Use it or lose it …… our local newspaper …. and why it’s important

Now everywhere should have its own community newspaper, and Chorlton and Didsbury have had their fair share.

Chorlton Post, 2022

Thinking back I can remember the South Manchester Reporter, The Chorlton and Wilbrahamton News, along with The Chorlton Journal, the Stretford and Chorlton Journal, and my own favourite the alternative paper Chorlton Green.

And before I was here there was the Chorlton and Wilbramton News, in the 1930s and the South Manchester Gazette in the 1880s.

Added to these for over a decade we had Community Index which morphed in to Open Up, and I had high hopes that the company that purchased it would retain its format.

It didn’t but with in a few months we had Chorlton Post, Didsbury Post and several other “Posts” which served the local communities of pretty much all of south Manchester and into the city centre.

They remain a mixture of excellent reporting with community news and I am a fan.

So today I have chosen to reproduce this open email from the editorial team.

“Many of you will be aware that in the current economic climate where many businesses are struggling, we have been finding it more and more difficult to bring in the advertising revenue needed to sustain Post community newspapers in print.

Didsbury Post, 2023

Our only sources of income to sustain print and cover core running costs are business advertising and public donations, and we are very grateful and would like to thank those who have donated and the businesses who do advertise, as this all helps greatly. However, we are facing a tricky situation as what comes in each month does not cover what needs to go out and we now have no reserves. 

As a Community Interest Company, our sole purpose is to support the community, and while it is so important that our community papers are in print to ensure they are accessible to all, the only way for us to reduce costs but retain the newspapers and support for each area is to cease printing some of our Post community newspapers and move them online. 

This does not mean the newspapers will stop but that they will no longer be in print.

Chorlton Post, 2023

Heatons Post and Didsbury Post will remain in print for as long as we are able to do so, but this will be reviewed on a month-by-month basis. 

We are therefore asking all the groups we support and our content contributors to subscribe to receive the relevant Post community newspaper directly into your inbox each month, and would like to ask if you could possibly share this with your own contacts/organisation members/mailing list to ensure everyone can still have access to their community newspaper, and ensure positive hyperlocal news and information reaches as many people as possible within our communities.

Registration is free and takes just 2 minutes to complete a short form: https://forms.gle/1ZC8R3UbCkax51st5

Chorlton Green, 1984 ...one we have lost

The hope is that we can attract sufficient advertising to cover costs while online and build up some reserve to help then get these online papers back into print. 

We are very sorry to all those affected by this, as we know how important having a printed newspaper is for your organisation and the work you do in the community. 

But we very much hope this is a temporary solution and that we can continue to support the community and local organisations by helping your news and information continue to reach residents”.

Chorlton and Wilbramton News, 1937 ..... ..another we have lost

So use them by signing up.

And that is it.

Friday, 27th November, 1953 ….. another story from Tony Goulding

This unprepossessing fragment of an old newspaper, most likely The Manchester Evening News, of Friday the 27th November, 1953 does not suggest that it has a lot to interest the historian. 

However, on closer scrutiny it revealed various noteworthy items. A miscellaneous section records the death that day of a pillar of the German theatre of the first quarter of the 20th century, Rudolf Bernauer.  

He is most known in the United Kingdom for writing the libretto for the German operetta “The Chocolate Soldier”.

Also in this column is a report that the Conservative M.P. for East Renfrewshire, Major Sir Guy Lloyd, had tabled a question for the following Tuesday’s, Prime Minister’s questions. 

He was due to ask the Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, to confirm that any agreement reached with the Egyptian government vis-à-vis the Suez Canal Zone (1) would be debated in the House of Commons prior to ratification. 

 Juxtaposed with these news items were reports of threatened strike by Northern Ireland’s butchers, fears that an outbreak of tuberculosis among Albania’s I million population had reached Greece and the team news for Southport and Chester City for their Third Division (North) games the next day against Accrington Stanley and Grimsby Town respectively.(2)

On the reverse side of the shred of paper are some entertainment listings which included a show at Chorlton-cum-Hardy's own Chorlton Theatre Club which was based in the upper floor of the old Conservative Club on the Manchester Road / Wilbraham Road corner. They were staging a performance by The Parklands Players (3) of “Two Dozen Red Roses” a popular romantic comedy recently adapted, by Kenneth Horne, from the original Italian of Aldo de Benedetti.

Meanwhile at the Albert Hall on Peter Street, Manchester, the Manchester Philharmonic Society were presenting the seasonal favourite Handel’s “Messiah” and at the Free Trade Hall there was a concert by the accomplished Polish pianist, Stanislas Niedzielski of a selection of pieces by Frédéric Chopin.

Pictures: - Newspaper fragments and and the former Chorton Conservative club from the collection of Tony Goulding; Rudolf Bernauer plaque, Berlin, - photo taken by Doris Antony, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4412524

Notes: -

1) This refers to an attempt to reach an agreement to bring to an end The Suez Emergency which began in October, 1951 when the Egyptian government unilaterally repudiated the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936. After Britain refused to withdraw its garrison tensions mounted and escalated to a point where, up to 70,000 British troops were deployed in the Canal Zone.  the “Emergency” lasted until on the 19th October, 1954 a further treaty between the two countries was signed, with Britain agreeing to a phased withdrawal of all its occupying forces. The last British soldiers, the 2nd battalion of The Grenadier Guards, left from Port Said on the 24th March, 1956. Just over 4 months later on the 26th July the new Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalised the Canal. This resulted in the Suez Crisis of October/ November, 1956 in which a joint British, French and Israeli invasion attempted to reassert their control of the Canal.  Opposition to this military intervention was widespread both internationally (including crucially from the United States) and at home. There was a rapid ceasefire but the affair became something of a diplomatic disaster.

