station ............... on the morning of December 23 1940

This is platform 16 in Victoria Station on the morning of December 23 1940 just hours after the all clear had sounded on what had been the first night of the Manchester Blitz.

Now the story is pretty well known and so rather than retell the events of the two nights with the dismal record of death, and the destruction of property I will just linger on these two pictures.

I wasn’t there and given that the events were 77 years ago there will be few who were.

But the photographs vividly convey the damage, from the collapsed and twisted metal to the empty roof devoid of glass.

And of course there would have been that powerful smell of smoke which got everywhere and would cling to your clothes long after you had left the scene.

The images come from the collection of David Harrop and were I think press photographs.

Of course there will be people with up todate pictures of Victoria Station but I leave it up to them to post them as a comparison

Pictures; Victoria Station, December 23 1940 from the collection of David Harrop

Catherine Murnane: - Victim of German bombing 1/6/1941 ... another story from Tony Goulding

To mark remembrance month, I was going to complete the story of the Firewatchers who died as a result of the German Luftwaffe bombing of Manchester on the night of 1st June, 1941.

I decided to shelve this to a later date, however, and tell the story of just one victim of that night. 

In this way wishing to highlight the fact that each of the over a million names on the Commonwealth War Graves was an individual person.

Catherine was born in Stockport, Cheshire on the 19th March, 1902 the first child of Robert John Garside, a machine fitter at a printer’s and his wife, Catherine (née Dunne). 

Memorial to Manchester’s Civilian War Dead; Piccadilly

In 1911, the census records her as the eldest of five children, with 4 younger siblings, 3 sisters (Mary, 7, Eileen, 4, and 10-month-old baby, Florence) and 1 brother Robert who was 3. 

The family were then living at 19, Wally Street, Broughton, Salford. Catherine was joined by another brother, Joseph on the 20th February, 1912 and a fourth sister, Winifred, on the 11th may, 1913.

She married Matthew Murnane in Salford during the September quarter of 1929 and in 1939 the National Register recorded the couple at 15, Eskrigge Street, Salford with Catherine described as a “Mantle costume baister” Matthew was a "General labourer (heavy worker)”.

Catherine was a Senior Air Raid Warden and was killed at Hacking Street in the Salford part of Cheetham Hill on on the 2nd June,1941.

Pictures; From the collection of Tony Goulding.

The Blitz Glass .........two unique pieces from Manchester Cathedral

I am looking at two pieces of Victorian stained glass which were rescued from Manchester Cathedral after the intensive bombing on the nights of December 22/23 and 23/24 1940.

The glass, 2018

Today, I doubt that there will be many people alive who saw the original stained glass windows and so these two pieces have a significance.

With time and research we might find other bits which survived but for now I am happy with these.

They were handed over to David Harrop by Sylvia and Tony Carroll and will go on display in his permanent exhibition in the Remembrance Lodge at Southern Cemetery.

A“All the Victorian stained glass was destroyed during the Manchester Blitz in 1940.  Until the late 1960s, only two windows had been replaced, notably the Fire Window by Margaret Traherne (1966). The dean and chapter commissioned Tony Hollaway to prepare a scheme for re glazing the cathedral, with priority to the five western windows: St George (1973), St Denys (1976), St Mary (1980), 

The glass, 2018

according to one source,

The Creation (1991) and The Apocalypse (1995). To commemorate the restoration of the cathedral following an IRA bomb in 1996, the Healing Window by Linda Walton was installed in 2004”.*

So I am pleased that they will be on display and again be seen by people.

The Cathedral, 1941

The two pieces were photographed outside the Lodge in the June sunshine.

Location; The Remembrance Lodge, Southern Cemetery, 2018,








Pictures; Victorian stained glass from Manchester Cathedral, 2018, courtesy of David Harrop and Manchester Cathedral Bomb damage, 1941, B B Jay, m08594, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Walking in Southern Cemetery and remembering the Manchester Blitz

Yesterday I walked in Southern Cemetery.

The day was warm, the light perfect and once again I remembered why I liked the place so much.

It is that mix of history, the abundance of nature and that sense of tranquilly.

All of which makes it somewhere that draws you in.

For most of course it is to visit the graves of family members but there are regular talks and walks focusing on the monuments of the good and great and more than a few given over to spotting the varied wildlife.

And many of those guided tours will end at the memorial to those civilians who died during the Second World War.

It is on the eastern side of and the simple and modest monument records the names of those who died and are buried in the cemetery.

It is a humbling experience to sit in front of the mass grave and read off the names, more so because as you would expect there are whole families interred here like the Hopkins family of Fernleaf Street Moss Side.

They were killed on December 23 1940.*

Mr Hopkin was 31 his wife 29 and their two children were just five and two.

And close by on the following night Marjorie and June Hall died in Heron Street in Hulme.

Marjorie was 19 and June was five months old.

Now 75 years separate us from the events of those December nights, long enough for many of the survivors to have also died and with them the vivid memories of the blitz and the subsequent bombing that went on into the middle of the war.

All of which makes it important I think to pause and visit memorials like this one along with the Tree of Remembrance in Piccadilly.**

And even in this year of anniversaries which began in the August of 2014 with the start of the Great War  continued with the great battles of the Western Front, concluding in December with the Manchester Blitz it is still easy to become blasé about the loss of life and the small individual tragedies as well as the big events.

So I will take time off again to visit the memorial in the cemetery and combine it with a visit to the permanent exhibition in the Remembrance Lodge by the gates.

I was there yesterday with David Harrop who maintains the exhibition from his collection of memorabilia spanning both world wars along with material from the history of the Post Office.

And much of it has a direct connection to Southern Cemetery ranging from medals of men who are buried here to letters, postcards and stories of the blitz.

Most are the everyday things that would have come through the letter box and were happily discarded when the war ended including a leaflet on what to do after the bombing and letters and postcards.  There are even a few souvenirs bought as part of a war drives to raise funds for charities.

And this porcelain piece which may postdate the war.

Pictures; from the collections of David Harrop and Andrew Simpson

*Greater Manchester Blitz Victims, http://www.greatermanchesterblitzvictims.co.uk/index.php

**In Piccadilly Gardens at the Tree of Remembrance, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/in-piccadilly-gardens-at-tree-of.html

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

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 43, listening for the bombs

Looking at the balloon from Beech Road, circa 1941

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.*

Now I have no idea of what Joe and Mary did during the last war.

They were both in their 50s which would have made Mr Scott too young to have served in the Great War and too old for the Second World War.

He may have been in the Home Guard and she in the Women Voluntary Service, but if they were there are no records of their contribution and I doubt now that we will ever know.

As a builder much of his time I guess will have been engaged in making repairs to war damaged property.

There is no evidence that he was building new houses.

The one on the corner of Beech and Beaumont Road which he had begun work on just before the outbreak of the war was only completed sometime after 1945.

Like everyone else they would have endured the rationing, the shortages and the bombing.

From the bomb maps we know that Chorlton was hit with a mix of high explosives and incendiaries many falling on the night of the Manchester Blitz.

Just across the road on Beaumont and at the top of Beech Road firebombs had fallen along with others on the tram terminus, and down along Barlow Moor Road as far as the brook and a little beyond.

Manchester Guardian, December 24, 1940

Added to this there had been direct hits with high explosive bombs on the cinema and on Claude Road.

But as terrifying as these were it will also have been the nightly fear that another raid might occur which was reinforced by the presence of the barrage balloon in the Rec directly opposite the house.

I have often wondered if they took in friends or neighbours during the worst of the raids and I suppose there may be records somewhere in the archives.

Sadly there are no diaries, ration books or even old newspapers lurking anywhere in the house.
I suspect both Joe and Mary Ann were far too practical to have bothered with saving such material.

All of which leaves this chapter of the story of the house unrecorded and with the passage of time there are fewer and fewer people left who knew them and even fewer who might be able to tell me about their war effort.

Still I travel in hope and in the fullness of time will go looking in the archives.

Pictures; Barrage Balloon on the Rec, circa 1941, from the collection of Alan Brown 

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

Arctic Convoys, Spitfires and the Manchester Blitz – celebrating Chorlton’s World War Two veterans today at St Ninian's Church, 1.30pm

My parents rarely spoke of the last war and only reluctantly would describe their experiences which more often than not were hedged in generalities.

It was a topic which was left to hang in the air.  So my early knowledge was gained mostly from films, ranging from the ultra patriotic produced during the war years and the daring stiff upper lip ones of the 1950s.

The evidence for what had happened was still all around us.  Ranging from the bomb sites to the shelters in people’s gardens and the fading painted signs indicating where to take cover in the event of an araid.  There were also those odd gaps in the middle of a terrace of houses where a bomb had destroyed a home.

But these have all but vanished under the relentless drive of redevelopment which leaves only the oral testimony of those who lived through it.

I thought the other day that just perhaps in the late evening of a November 5th or early the following morning that mix of the smell from bonfires and the thick greyness that comes from the smoke might just provide a tangible sense of the aftermath of an air raid.  But then there would also be the broken glass and the still warm shrapnel underfoot and in the worst hit areas the rubble and broken homes.

All of which leaves only the oral testimony of those who lived through it.

This includes one old friend who told me of the night his wife Margaret went into labour during an air raid and their journey up Barlow Moor Road.  There was no ambulance, and John didn’t have a car so Margaret sat in the pram and he wheeled her through the empty streets from Reeves Road to the hospital.

So I shall be looking forward to today’s Chorlton History group meeting, Arctic Convoys, Spitfires and the Manchester Blitz – celebrating Chorlton’s World War Two veterans

Chorlton Good Neighbours History Group pays tribute to four of our members, all in their 90’s, who served in World War 2 at an event on:

Thursday Feb 7th 2013 1.30pm at Chorlton Good Neighbours,
Wilbraham St Ninian’s Church, Egerton Rd South, Chorlton, Manchester M21OXJ

Bob Cowan, for whom Good Neighbours mounted a successful campaign for an Arctic Convoy medal to be awarded to veterans such as himself and also John Mackay of Chorlton who we recently discovered, is also a veteran of the Arctic Convoys

Alan Wood, fighter pilot, who was once shot down over the North Sea and was adrift in a one-man dinghy for 4 days

Mickie Mitchell, who as a young woman drove army petrol supplies round during the Manchester blitz

Andrei Makarenko, from the Embassy of the Russian Federation in London will be attending to present the two Arctic Convoy veterans with “65th Anniversary of Victory" medals. 

The Arctic Convoy veterans are still not allowed to receive the Ushakov medal from Russia, but this anniversary medal will be an acknowledgement by the Russian government of the high regard they hold for those helped their country by participating in the perilous Arctic Convoys that got much needed supplies through to Russia during WW2

The High Sheriff of Greater Manchester, George Almond, CBE will present all 4 WW2 veterans with plaques from Chorlton Good Neighbours to celebrate the contribution they made to the defence of this country in WW2

Bob, John, Alan and Mickie will all be at the presentation to receive their awards and answer questions

Further information from Bernard Leach m: 07960 888879,  btleach@gmail.com


Pictures; Post war demolition in Manchester, 1945, m75548, Blitz bomb damage, 1941, m8608,8609,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council and barrage balloon on the Rec, from the collection of Alan Brown