One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 161 .... avocado, sweetcorn, mango and a dollop of Vesta curry

 The continuing story  of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Five foods on the plate, 1948

I wonder how many of these would have featured in the diet of Joe and Mary Ann during their time in the house.

To be fair they were here for just under 60 years and as Britain’s eating habits changed during the 20th century, they may have encountered all five.

But I wonder because by 1970 I had only come across peas and beetroot. True as kids we did get pasta, but it came served with milk and sugar and was a treat, so I guess it doesn’t count.

Mango, 2022

And me, and Joe and Mary Ann won’t be unusual in the absence of peppers, pasta and sweetcorn.

In my case I can remember the first time I came across sweetcorn, pasta, mangoes and even curry.  It was as a student in 1970 that I first had sweetcorn, and a good few more years before I ate pizza, and pasta and not till the 1990s that mango and avocado featured on my plate.

As for curry, in the late 1960s that was courtesy of Vesta Curry, that mix of rice, dehydrated chopped beef and vegetables in a spiced curry sauce.  The boil in the bag rice was cooked while the “other” bits were added to water in a saucepan and simmered away for about fifteen minutes.

Mum replicated this with a home-based mince version which was heavy on raisons, light on the curry powder and came with heaps of rice.

The pizza you make at home, 2024

My first experience of an authentic curry would wait until I was a student in the 70s and went for the three course businessmen’s meals which most Asian and Chinese restaurants offered up at lunchtimes for the staggering price of just three shillings, [15p].

Avocado, 2022

Even more exotic were the salads from the Ceylon Tea Centre in St Peter’s Square, where cold spiced rice vied with bowls of diced fruit, shredded carrot and portions of peppers, peas and meats which were oceans away from the plates of tomato, cucumber on limp green lettuce of my youth.

Leaving the delights of  pizza and pasta to the Bella Napolli on Kennedy Street in the mid 1970s.

Now there is a point to all this which is less a nostalgic trip and more a reflection of just how fast our eating habits changed, under the impact of raising living standards, the push to processed foods aided by advertising, supermarkets  and the hunt for new products from the world’s cuisines to which can be added the fridge and home freezer.

All of which made it possible to move away from the daily trip to the grocer, the butcher, the fishmonger and green grocer, to shopping for the week, secure in the knowledge that it would remain fresh  and allow you to offer up more “interesting” meals along with the quick convenience foods like fish fingers, and that amazing invention of the TV dinner.

Pasta and borlotti, 2023

Mum discovered TV dinners in the mid-1960s ....all you wanted for a roast meal or fish supper in a tin tray which you heated in the oven. They were expensive, tasted awful but mum liked the idea of novelty.

Happily, it was a passing fad and we returned to deep fried corn beef in batter, plates of peeled Italian tomatoes and bacon which vied with potato pancakes and potted beef and fish sandwiches.  To which I can say other sandwiches were available of which sugar, apple and banana ones were popular.

But our Elizabeth reminded me of a whole set of meals that mother made from scratch from soused herring, heaps of pies and puddings and cakes to die for.

That said sweetcorn, mango and avocado were not on the list and nor I suspect would they have walked through the door when Joe and Mary Ann lived here.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; five foods on the plate, Meta Givern’s Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking, 1948, Chicago, Mango fruits – single and halved, and Ivar Leidus, 2022, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: w:en: Creative Commons, You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work to remix – to adapt the work and pizza and pasta dishes, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The simple pasta .... with tomato sauce, 2021

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 160 .... treasures from the cellar

The continuing story   of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

This is a 30-amp rewireable fuse carrier and will be familiar to any one who was born in the first half of the last century.

And it would have been very familiar to Joe Scott who installed it in the house in 1915, and I don’t suppose he would have been surprised that it was still in use a full seventy years later or that in times of electrical failure I would mend the fuse the way I had been taught by dad.

But 1985 marked its demise and it was replaced by a bigger and more modern box which has in turn been consigned to electrical history.

The fuse, and its box I kept along with other fuses, and over the years they have featured in stories of the house.**

So, today I decided to return to these relics and dig deeper into their past.  

They were made by the MidlandElectric Manufacturing Company (MEM) which was founded in 1908 in Birmingham, and was known for quality electrical switchgear, fusegear, and motor controls. ***

The quality isn’t in question, given that people still buy them second hand today commanding prices of £20 and more, while the fuse box ranges upwards from £49.

But they carry that warning that they do not fit modern standards, and given that our new one installed last month almost talks back to me I can see why.

