Waiting on platform 12 at Piccadilly for Royal Mail Parcels ........ 1980

I know I shouldn’t be surprised at just how much of the city has changed over forty years.

Part of that is because I just don’t think four decades have whizzed past.

But then that has encompassed nine General Elections, a brace of American Presidents, the birth of our four children and my gentle passage from a man in gainful employment to one who writes and blogs.

Still I was drawn up with a jolt when I uncovered this picture of platforms, 10, 11 and 12 at Piccadilly Station.

So much so that for a brief while I was puzzled as to which station I had been on.

Logic and the other images in the strip of negatives all pointed to Piccadilly, but the scene is worlds away from that moving staircase, brightly painted columns and air of commuter bustle of today.

I even consulted that old railway buff David Harrop, and he confirmed I was where I thought, on Piccadilly Railway Station a full thirty years before its makeover.

So that pretty much is that.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Manchester Piccadilly Railway Station,1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A day of steam, fun and history ……………The Great Railway Exposition

I have no idea how I ended up on Liverpool Road, forty years ago.

I might have read about the event, or just followed the crowds.

Either way it was a wonderful day of steam, fun and history, and reminded me of growing up in the 1950s, and taking express trains pulled by steam powered locomotives.

Even now that mix of steam, warm oil, and clunking railway wagons is enough to transport me back to rail excursions, when electric and diesel traction was rare on our railways.

I am indebted to Paul Sherlock who sent me this cover of the souvenir booklet, which anchors the moment, because I had long forgotten just when it occurred.

It was an amazing day and left me with a portfolio of pictures.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; The Real Railway Exposure, 1980 courtesy of Paul Sherlock, and moment on the day, 1980 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

So where did we hold a demonstration?

Crown Square, circa 1981

This is Crown Square, and back in the 1970s and 80s it was one of the places where demonstrations finished up.

There were other places, of which Whitworth Park, Alexandra Park along with Albert Square were the ones I seem to remember.

Go back almost a century and Stevenson Square played host to a large number of rallies and demonstrations while in the decades before Peterloo many impromptu gatherings occurred at New Cross.

All of which just leaves the sight of Peterloo, which everyone will be familiar with.

Albert Square, circa 1981

As for the start place that seemed to be any open bit of land large enough to take lots of people and close to the big roads into the city.

In the early 1970s the favoured venue was Oxford Road, although I can remember assembling by Strangeways prison once.

More recently and for reasons I don’t fully understand we were told to meet up near the Cathedral to process to Piccadilly Gardens.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Crown Square, and Albert Square, circa 1981 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

For the Friends of Oxford Road .......... part 2 ...... Studios One to a Million

Now, this is one of the pictures I took of a demonstration in the 1980s.

We are on Oxford Road heading towards the railway station, and bits of what you see have gone forever.

Ahead of us, the cream tiled building is now a 21st century hotel, while Studios One to a Million is a Dance Studio.

I say Studios One to a Million, but that does slightly over do the number of cinema screens but it  was a nick name we came to use for the place.

There will be many who remember the cinema as Studios 1 & 2, before its makeover and expansion into five screens.

It hosted late night movies, which began after the pubs closed and which therefore had an atmosphere a little different from matinees.

We saw Easy Rider there and more memorably, the cult horror film ..... Scream, Scream and Scream Again, which involved the harvesting of body parts from an  unwilling donor, and which every so often showed the said man minus another limb.

I doubt that today I would find it as riveting as I did back in 1971, but then I had had a large number of pints in the Red Lion before we paid our money over.

All of which just leaves me to point out that today opposite the former cinema is brand new building which has risen from what had once been the site of the BBC building, which was under construction when we did our late night picture visits. 

In between those two points, the site had become the BBC Building but that is a tale for another time.

Manchester Guardian, September 12 1930

At which point I have to confess to making a mistake which was pointed out by Gordon Howe.  I wrongly assumed the cinema had started with just one screen.  But Gordon commented, "I always believed that the cinema was originally built with two screens, because my Mum (who lived in Manchester from the 1920s to the late 1940s) always referred to it as the Regal Twins".

