Street Furniture ………….. 1961

Location; Manchester











Picture, Street Furniture, 1961, Manchester "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR0t6qAJ0-XOmfUDDqk9DJlgkcNbMlxN38CZUlHeYY4Uc45EsSMmy9C1YCk 

Mancunian Way ............. a little bit of excitement in 1967

Now I bet there will be more than a few people who would want to nominate this as one of the most boring picture postcards of all time.

But that would be so unfair, given that that the concept and construction was bold, leading the Manchester Guardian to comment that the “Mancunian Way is surprisingly good.  

The actual structure is extremely light and elegant in appearance”.*

And I am not going to disagree, with a civil engineering project which was ten years in the planning and construction and is as much a part of our past as the Town Hall, Free Trade Hall and Piccadilly Gardens.

That said and on its first day, fewer motorists used it than were expected, this was in the view of the Police because few people yet knew about it.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; The Mancunian Way, circa 1990s, from the collection of picture postcards of Rita Bishop

*Mancunian Way; will today be opened officially by the Prime Minister, Ashworth, Graham W, The Guardian, May 5th, 1965

Memories of John Stuart Mill, John Donne and city centre living

Now I make no value judgement, other than this was where I spent three years from 1969 to 72 crawling over the history of 19th century Britain with a side look at John Donne, assorted metaphysical poets, and the boring bits of D H Lawrence.

Added to which those in charge decided us Arts students should also do two hours a week compulsory science and technology, the logic of which I can now appreciate, but bitterly resented back then.

This was the College of Commerce, or as the nerds called it, ColCom and some of us referred to as the College of Knowledge.

This was part of the new designated Manchester Poly but still seemed an individual entity.

From there it became the MMU and when no longer fit for purpose was sold on and is part of a residential complex.

And that is all I have to say.

Location; Aytoun Street

Pictures; the College of Commerce, 1969, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection, https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?, and now, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Dodging the cars on Market Street ............. 1969

Now as much as I like those old photographs of the city which date from the turn of the last century, I am more a fan of those which were taken more recently.

This is Market Street in 1969, before the Arndale and before the introduction of pedestrianization.

I should remember the scene, but I have to say I don’t.

And that is the thing.

With very old photographs, it is usually very obvious how a place has changed, but with those which are just fifty or sixty years ago, it can be less easy to see the differences, leaving you with just the odd change of shop, the outlandish looking clothes and the equally funny looking cars.

All of which means that more recent pictures of a place date more easily, because unlike a photograph from 1900, the scene looks almost like now but just note quite.

So, here we are on Market Street, just down from Fountain Street and heading towards Sickle Street.

Most of the buildings are the same, although the shop fronts are radically different along with the businesses which operated from them.

For many of us Henty White Jeweller, Norweb Electricity, and Times Furnishings will be strike a chord.

I can still remember standing outside those two fashion shops, waiting to be summoned in to approve a dress, pair of shoes or skirt.

And I still have a fondness for the old Bus signs.

Location; Market Street, 1969

Pictures, Market Street, 1969, 1175, 1174, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR0t6qAJ0-XOmfUDDqk9DJlgkcNbMlxN38CZUlHeYY4Uc45EsSMmy9C1YCk 

The shop that had almost everything ………… Lord’s Wholesale Retail Stretford Road …… 1963

It took a little while to locate just exactly where we are on Stretford Road back in 1963, but I now know the shop on the corner is at the junction with Upper Medlock Street.

And if you were to head down Upper Medlock Street you would cross, Dale Street where the car is parked by the road sign and then Bonsall Street.

Back then it was part of a tight network of streets and terraced housing, all of which was swept away in the wholesale regeneration of the area in the 1960s and again more recently.

So much so that I suspect a time traveller from 1963 would be totally confused and at a loss to find that street corner.

Happily, Stretford Road and Bonsall Street survived and offer up a means of anchoring where the pictures were taken.

So,  with that sorted the rest of the story will be about that shop and the advertising hoarding.

Lord’s Wholesale and Retail shop was one of those places that pretty much offered everything in the way of clothing, from Donkey Jackets, moleskin trousers , to rubber boots and riding breeches, reminding me of that sign “If we ain’t got it, you can’t get it”.

I do have to wonder what demand there would be for riding breeches in Hulme, although given this was still the age of the sailing ship there might well be people wanting a cabin trunk.

That said there was a full range of things anyone might want to kit themselves out for work.

And having done work for the day, the advertising hoarding on the corner of Dale Street, gives flavour of what was showing at the cinema.  Judging by what the Crescent and the Grosvenor were showing that week, my choice would have been Samson and Delilah with Victor Mature and Hedy Lamar.

But the Grosvenor only held just over 900 seats, while the Crescent had a thousand, added to which Cossack Street was closer than All Saints.*

That said in 1963 I was just 14, and I rather think Night of the Blood Beast, showing on Tuesday, Peeping Tom and Demons of the Swamp, which followed on Wednesday and Thursday would have won over on Victor Mature, but all three, along with The Bad One and Teenage Frankenstein would have been X rated, to which I would have been barred.

But  I would have drawn the line at Subway in the Sky,  which was showing on Saturday.

The film centered on an American soldier in West Berlin who goes on the run after being falsely accused of trafficking drugs. He hides in his wife’s flat where he meets a cabaret singer who helps him prove his innocence.

And after a melodrama like that, there could only be a recourse to some fried bread, and Ovaltine, given that at 14 the joys of Wilson Ales were some years in the future.

At which point I should draw to a conclusion were it not for that beer advert, which has got me a tad confused.

As a south east Londoner, newly arrived in the city in 1969, I picked up the divide between north and south which came not by way of my accent or the dominance of the Home Counties in so many things but simply the shape of the beer glass.

My friends pointed out that those dimpled pint pots were a southern affectation and they would always demand a straight glass.

Such was the chasm between me and them.

Leaving me just to record that the church at the end of row of shops was the Catholic Apostolic Church.

Location’ Stretford Road

Pictures; Stretford Road, 1963, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,  https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

*Kinematograph Yearbook 1947

In Albert Square with dirty buildings and bus stops ……………1956

This is Albert Square in 1956, and while it would be a full thirteen years before I discovered it, the scene in front of us was pretty much the same.

Except of course for those soot blackened walls which were the product of a century of coal fires and other industrial pollution.

Not that Manchester was alone in this.  As a child playing in the local parks in Peckham, I could get pretty dirty from climbing the trees which like the buildings were caked in the stuff.

But when I arrived the Town Hall had just undergone a clean up.  And not before time.  The interior of the Town Hall had been cleaned in 1925, and although the Council in 1964 estimated it would cost £25,000 the project was delayed.

I am not quite sure why there was a time lapse, but Ian Nairn in an article for the Guardian in 1965,  had called for caution arguing that “such action could ruin the stone of many British buildings”, and asserting that some “town hall and stations have gone jet black, covered with a crystalline  deposit which sparkles in the sun and seems to defeat the gloom by annexing it to a deeper darkness”.*

Adding that in uncleaned these public buildings could “become lustrous pools of darkness in grime-free cities, appreciated for their innate qualities and freed from any moral taint of being ‘dirty’ or ‘clean’”.

It didn’t however seem a popular idea, and most people I met back in 1969 were very pleased with their newly cleaned Town Hall.

Whether they were equally happy after Albert Square was closed to buses and was no longer used as a car park is unknown to me.

But I suppose it must have taken a wee bit of adjustment, and that takes me back to the picture which offers up other fascinating details, like the presence of a J. Lyons Tea Room across the square, or the partial cleaning of the Northern Assurance Buildings.

There is more to discover but that I will leave for now.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Albert Square, 1956,Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,  https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY


*Think before you wash! Ian Nairn, The Guardian, June 27, 1965

Catching the bus ……….. 1967

Despite all my efforts, I have no idea where we are, but as the following images in the collection are from Collyhurst, I am guessing that we are on the north side of the city.