2)  These matches resulted in a 5- 3 win for Southport at home to Accrington Stanley and a 1-1 draw between Chester City and Grimsby Town.

3) The Parklands Players were an Amateur Dramatic Society which formed shortly before World War Two in Crumpsall, North Manchester. They continued producing plays regularly until at least November, 1992.  During the 1950s decade they produced many which they would tour around the Greater Manchester area. An example was their 1954 production of “Asmodee” a drama by, the French Nobel Prize winner. François Mauriac which they performed in five separate venues including once again The Chorlton Theatre Club (Wednesday the 10th – Saturday the 13th, February). This meant that they would have acted in upwards of twenty performances, a feat indicative of both their commitment and quality. The society donated the proceeds from these shows to charity; the money being split between the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, and the Lifeboat Institute. Not content with these endeavours the Parklands Players then entered “Asmodee” as their offering at the Manchester Drama Festival at the C.W.S. Hall. Undaunted by having to open the week-long festival on the 10th May, 1954, Parklands Players finished as runners-up and were awarded the Lowry Trophy by the adjudicators.

Acknowledgements: - As well as Find My Past’s Newspaper Archive the National Army Museum was very useful. https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/suez-crisis

The stories behind the stories ……………… the NHS, the British Empire and Peterloo ……. another one to listen to

Now I had quite forgotten this delightful series on Radio 4 where James Naughtie finds the heartbeat of history in the front-page small ads of old UK newspapers.*

Aneurin Bevan, 1952

Yesterdays programme was from Ripley and Heanor News, 2 July 1948 in Classified Britain Series 2

"James Naughtie explores history through front page small ads.

The Ripley and Heanor News - serving the towns of the Amber Valley, north of Derby - reveals the austerity of post war recovery in its columns, the home-made entertainment in the days before television's domination and a meeting with one of the best-known mediums in the Midlands.

Front page news is a relatively late addition to the newspaper business. 

For most of their first couple of centuries, British newspapers carried classified ads rather than news on their front page. They transformed the hustle and bustle of the marketplace into newsprint, so you could take it home or to the inn to pore over at your leisure.

Woolwich, circa l1te 1949s

James Naughtie travels the country discovering how these front-page ads give us a snapshot of time and place, exploring how they weave national and local life together - the heartbeat of history rolling daily or weekly off the presses.

The ads tell us what people were eating, drinking and wearing, what was on stage and what people were playing at home. They mark the mood of the time through notices for public meetings held to stoke up or damp down public fears of crime and political unrest. 

Knitting Patterns, circa 1960s

They are a record of the notices placed for houses and public buildings to be built, licenses applied for and subscriptions raised for publications and commemorations. They show the latest labour saving gadgets 'trending' as technology arrived, and they track jobs and trades on the way up and down as the British Empire waxed and waned. The ever-present ads for patent medicines record our most popular ailments.

Produced by John Forsyth.
Assistant Producer: Alexandra Quinn.
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4.”

But equally fascinating and very relevant was the one from series one, on Manchester Mercury, 17 August 1819.

“The classified ads of the Manchester Mercury on 17 August 1819, the day after the Peterloo Massacre, give their own insight into the post Napoleonic war social stress. 

Rewards are offered for information on 'those who have absconded from their families' with their names and descriptions. Special constables have been recruited in Bowden 'to enforce obedience of the laws' and auctions are announced for everything from a house to a horse, and from a clementi piano to the 'Scotch edition of Shakespeare'.

Peterloo, 1819

Front page news is a relatively late addition to the newspaper business. 

For most of their first couple of centuries, British newspapers carried classified ads rather than news on their front page. 

They transformed the hustle and bustle of the marketplace into newsprint, so you could take it home or to the inn to pore over at your leisure.

James Naughtie travels the country discovering how these front-page ads give us a snapshot of time and place, exploring how they weave national and local life together - the heartbeat of history rolling daily or weekly off the presses.

The ads tell us what people were eating, drinking and wearing, what was on stage and what people were playing at home. 

They mark the mood of the time through notices for public meetings held to stoke up or damp down public fears of crime and political unrest. 

Peterloo, 1819

They are a record of the notices placed for houses and public buildings to be built, licenses applied for and subscriptions raised for publications and commemorations. 

They show the latest labour saving gadgets "trending" as technology arrived, and they track jobs and trades on the way up and down as the British Empire waxed and waned. The ever-present ads for patent medicines record our most popular ailments.

Produced by John Forsyth
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio”

Pictures; Aneurin Bevan and his wife Jenny Lee in Corwen, 1952, Geoff Charles, made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication Knitting Patterns circa 1960, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, To Henry Hunt, Esqr. as chairman of the meeting assembled on St. Peter's Field, Manchester on the 16th. of August, 1819", Peterloo, Manchester, print published by Richard Carlile, m01563, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Beresford Square, in the middle decades of the last century, courtesy of Mark Flynn, http://www.markfynn.com/london-postcards.htm

*Classified Britain Series 2, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000823f

Gossip and the Guardian, a newspaper from 1963

Now I stopped reading the Guardian in the mid ‘80s, switched to the Independent and near the end of the last century  started reading the Telegraph, not I hasten to add out of a profound ideological change but more because it was the best way of knowing how the “other side thought”.

And during a year when the sections of the press worked hard to discredit journalism and when reporting elections has often been reduced to personalities, I came across this old fashioned restatement of what some newspapers set out to do.

It comes from 1963, when a tired Tory Government was looking decidedly terminal and when were still at the height of the Cold War.

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson