Each week with Look and Learn

Now if you are of certain age, old enough to remember hearing She Love You in 1963, and feeling the light had gone out of the world at the news of the death of Otis Reading then chances are you will have read Look and Learn.

I first fell across it in the winter of 1962 as I was moving away from the Eagle comic and for the rest of that decade and into the next came it came into our house each week.

It was a fine mix of useful knowledge, adventure stories and offered the work of some of the best artists.

None of the earliest copies have survived but we have something like a 100 from the early 70s.  By that time, I had left home for Manchester but on the regular visits back I would slide into reading the editions which fell through the door.

And that is all I have to say.

Location; my childhood

Pictures; Look and Learn covers, no. 576, January 27, 1973, and no. 592, May 19th, 1973, from the collection of Stella Simpson

Look and Learn ............. a grand way to discover a shed load of knowledge

Now for reasons I don’t fully understand I wasn’t a great reader as a child.

And that was odd because both mum and dad devoured books which they got from the public library and the private lending library.

In any one week both would have two or three on the go but I despite being a junior member of the library rarely got past chapter one.

All of that changed sometime around my thirteenth birthday, but before that I was content to fall back on comics and picture history books.

They ranged from the Eagle to a succession of other comics and to those wonderful books by R J Unstead.

And in 1961 or possibly 1962 I fell across Look and Learn which for the rest of that decade and into the next came into our house.

It was a fine mix of useful knowledge, adventure stories and offered the work of some of the best artists.

None of the earliest copies have survived but we have something like a 100 from the early 70s.  By that time I had left home for Manchester but on the regular visits back I would slide into reading the editions which fell through the door.

And very recently I asked and got a compendium book of the best of Look and Learn as a Christmas present.

Now none of this is nostalgia but more a simple reflection that in a pre internet age Look and Learn and indeed the Eagle comic were a magnificent way of picking up knowledge in a way that appealed to me and countless others.

Picture; cover of Look and Learn no. 613 October 13, 1973 ..... Every Monday Price 10p

The bit of Chorlton they stole ………..discover when and why in the Lloyds today

Yes, I know it’s one of those outrageous titles designed to catch your interest.

But it turns out that Beech Road was for centuries called Chorlton Row.

As such it turns up in all the official records up to the 1870s when the name was taken away for the more pedestrian Beech Road.

Just why will be revealed today in the Lloyds Hotel between 1pm and 3pm, when amongst a group of very nice people including Chorlton’s own local poet Melanie Neads, Peter Topping and Andrew Simpson will launch their new book.

It comes in the series “nothing to do in chorlton”, is the 3rd to carry the name and is enticingly called “Down Beech Road Looking For Chorlton Row”

Our two earlier books, "Chorlton Green and the Ees", and "Martledge Lost and Found" have proved very popular. 

Our third breaks new ground by dropping you on Beech Road in 1848 during the Year of Revolutions, describes what you might have seen and above all who you might have to be polite to.

Doing something in Chorlton, 2022

All three cost £4.99 each, and are available from us or Chorlton Bookshop and are packed full of Peter’s paintings, original photographs and stories from me.*

Leaving me just to point out that in the following month we will walk you down Beech Road as it would have been 164 years ago when it was called Chorlton Row, had its own blacksmith and pond and a clutch of post houses, farmers homes and wattle and daub cottages.

So that is it .... Sunday in the Lloyds with two chaps wot write books and poems from Melanie Neads.

And ....... a free book mark for all who come along.

Pictures; doing something in chorlton, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*“Nothing to do in Chorlton” by Andrew Simpson & Peter Topping, is available from www.pubbook and Chorlton Bookshop

Stories from Dunkirk .........

Now for my generation, who were born just after the last world war “the miracle that was Dunkirk” was not a history topic we were taught in school.

What we knew about the event, was what we absorbed from films, and comics and everyday conversations with our parents.

For most of us it was a great victory given the number of British, and allied troops who were plucked from the beaches and only years later would I come to realize that this had in fact been a military defeat.

And it would be later still before I became aware of the degree to which the story had been manipulated in the interests of war propaganda and public moral.

Now I make no value judgement at what the Government did to the story back in 1940 and nor did Tom Grimshaw who offered an excellent, thought provoking talk on the stories of Dunkirk.

Starting with the popular interpretation of the event he ranged over both the actual history of those nine days, offered up information on how the French and German media dealt with what happened and finished up with the degree to which what we now regard as the story was guided by the demands of the war effort.

The talk was held at St Ninians on and hosted by Chorlton Good Neighbours.

There were bags of sweets on hand for those who answered Tom’s questions correctly in the introduction and the audience came away with a renewed interest in the subject.

Leaving me only to announce that Tom is most happy to offer the talk to interested groups.

Location; Chorlton Good Neighbours

Pictures; Stories from Dunkirk, 2017, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Chorlton Good Neighbours, https://chorltongoodneighbours.org/
Egerton Road South, Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, Manchester, M21 0XJ Tel: 0161 881 2925