Now, there will be those who question the significance of the image, given the absence of a location and a pretty mundane set of buildings.

But that is the point.

The workshop, and the terraced houses which were once common, have mostly vanished, along with the bus stop.

Neither of the two posters offer up clues.  One is for British Road Services, and the other advertising the film A Man for All Seasons, might just have listed a local picture house, but instead was showing at the New Oxford in the city centre.

So that is it. Although Geoff reminded me "I found this for you last year. Corner of Rochdale Road and Conran Oh and  I like the picture.

Location; unknown

Picture; catching the bus, 1967, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,  https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

Memories of an ancient accident … one canal …. and that steep incline … Stoney Brew

Nothing quite prepares you for the way Jutland Street just drops away in front of your eyes.

Jutland Street before the drop, 2025

It is the road that runs from Ducie Street down to Store Street and it crosses the Ashton Canal. 

I first came across it in the summer of 1975 in the company of Norman Parry who had grown up close to the canal and still remembered all his childhood haunts.

Looking up Jutland Street, 1966

It had been a conversation one dinner hour about old Manchester that prompted Norman to offer a guided tour of the back streets around Piccadilly Railway Station and the basin of the Aston Canal.

And having told me he had learnt to swim in the canal he mischievously brought me to the summit of Jutland Street and with an impish smile told me to walk ahead of him and was pleased with my stunned reaction.

The road does just fall away, and it is a marvel that in the age of the horse and cart it was not prohibited to travel down the incline.

But I guess carters did take the chance, but with a heavy load and primitive brakes it has always struck me as an accident about to happen.

And looking down, 2025

And some time in the 1930s witnessed by Norman that is what happened.  A fully loaded wagon plummeted down the road smashing into a stone pillar outside what had been a timber yard.  The carter escaped but the horse was crushed.

All of which makes the popular name for the road which was “Stoney Brew” quite apt, but I sometimes wonder whether the present residents in their fine modern apartments on either side of Jutland Street are aware of the nick name, and I certainly don’t think they have come across the accident.

Looking at that incline it makes me think that ascending the road with a full load must have been equally dangerous.

The canal and Junction/Jutland Street 1849

And yet waggons must have done the trip, because the Ashton Canal ran in to a busy basin which back in 1849 was surrounded by the warehouses of various canal companies as well as the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway and the North Staffordshire Railway, assorted coal wharfs and stone yards along with the Store Street Iron Works.

The canal had been completed in 1797 and my Priestly tells me “The Town of Manchester derives considerable advantage by the facility with which this canal and branches supply it with stone and coal at an easy rate”.*

And that for now is it.

Location; Jutland Street, formerly Junction Street

Pictures; Jutland Street from Store Street, 1966, : m02382, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Jutland Street, 2025, courtesy of Google Maps and the area in 1849, .from the OS for Manchester & Salford, 1842-49, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways Throughout The United Kingdom, John Priestly, 1830

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ................ nu 53 Silver Street, a bus station and some nasty history

Now this is Chorlton Street Bus Station in the 1960s and the image presents a bit of mystery, but more of that later.

Chorlton Street Bus Station, 1964

For now it is that gap between the office block and the ramp to the right of the picture and Chorlton Street which gave its name to the bus station which interests me.

That gap was the continuation of Silver Street.

You can still walk down Silver Street from Aytoun Street which ran on to David Street but my bit has vanished.

Back in the 1850s Silver Street and its neighbours were a warren of small closed courts leading off narrow alleys and filled with small back to back houses.

They were not perhaps the worst the city had to offer but they were neither the best.  In his case notes during the cholera outbreak of 1832, Dr Gaultier offers up a a vivid picture of the area. Chorlton Street he wrote “was tolerably clean and open but the vicinity crowded and populous.”*

Silver Street, 1849

But the home of the Bullock family was dire.

Mr and Mrs Bullock lived in one room with their two children and Mr Bullock’s mother.

The room was on the upper storey of a “filthy and crowded house” and was equally as “filthy.”

Even before they contracted cholera none were seen to be in good health and baby Martha aged eight months was “ricketty, and emaciated.”

In the course of just one week all of them died of cholera.

A month later our doctor was back in Silver Street attending Jane White who lived in a cellar and who died just days after contracting the disease.

Today Chorlton Street and Silver Street look far removed from the mass of courts, alleys and crowded houses of 1832 and that stretch of Silver Street occupied by Jane White is now underneath Chorlton Street Bus Station.

And here is the puzzle with that first picture, because read the histories of the bus station and they all agree that it was opened in 1950, redesigned in 1967 with the addition of the multi story car park and went through a major rebuild in 2002.

Major Street and the lost Silver Street, 1963

Now all of that is fine, but the caption on the picture offers up a date of 1964 which means that somebody is wrong.

I am confident someone will offer an explanation for the date of the rebuilt bus station and while I wait I suggest that those wishing to walk the past can just step back into the past can get a stab at it, because that vanished bit of Silver Street is now the entrance to a small car park between the back of Yates’ and the car park ramp, while the small road that runs along the bus station is the continuation of Major Street, but that is for another time.

Silver Street, 2016

But that is not quite all, because soon after I posted the story Andy Roberston sent me this picture of the corner of Silver Street where it joins Princess Street.

In may haste to complete the story I had failed to go looking for any more of Silver Street.  So the intrepid seeker after lost streets of Manchester can walk along another bit of my street, although it does end in a car park.

Location; Manchester

*The Origin and Progress of the Malignant Cholera in Manchester, Henry Gaulter M.D., 1833case notes no 5-8, page 162 and nu 71, page 178

Pictures; Chorlton Street Bus Station,  W. Higham, 1964, m56893, the ramp under construction 1963, W. Higham, m56982, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  Silver Street from Andy Robertson  2016, and detail of Silver Street 1849 from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1849, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Catching the 81X from Barlow Moor Road in the summer of 1961

At the bus terminus, July 1961

We are at the bus station on Barlow Moor Road in the summer of 1961, and in front of us is the 81X which ran from Southern Cemetery to Hightown via Albert Square.

Now I can be fairly certain of that because beside me I have the Corporation Maps of Manchester and District for 1963.

With the 81X

Of course there is just the outside possibility that the route of the 81 had changed during the time the picture was taken and the map with its bus routes was published.

And I have no doubt that someone will point out that the 81X had a slightly different route to the 81 but until then I shall continue to assume that our bus followed the 1963 route travelling along Barlow Moor Road, Manchester Road and Upper Chorlton Road into town.

At which point I might just be accused of being a little obsessed by a Manchester bus in the 1960s.

But not so for the picture and the bus map offer up a rich source of history.

It starts with the bus livery which is the red of Manchester Corporation and is a reminder that back then both the cities of Manchester and Salford and the surrounding local authorities ran their own public transport services.

Bus routes through Chorlton in 1963

So on reaching town our passengers could be confronted with the blue and cream buses of Ashton-under-Lyne, the green of Salford, and the green of the Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Joint Transport and Electricity Board along with the maroon and cream colours of Oldham.

What is more these different Corporation buses ran along the same roads and for some way at least shared similar routes.

And like that bus timetable there is much history in the picture.

A lost scene

Those telephone kiosks may have lingered on into the end of the century but most have now gone as have the old style bus sign with its Manchester logo.

That said the small police station has yet to be built and there is a clear view across to the houses on Beech Road which in turn points to the absence of those first two houses on the even side of Beech Road.

So not perhaps a story that encompasses the great dramatic sweep of history but one that lots of people will relate to, and that is good enough for me.

And within a few hours of posting the story, Steven commented

" Lovely! The X usually suggests a shorter route than normal.

 In 1960 the 81 only ran to Albert Square so the extension beyond must have been quite recent. I suspect the bus terminating at Hightown is the reason for the X as the whole route went to Crumpsall Green."

And a late correction to the story Annette Roberts has written in that "the police station was there when I lived in Claude Road from the 1950s. 

My dad was a police constable based for a while at the station and the first few houses on Beech Road behind the station were police houses. 

I used to play with the children who lived there. The station had an air raid siren on the roof which they used to test once in a while. 

Think the picture is N awkward angle as the station would definitely be there in 1961 as I used to go there."

So another piece of collective history.  I just love it.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester

Pictures; Chorlton-cum-Hardy bus terminus, 1961 from the collection of Sally Dervan  and Maps of Manchester and District, Manchester Corporation, 1963, courtesy of David O’Reilly 


*Manchester Buses, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Manchester%20Buses

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 92 ...... Cannon Court

Cannon Court has tidied its act up  a lot since I first stumbled across it in 1969, soon after I arrived in Manchester.

1967

I remember it as one of those places which  was a bit shabby, rather neglected, and not much of an advert for the city.

Of course now I rather wish it was still like that given than many of the other interesting alleys, courts and narrow streets have been swept away.

The last time I was down there it was clean, tidy and less interesting than I remembered it.

But perhaps I am being a little picky and unreasonable given that visitors to the Cathedral, might just not want to pick their way past old boxes, overflowing dustbins and crates of empty bottles.

So I shall leave it you to judge, using an image of Cannon Court, pretty much as I left it in the 1960s, and today, all bright and pristine.

2017

Circa 1900

So far so good ........... and now for the correction, because I never clocked the name of the alley back in 1969, and when I revisited it this week one map called it Hanging Ditch, so I followed suit.

Only to be corrected by two people who pointed out that historically this was Cannon Court, and there on my own copy of Goads Fire Insurance was indeed the name Cannon Court.
So thank you for the two who were more vigilant than I.


Location; Cannon Court

Pictures;  Cannon Court, 1967, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR0t6qAJ0-XOmfUDDqk9DJlgkcNbMlxN38CZUlHeYY4Uc45EsSMmy9C1YCk and in 2017 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and Hanging Ditch and Cannon Court, circa 1900, from Goads Fire Insurance map, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Did I miss something? ……………when Manchester Regional Opera went looking for a new home in a railway station

Now, we are talking about a moment in 1971, and to be fair I was not back then into opera, so I suppose it was easy to miss the discussions which were centered around using the disused Central Railway Station as a home for a regional opera house at a cost of several million pounds”.*

Well, that was how I read it, but on a more careful reread, the plan was to clear the station buildings and use the site.

This was an alternative for one “in the Princess Street and Portland Street area", which was less desirable because of the “high cost of the land” and “pressure from developers”.

The bigger questions of a regional opera house had been rumbling on since 1965 when the Arts Council floated the idea of Manchester as a site for one the three regional opera houses, and gained ground with the proposals for local government reform which set the city at the heart of a new county council.

But the stumbling block remained the simple one of whether there would be sufficient public footfall for such a venture, and what extent the other city and borough councils would support it.

This replicated an earlier concern that a partnership of Manchester City Council and the Arts Council might not be enough to secure the financial viability of the project.

All of which led the Guardian in 1970  to reflect the “some of the steam has gone out of Manchester’s great advance in the arts … [in contrast to] the sixties when so much enthusiasm was generated for arts projects  that the city began to seem like the birth place of a new Renaissance”.**

All of which seemed very different just a few years earlier, when there were proposals for “a £5 million art centre, including an opera house, theatre and film centre”.

And when the city planners, envisaged that a new opera house and theatre along with the retention of the traditional Oxford Road entertainment area, at the expense of the old warehouses and offices.

Most ambitious of all was the scheme for a “continuous high-level pedestrian way from Central station, which is being considered as a city exhibition hall – across Oxford Road, through the entertainment area, across Princes Street and past the art gallery into the cultural area, eventually connecting with Piccadilly Plaza and through Piccadilly Gardens”.***

 Location; Manchester

Picture; Central Railway Station, 1978, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Disused station maybe arts site, Michael Morris, Guardian, February 1st, 1971

**Manchester without a Messiah, Denis Johnson, the Guardian, February 4th, 1970

Picking a municipal bus company and travelling across the city in 1963

Cover of Maps of Manchester & District, 1963

Now I am looking at a copy of the 1963 Manchester bus routes which my friend David has passed on to me.

Like me he was one of those that never went to a grammar school and recalled that

“I went to St Gregory's Technical High School in Ardwick Green from 1960-1967.

And because it was over 3 miles from Chorlton I was awarded a free bus pass...Joy of Joys, and could travel freely anywhere I liked in school hours for free.

Not that I did - but it did allow me to experiment with the various routes to Ardwick Green from the stop near Chorlton Baths.

I finally ended up using the fastest way - the 81 or 82 to Brooks Bar, and then the 53,  a great route known as the 'banana' service because " they came in bunches"  and from Greenheys the 123 to Ardwick Green.”

Now all of this reminded me that even the humble guide to the City’s bus routes comes with a story and opens up a fascinating glimpse into that not so distant past.

Back then according to another friend there were bus loads of students crisscrossing the city.

And like David many were in receipt of a free bus pass.  I too briefly had access to the same although in my case it was a season ticket for the train to travel from Well Hall to New Cross and back again.

Of course the sting in the tail was that they could only be used in term time and during school hours which rather limited the opportunity to boldly go and explore to the outer limits of the Corporation’s bus routes.

Detail of bus routes in and around Chorlton

But they were just another part of that welfare provision which some today frown upon.

Looking again at that bus guide is to follow long forgotten routes, and be reminded that the early 60s was still a time when a lot more people relied on public transport or did it themselves on a push bike.

The scenes outside all our big factories at clocking off time were characterised by people cycling home or waiting to catch one of the long line of buses parked up waiting for the evening rush.

And here there was a bewildering choice. Running through Chorlton there was the 80, 81, 82, 85,  and 94 along with the 41 and 43 all of which went into town.

Stevenson Square December 1966

There was also cross routes including the 16, 22, and 62 and it was possible to travel by bus into Chorltonville up to Rye Bank Road and out to Firswood.

The network also provided for more connections and all of this ran alongside a regular train service from Chorlton into Central Station or out to Didsbury, Stockport and the Derbyshire hills.

It was a complex system which involved not only Manchester Corporation buses, but also those of Salford, Oldham, Ashton, smaller local authorities, and the North West Bus and Car Company.

And so beside  the distinctive red livery of Manchester and the blue and cream of Ashton there was the green of Salford and the green of the Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Joint Transport and Electricity Board along with the maroon and cream colours of Oldham.

Piccadilly with an Ashton-Under-Lyne trolley bus, 1960

For those of a certain disposition this was a wonderful cornucopia of municipal transport that made the car less essential and can only be dreamed of today and one that vanished at the end of the 1960s.

Ah I hear you say all of that is fine, but getting in a car at work and driving home with the radio to listen to is far superior than having to wait in the rain at the bus stop, fight for a seat and end up beside that rather boring chap from the end house whose sole topics of conversation revolve around pigeons and the poor performance of Huddersfield F.C.

All of which maybe so but I do miss the ease with which you could move around the city and so I shall revisit David’s 1963 bus route book and plan a few trips of my own, which may or may not have left me at ease in the company of that chap from the end house.

And that just leaves a correction and comment from, John Anthony Hewitt.

"Minor correction Andrew Simpson, the bus company mentioned was North Western Road Car Co., and they were based in Stockport. Other bus companies included LUT (Lancashire United Transport), Walkden and Ribble, Preston. Probably the longest bus route I rode departed from Victoria bus station in Salford, but was operated by MCTD, No.10, I think, to Liverpool via a zig-zag route crossing the East Lancs Road several times - Eccles, Worsley, Walkden, Newton-le-Willows, St Helens and a few other places long since forgotten. Like your friend David, I too had grown up in C-C-H and had a bus pass to St Greg's., 1956 - 1963, but my adventures in Greenheys were courtesy of trolley-bus 213 (later motor bus 123)".



Pictures; Maps of Manchester and District, Manchester Corporation, 1963, courtesy of David O’Reilly and Manchester Corporation trolley bus, Stevenson Square 1966,  © Alan Murray-Rust, geograph.org.uk Wikipedia Commons, Ashton-Under-Lyne Corporation trolley bus in Piccadilly, 1960,  from the collection of J.F.A.Hampson,  Museum of Transport, Wikipedia Commons

St Peter’s Square ……. 1962 …. compare and contrast

This was taken from the Central Ref, sometime in 1962.  

A little over 5 years later I would be looking out from the same windows, and the scene hadn’t changed much.

That can’t be said today, and the fun will be to tick off just how many differences a casual observer would notice. 

Location; Manchester

Pictures,  St Peter’s Square, Manchester, 1962 – 3664.5, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Urban playgrounds ……… 1962

You will have to be a certain age to remember using a demolition site as a playground.

So, while I know there are lots of building projects going on right now across the twin cities of Manchester & Salford, they do not compare with the wholesale clearances which characterized the four decades from the 1940s into the 1980s.

Some were the product of “clearing up” after Blitz, but most were the result of the drive to replace tired and “unfit housing” with new properties, some of which became inadequate soon after they were built.

It is also true that in the early 20th century the City Council undertook “slum clearance” schemes, but I wasn’t born till 1949, and so my experiences of urban playgrounds are locked into the 1950s, when “bomb sites” were fascinating places, not least because of what you might find.

On one adventure we came across a gas mask in pristine condition, and in another case hundreds of tiny film clips, which I guess were the off edits from the local ABC.

I have no idea where these two lads were in 1962 when they were photographed, but for me and many of my generation they perfectly capture how we played.

 Location; Manchester

Pictures,  Urban playgrounds, 1962, Manchester, 1962 – 3686.5, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Just before midnight on Princess Street …………1963

This is one of those pictures I wish I had taken.

We are on Princess Street approaching Whitworth Street, and given that it’s almost midnight the streets are empty.

I like the effect of the streetlamps, which along with the absence of people and vehicles makes for a very atmospheric scene.

Of course, the buildings running down from 113 to Whitworth Street have long gone, although they survived until relatively recently, after which the site was an empty plot for ages.

But when I first came across the picture last year, the plot was being developed with speed, with the boards promising “Luxury City Centre Living”, with the name Manchester Square.

Location; Princess Street




Pictures; Princess Street, 1963,  "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

The picture I wish I had taken …………….under the Mancunian Way in 1967

This is one of those pictures I wish I had taken.

We are at the official opening of the Mancunian Way on May 5th, 1967, which was a Friday, and I suspect that accounts for the number of children in the crowd.

Doing the ceremonial bit, was the Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who was accompanied by the Lord Mayor, Mrs. Nellie Beer, O.B.E., J.P., and because they are on the plaque, Councillor S.C. Rimmer, Chair of the Highways Committee, his deputy, Councillor Ken Franklin, the Town Clerk and representatives from City Engineers and Surveyors, along with those from the construction firms.

But what captures your attention, is the crowd.

It may have been small compared to some events, but it is a busy picture, with lots going on, from the serious looking faces of some of the adults, to the mix of emotions from the young people, including the girl distracted by something. and the lad beside her clearly “off script”.

And yes, that does look like the actor Jack Howarth who played Albert Tatlock in Coronation Street, for almost a quarter of a century.

What is also interesting is that this does have an element of the “staged crowd”, from the children let out of school, to the group of young men and women, who may be Council staff, or equally likely were Labour Party members drafted in to support the Labour Prime Minister

And then there are the rest who seem a cross section of local residents.

But however, contrived the scene might have been, there is no doubting that the photographer caught the moment, perfectly.

Location; Under the Mancunian Way

Picture; Capturing the moment, 1967, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection, https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY

Mending the light bulb on Randolph Street in 1962 ..... when gas was king

 Now, there is so much going on in this picture that its hard to know where to start.

But I suppose it is the man with the ladder, mending the street lamp.

He appears in several different pictures in the collection and was clearly being followed around.

Just why is now lost, but I suspect as the collection was originally from the City Council it will be to do with maintenance of Corporation property and possibly the problem of vandalism.

Some of the images show a broken glass covering.

In another the man appears to repairing the bracket or gas pipe, and yes I think this might be a gas  street lamp .

And before Eric of Northenden takes me to task, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that gas street lamps were still in use in Ardwick in the 1960s.*

All of which is confirmed by a small story in the Manchester Guardian which reported on February 22nd, 1966 that the “City’s last gas lamp” was taken down.  In a ceremony, attended by “50 people , including civic chiefs, gas officials, residents and cameramen, who crowded the top of Aden Street, Ardwick, yesterday  to say farewell  to the last of Manchester’s one time 21,682 gas lamps.

The lantern of gas lamp No. 1635 was taken down and ceremoniously presented to Councilor Joe Ogden, chairman of the gas lighting committee who said he would offer it up to Manchester Museum as a souvenir”.**

That momentous event was still four years away when our man put his ladder up against the lamp post on the corner of Randolph Street, and drew the attention of children, who may have been more fascinated by the photographer than the lamp man.

Either way they broke off from playing in the street to watch, not that the two lads in the distance, the window cleaner or the woman on her way to the corner shop seemed at all bothered.

There were two Randolph Streets listed in the directories, one in Crumpsall and the other in Levenshulme, and I am minded to think this is Crumpsall.

Although I could be wrong, probably am, leaving me confident that someone will know.

Location; Manchester

Pictures,  Gas Street lamps, Manchester, 1962 -3691.4 and 1962 -3692.1, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Manchester Gas Lighting, https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=736794.0

**City’s last Gaslamp, Manchester Guardian, February 22nd, 1966

Three handcarts ...... and a mystery location

Once, a long time ago the hand cart was the all-purpose form of transporting goods for people of meagre earnings.

They remain for many immortalized in stories of midnight flits, when for a variety of reasons, it was necessary to leave without paying the rent having loaded up the family possessions on a borrowed cart.

They were favoured by jobbing tradesmen and barrow boys, and could still be seen in great numbers around the city centre well into the last decades of the last century.

I have no idea where these three were, but given we have the name of J.H. ATKIN, it should be possible to locate them using the directory for 1969.

Although part of the sign is missing which means I will have to be a bit inventive in the search.

But I do have the additional information that the firm advertised as “Marine Store & Metal Brookers” which might narrow things down.

And that pretty much is that.

Or it was.  My attempts to find the location, faltered, but John Anthony, he of the recent excellent Gibraltar story* went delving and came up with this.

"The firm was established in 1898, so I had look at the 1939 Register, but only limited success - three mentions J H Atkinson in Failsworth, Salford and Eccles. 

However, Kelly's 1933 Directory has a listing for J H Atkinson, Marine Dealer, 32 Rosamond Street East. Further information records that Rosamond Street East ran between 16 Upper Brook Street and 179 Oxford Road. 

The line of the road still exists, but is now reduced to the status of footpath / shared space alongside the Manchester Aquatics Centre, which is a nice irony. 

Trying to remember the location of the block of flats seen In the background at the right edge of the photo, I think it is / was near Downing Street / Grosvenor Street".

Now that's detective work!

Location; Manchester

Picture; three handcarts, 1969, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY,

*Looking for Gibraltar in Manchester ........... a story by John Anthony Hewitt, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/02/looking-for-gibraltar-in-manchester.html