And a quick look at the wonderful site cinema Treasures revealed that it was "originally opened as the Twin Regal Kinemas on 20th September 1930. The cinemas, which had separate entrances and foyers, were on the second floor and shared a single projection room. Neither had a balcony and each seated 800.

Although it’s common place now, these two cinemas often presented the same film albeit at different times. Each had a barrel vaulted ceiling and elaborate Art Deco plasterwork down the side walls depicting folds of cloth.

In 1960, they were bought by the Star Cinemas group and renamed Romulus and Remus which lasted just two years before they became known as Studios 1 & 2.*

Never let a mistake get in the way of accuracy, so thank you Gordon and keep checking my stories!

Location; Oxford Road, sometime in the 1980s

Picture; Oxford Road, sometime in the 1980s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson.

*cinema Treasures, http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/2679

And the band played on .......

Now I know when the picture was taken and where, but what suddenly attracted the attention of the crowd is lost in time.

We are in Castlefield, on Camp Street during the Steam Exposition at that point in time when British Rail had surrendered the old Liverpool Road site for a £1 but before the Science and Industry Museum moved in.

And on that sunny day in 1980 a collection of old steam locomotives, traction engines and a host of vintage cars and buses gathered.

So it is quite possible that while the band played on something with steam was passing by.

Of course some will remember and confirm my vague memorey that as the band struck up the first of the steam locomotives made their appearance.

No matter I was there.

Location; Manchester

Picture; The band played on, 1980 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Gasholders I have known and loved

Now I grant you they may not seem the most compelling things to write about or indeed to asdmire.

But if you are of a certain age and lived close to a city or town centre they will have been part of the landscape.

I grew up near one and lived close to another when we occupied a flat in east Manchester.

Most of us will have taken them for granted and yet in their way they were a marvel of the 19th century and as much an symbol of that period as the steam engine or the dark satanic mills.

Until recently I have no idea there had been one on King Street West near the House of Fraser although I do have a fine picture of the coking room of the one on Rochdale Road.

Once the manufacture and storage of “town gas” was an essential part of each town and city and were just taken for granted.

So here in a new series are two pictures of the one in east Manchester from the camera of John Casey dating from the 1980s.

Be warned ............ more will follow.

Location; East Manchester

Pictures; the gasholder in east Manchester, 1980s from the collection of John Casey

*Gasholders, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Gasholders

When steam ran the roads ........

Now I venture into the world of steam powered vehicles with some trepidation, fearing that those who embrace the subject will have a vast reservoir of knowledge and enthusiasm to knock the socks off me.

They will talk with authority about “5 ton vertical-boiler wagons which feature a 2 cylinder undertype engine and chain drive” and that leaves me in total awe.

So, well aware that whatever I say will either be wrong or so superficial it will result in a tirade of scorn from them that no better I shall confine myself to showing the pictures from a steam cavalcade sometime in the
early 1980s which trundled through Manchester.

They were a common enough sight on our streets from the beginning of the 20th century and some steam road vehicles were still being built as late as 1950.

But they were heavy and legislation during the 1930s forced companies to make lighter steam vehicles which in the end couldn’t compete with the petrol powered alternatives.

And that brings me to the Sentinel lorries which were produced by the Sentinel Wagon Works and after 1947 Sentinel (Shrewsbury) Ltd.

There will be someone who can tell me when both of the lorries were built and will also throw in some informative comments about that other steam vehicle which leaves me to end with a description of the day.

I can't remember exactly when the cavalcade made its way through the city.

But it will have been sometime in the early 1980s and I think it went down Princess Street and maybe rolled on to All Saints.

But the details are now lost in time.

That said I do remember it was warm and sunny and there was a carnival feel to the day.

Back then I was more interested in the  line of vintages buses and cars which squeezed between the big and smelly steam vehicles, including a fine collection of Manchester Corporation and London Transport buses.

Of course there is actually nothing smelly about steam which for many of my generation remains magic.

That mix of warm oil and steam take me right back to railway locomotives and the start of another adventure which is a good enough point to stop.

Location; Manchester,

Pictures; steam vehicles in Manchester, 1980s from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The 1906 steam road vehicle produced by Alley & MacLeean, Sentinel Works, Jessie Street, Glasgow.

Never throw away the negatives ....... part 4 ....the school ..... Derby Street

Of the collection of pictures I rediscovered of the streets off Cheetham Hill Road, this proved the most elusive to identify.

I remember our guide saying it had been a school and over the years I took it to be one of the Municipal Board Schools.

I had no name and wasn’t even sure whether it was on Derby Street, Bent Street or Empire Street.

To be fair the trip had been over thirty years ago, and I lost the notes and the original prints a long time ago.

But then in response to the Talmud Torah story, Michael identified it as a school on Derby Street because his mum had gone there.

From that, it was a skip and a jump to the directories where the school was listed in 1911, as the Jews School. The previous year it had space for 2,029 students and the average attendance was 668 boys, 625 girls and 581 infants.

According to the Local History Library the school was established on Derby Street “in 1869 and known as the Manchester Jews’ School [having] started off as Manchester Hebrew Association founded for religious classes in 1838 and by 1842 was established as a  school at Halliwell St., Cheetham, moving to Cheetham Hill Road in Spring 1851. 

From 1941to 1959 it shared a building with the Infants and Junior Departments of Waterloo Road, Cheetham. The school moved to Crumpsall and opened as King David High School, Crumpsall in 1959”.

The library holds a large number of records from the school including  admission registers, log books, stock books and teacher record books along with information on refugees, 1940-44, staff registers and visitors books, some of which are also available from Findmypast.

And for those who want more, Anthea Darling has posted, "Building designed by Edward Salomons, architect of what is now the Jewish Museum. Opened 1869 for 700 children, replacing earlier building in Halliwell Street. For more info go to Manchester Jews School Derby Street Cheetham.** Forgot to say it was demolished in 2012".

Location; Derby  Street, Manchester

Picture; The Jews School, 1986, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Records of the Manchester Jewish Community, 2015, Manchester Central Library,www.manchester.gov.uk/download/.../id/.../jewish_community_archives_guide.pdf

**Manchester Jews School Derby Street, Cheetham, https://www.manchestervictorianarchitects.org.uk/buildings/manchester-jews-school-derby-street-cheetham?fbclid=IwAR2h6y5XyS-Ysi1olWUbf7qj8pXO2dH9A3YwRH16cP1jhNfgVgvkN10cCss

Never throw away the negatives ....... part 3 .... The Manchester Ice Palace ..... Derby Street

Now when I stumbled across the negatives of a set of photographs I took in the mid 1980s I was quite pleased with myself.

The former Manchester Ice Palace, 1986

None of the prints of that day have survived, and nor have the research notes, so these half dozen negatives were a find.

I am the first to admit that the quality is iffy and they wouldn’t win the Robert Capa Award for best pictures of 1986 but they were taken as part of a research project in to Jewish Manchester.

That said they are a moment in time, and some of the buildings have now vanished and others look very different.

The former Manchester Ice Palace, 2015

But not so the Manchester Ice Palace on Derby Street which is still there and comparing my picture from 1986 with Andy Robertson’s of 2015 the building is looking better.

Those in the know will recognise this as one of those then and now sets of pictures, which is something I don't normally do and when I do I add a story.

But the Palace has been well written about so I won't this time.
That said I bet there are plenty of people with fond memories of the place.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Manchester Ice Palace, 1986, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and in 2015 from the collection of Andy Robertson.

Never throw away the negatives ....... part 2 .... The Talmud Torah School ....Bent Street

Now keeping the negatives never really seems worth it, but when the original prints get lost or damaged those negatives can prove very important.

All of which just points up how pleased I was that I found the set which I took of the streets around Cheetham Hill Road in the mid 1980s.

Not only have the prints gone but so have the notes I made of the research into the area.

This is the old Talmud Torah School opened in 1880, for “the teaching of elementary education in
Hebrew, the Scriptures and the Talmud and in the principles of the Jewish faith and practise. Talmud Torah schools were traditionally for boys only. Girls were admitted in modern times. 

The School was founded in 1880 and established in purpose built premises at No. 11 Bent Street, Cheetham, Manchester. In 1958 the Bent Street school was sold and in 1959 the new headquarters of the Manchester Central Board for Hebrew Education and Talmud Torah was opened in Upper Park Road, Salford. It closed in 2005”.*

I had half expected that the building would no longer exist but it does, still in commercial use as it when I came across it, but looking a lot better.  All but two of the big signboards have gone and these are neat and discreet.

Added to which a fair amount of the school’s records have survived, including account books payments and registers of contributions and a description of the damage done to the building during the Blitz.

And now its an exciting events place.

Location; Bent Street, Manchester

Picture; The Talmud Torah School, 1984, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Records of the Manchester Jewish Community, 2015, Manchester Central Library, www.manchester.gov.uk/download/.../id/.../jewish_community_archives_guide.pdf

Never throw away the negatives ....... part 1 .... the Jewish Working Men’s Club and Jewish Soup Kitchen

Now long after the prints have been damaged or worse still lost, there are always the negatives.

Manchester Jewish Working Men's Club, Empire Street, 1986

Of course most of the time, these are consigned to the back of a cupboard.

And so it was with a collection I took in the mid 1980s on the streets off Cheetham Hill Road.

They were part of a research project on the Jewish Community and sadly the pictures and the notes have long gone, but the negatives have survived.

Not so the Club which was on the corner of Empire Street and Wooley Street.

I don’t know when the building was demolished but it has been replaced by a warehouse and factory.

The club was formed in 1886 and it was here in “November 1895 a meeting was convened at the Manchester Jewish Workingmen's Club to consider ways and means to alleviate suffering in the Jewish community. The creation of the Manchester Jewish Soup Kitchen in 1896 was the
result of this meeting. 

The Manchester Jewish Soup Kitchen, Southall Street, 1986

In December 1906 a building in Southall Street was completed, with a purpose built dining hall. 

The meals consisted of soup containing meat and vegetables, together with bread. 

Mrs Dolly Phillips (1903-) and her husband, Harry, were at the forefront of the organisation. Mrs Dolly Phillips first became involved in the Soup Kitchen in 1920 at the age of 17. As Honarary Secretary she introduced the meals on wheels service in 1942. 

The building on Southall Street was sold and the kitchen of the Manchester Jews Benevolent Society was used. In 1978 the service moved to Holy Law Synagogue in Rita Glickman House, Prestwich. In 1997 they had about 200 clients”.*

Location; Manchester

Pictures; the the Jewish Working Men’s Club and Soup Kitchen, 1986, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Records of the Manchester Jewish Community, 2015, Manchester Central Library, www.manchester.gov.uk/download/.../id/.../jewish_community_archives_guide.pdf

October 24th 1981 ...... a banner, a cause and a march ... one I remember

Now the thing about a demonstration is that it has a short life in the popular memory.

Walking up from All Saints

If the aim of the demonstration is successful then it is pretty much forgotten in the serious detail of implementing the changes it called for, and if it fails then it quickly slips into obscurity.

Of course there are memorable exceptions like the historic March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 at which Dr King delivered the “I Have a Dream" speech, and all of us will be able to pull out another.

As for the rest, at best they merge together, get mixed up or become a blur.

In St Peter's Square

But for me, many of them stay fresh because I took the pictures, ......... lots of them covering a dozen or so
demonstrations  during the 1970s and into the next decade, covering protests over nuclear weapons, rising unemployment, cuts in public expenditure and those nasty little wars which killed many and left both the victorious and defeated no better off.

Most of the images survived the years in the cellar, although a few were such poor quality to start off with that they will never see the light of day.

And then around 1984 I stopped, partly because our Ben had been born, and for a while the demands of nappies and feeds took over, and because I felt less comfortable at going along and photographing people especially given that there were “official photographers” on all the marches who many viewed with suspicion.

All of which meant that perhaps for two decades I rarely attended a demonstration and since then have never carried a camera.

That said of course these days, anyone with a mobile phone can record the events as well I ever did with my two Pentax K1000’s.

Passing Central Ref

So with that in mind and because this is a history blog, here are four images from a peace march through Manchester in the October of 1981.

The march started off from All Saints which was one of the usual starting off points, and by degree made its way up through St Peter’s Square, into Piccadilly and then down either Market Street or Cannon Street and finishing at Crown Square, which back then was a drab windy place dominated by the law courts and the old Education Offices.

Looking back at the four, there are plenty of people I recognise, many of whom would have been on other demonstrations with me.

And because we are now dealing with an event which is 37 years ago, many of the buildings we passed have gone.

Frank Allaun MP and others 

I did toy with the idea of leaving you guess which have gone, but I didn’t.

So in no particular order the lost, include the tall Maths Tower opposite Manchester Museum, that fine stone building in St Peter’s Square, the old bus station by the Arndale and of course Crown Square, although the picky will maintain that the open space is still there but I doubt it retains its name.

There will be others but these I have deliberately missed off the list.
I am also prepared to be corrected on the route after Piccadilly but know we finished up in Crown Square because half a dozen  pictures testify to that.

So I shall leave it at that and just reflect on how busy the march was and just how many people you recognise.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Marching against Cruise Missiles, October, 1981 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The lost Manchester Collection ..... no.1 ....... August 4 1980 in Castlefield

They were a series of photographs I took during the late 1970s into the ‘80s and have sat in our cellar for over thirty years.

They were taken in the old days of film, and were developed and printed in a dark room using smelly chemicals.

That said most never got beyond the stage of being negatives, and when I finally gave up on the hobby they were a neglected piece of history made all the more redundant because the enlarger, chemicals and all the other bits of chemical photography were thrown away.

But now with a new Christmas present which scans the negatives I am back in business.

The images are not always the best quality but they are a bit of our collective past

So here are the first of the hundreds, chosen at random,  and are of the Steam Exposition at Castlefield on Saturday August 4 1980.

The old railway deport on Liverpool Road had closed and the Science and industry Museum had yet to move from Grosvenor Street and take over the site, and so on a Saturday in August lots of people came to enjoy the steam.

There was a band. lots of steam locomotives, a handful of vintage cars and buses and this old lady who had wandered into see what all the fus was about carrying her shopping bag and wearinger her slippers.

Location; Castlefield, 1980

Pictures; the Steam Exposition, 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

You wait for a vintage car and seven turn up at once .........

Now the picture credit says 1979 but I rather think we are a year or more ahead of that date.

I remember coming across the cavalcade of vintage cars but never bothered to record when or where.

And that must be a lesson to us all.

A little bit of research thirty or so years later I can confirm I was on Sackville Street and the building directly opposite is Velvet House which is now apartments.

Location; Manchester

Picture; circa 1980 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Demonstrations and lost buildings ……. in Crown Square in 1983

I can’t now remember if the Peace Pledge was the document on the table, or just an application to join CND.

The original Peace Pledge dates back to the 1930s, and it is still there today, with signatories acknowledging "War is a crime against humanity. 

I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war”

That said the outbreak of the Second World War and the imperative to defeat Nazi Germany and later, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan placed the idea of renouncing war on the back burner.

But even a cynic will I think accept that working for peace is essential, more so as we enter again a period of uncertainty, with the Super Powers walking away from one Nuclear Arms agreement, new delivery systems for such weapons coming on stream, and growing tensions around the world.

And back in 1983 there was that same feeling that something had to be said against the installation of a new generation of nuclear missiles on the continent of Europe by the Soviet Union and the USA.

The march that started at All Saints and ended in Crown Square, was only one of countless such protests in Britain and elsewhere but it was one I documented.

The much bigger ones in London I also photographed but I have more images for the Manchester one.

In the course of sifting through the images I am surprised at just how many of my friends appeared in the pictures and how much the City has changed in the intervening thirty-eight years, including Crown Square.

Crown Square may have been a planner’s dream, but it was a dismal place where the only features were the weeds growing out of the paving stones, and the litter which fluttered around the benches on a windy day.

And looking at the pictures I had quite forgotten The Victoria, a place I only visited once, which I think was the day of this demonstration.

It was located on the ground floor of what had been the offices of Manchester Education Committee, which of course on that Saturday was closed.

Location; Manchester






Pictures; from a demonstration, October 1983, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The end of the demonstration ........

Now the cynic will quip, that at the end of a march or demonstration there is just unfilled hopes and sore feet.

The end of the demonstration

It might be a clever take on what sometimes happens, but I tend to think that more often than not, something is achieved.

It may be that the issue has been highlighted and more people are aware of the problem which in turn may lead to action on behalf of the authorities and a change in the law or a change in attitudes.

And part of that impact will be in the numbers who attend, and speeches which accompany the end of the demonstration.

Listening in Crown Square

I have done my fair share of listening to speeches and I can testify that they run the full range from the uplifting and inspiring, to the dreary, the mundane and the downright boring.

Some like those of Dr King’s “I have a dream" or Abraham Lincoln’s "Gettysburg Address" will roll with poetry, power and resonance, while others will drone on with clichés and empty slogans.

And when all of that is done there will be the things people leave behind which will be a mix of the placards carried along the way, and the discarded and unread newspapers sold by groups wanting to advertise their own version of what the future could be like.

George Morton

This one was in Manchester sometime in the 1980s.

It began at All Saints on what was then a piece of waste ground beside the old Chorlton on Medlock Town Hall and made it way via St Peter's Square to Crown Square.

Judging by some at least of the placards it was an anti racist demonstration and amongst those speaking at the end was George Morton who was the MP for Moss Side.

I have no recollection of the event but as I took the pictures I must have been there.

Those pictures have sat in our cellar as negatives for all most four decades, and are now slowly being reclaimed with the use of a scanner.

Speaking in Crown Square

They are a mixed bunch,  from demonstrations to carnivals, to street events and are a record of how we were in the 1970s and 80s.

Location; Manchester, sometime in the 1980s








Pictures; discarded placards and speeches, 1980s from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Passing through what was to become Exchange Square

Now this is the Corn Exchange sometime in the 1980s.

It was a building I took for granted at the time and never for one minute thought how it would change over the next thirty years.

Or for that matter just how dramatic would be the transformation of the space in front of this Grade ll listed building.

By the time John Casey had taken his picture the building had given up being a Corn Exchange would become the Triangle and went from a place where quirky little businesses did all sorts of interesting sales, to a designer outlet and is now home to a host of restaurants.

And in the wake of the IRA bomb it saw the creation of a new public place which has become a busy tram interchange.

Location; the Corn Exchange,

Picture; Corn Exchange  circa 1980s, from the collection of John Casey

The policeman and the bike ....... from Manchester in the 1980s …………….

Now, demonstrations present the photographer with plenty of opportunities to capture the moment.

These come from an Anti-Cruise Missile march which took place in Manchester in the October of 1983.

It started from All Saints when there was still open ground waiting for the developers and made it way through the city ending up at Crown Square.


Location; Manchester








Pictures; from a demonstration, October 1983, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

For the Friends of Oxford Road ............. of these are memories made part 1

Now, this is one of the pictures I took of a demonstration in the 1980s.

We are on Oxford Road just a little down from All Saints and it is a landscape we have lost forever.

To our right is an open bit of land which was beside the old Chorlton on Medlock Town Hall, while across the road that space is now inhabited by the Manchester Aquatics Centre and a office modern block.

In the distance the bridge that spans Oxford Road and connected the two big red brick buildings has gone as has one half of that complex, and  the tall Maths Tower.

For as long as I can remember those bits of open space were the gathering spot for demonstrations.  The first I went on was the anti Apartheid protest during the South African Rugby Tour in November 1969.

All that now remains of those open spaces is a car park to the north of the swimming baths.

But once stretching back in to the late 19th century, this stretch of Oxford Road was home to rows of shops running down from the Grosvenor cinema and on towards Rusholme.

Makes you wonder what is next.

Location; Oxford Road, sometime in the 1980s

Picture; Oxford Road, sometime in the 1980s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Nicholas Croft ........... another of Manchester in the 1980's

Now this is one of those scenes which hasn't changed much in thirty years but I wonder for how much longer the buildings directly in front of us will survive.

This is  Nicolas Croft and Back Turner Street.

It didn't change until very recently, when Derek the Developer declared war on that block of shops on the corner.

Once it had been a tall Victorian/Edwardian set of offices, reduced to a ground floor and cellar which in the mid 1980s was home to shop specializing in beauty and hair products.

During the course of the last year I have toyed with capturing its transformation, but left it too late.

And so last month as an after thought at the end of the day in town with a camera, I snapped the corner of Derek's achievement.

Location; Nicolas Croft , Manchester

Picture; Nicolas Croft and Back Turner Street' circa 1980s courtesy of  of John Casey and in 2023 from the collection of Andrew Simpson