Still my porcelain fuses and their fuse box are little treasures of the history of the house, and connect me not only to how things were done but also to Joe Scott who like me on occasion would have had to fumble in the cellar with a torch and some fuse wire to retore power.

Happily our new box allows me to fall back on that simple approach I adopted about all things electrical and water ….. “leave well alone” and ask someone who knows.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; treasures from the cellar, 30-amp rewireable fuse carrier, and its companion fuse box, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

**One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 81 ...... the story the house won’t reveal, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2017/03/one-hundred-years-of-one-house-in.html

*** MEM Company, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/MEM_Co

 

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 159 .... the wireless makes a reappearance

The continuing story   of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’”**

And that pretty much is what I think when I use the word wireless which has always meant the radio.

My Wikipedia tells me that “wireless is the transfer of information (telecommunication) between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most common wireless technologies use radio waves”.***

But me, Joe and Mary Ann Scott will always associate it with the box in the corner which offered up a window on the world, via the news, music and talking programmes.  

In the first house I can remember in Peckham in the 1950s dad, or someone had installed a system where each of the radios across the place were tuned into the three channels from the Home Service, The Light Programme and the Third Programme.

It's an old memory which has resurfaced with the discovery that you can now recharge your mobile phone using “wireless”, the very same “wireless” that allows us to pick up the internet from any where in the house and send messages, and receive pictures, TV and YouTube from a heap of different devices.

At which point I am beginning to sound like one of those aged relatives from my youth who marvelled at the automatic washing machine, and the presence of a television in the front room.

And I fully accept that my wireless in the corner and the router in the kitchen are essentially just the same thing … things designed to receive “the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer”.

If I stop to think about it, it still strikes me as a bit like magic, but a sort of magic I take for granted along with the telly and the phone.

And this house has over the century, and a bit embraced a lot of that magic.  

Joe chose to light the house with electricity back in 1915 when some homes were still using gas, never installed a range in the kitchen but went for a gas cooker and by the early 1920s had a telephone followed a few decades later by a TV.

So I suppose the reappearance of the word wireless shouldn’t surprise me given that essentially it is really just a “doing” word for something that makes life a little easier and a bit more fun.

The wireless cradle, 2025

To which I can add an Amazon Alexa which was one of our Christmas presents.

It is as everyone knows “a virtual assistant technology marketed by Amazon and implemented in software applications for smart phones, tablets, wireless smart speakers, and other electronic appliances.

Alexa was largely developed from a Polish speech synthesizer named Ivona, acquired by Amazon on January 24, 2013”.****

I will never know what Joe and Mary Ann would have made of Alexa but given their acceptance of new technology I bet they would have had one, leaving me just to ponder on whether it would have been known as Alexa, the wireless or something else

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; advert for radios, 1949, from the collection of Graham Gill, and a wireless cradle, 2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2025/12/one-hundred-years-of-one-house-in_27.html

**“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

 “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

 “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.” Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass

***Wireless,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless

****Amazon Alexa, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Alexa

The day Uncle Michael came for tea ......and stayed for 20 years ..... One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 158 ....

 The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Uncle Michael, circa 1989

I say that he came for tea, but Uncle Mike predated all of us in the house that Joe and Mary Ann called home for 60 years.

He first washed up here in 1974 along with John and Lois, with me as an add on two years later.

And after he left, I stayed on and that is pretty much where I have been ever since.

Nor was Uncle Michael really an uncle but as the kids came along and he had returned he was as much a part of the place as our labrador, the three cats and all the acquired mis matching furniture.

He would arrive in the late afternoon, stay for tea and leave on the dot of nine pm in a taxi to the Bowling Green where he would sit quietly watching the pub customers, before leaving after last orders with a carry out of four cans of larger.

Some days he said very little but on others he could be playful with kids, would house sit while we were away and always washed up after the evening meal.

Everyone just accepted him and if he didn’t talk, then that was just how it was, in the same way that the cats might or might not offer up affection and Bagel the dog might not try to eat everything in his path.

Uncle Michael on holiday with us, circa 1993

All our other friends along with those of the kids also just accepted his presence, never asked why he was there, or his preference for silence, and all of us tolerated his habit of going to the back door for a cigarette and then flicking the butt over the garden wall into Beaumont.

But he was incredibly generous spending heaps on the kids at Christmas and birthdays and always turned up on New Year’s Eve, with a bottle of Moet Chandon, and a collection of VHS tapes from Blockbusters which would include two for the kids and one for us.

And then a little after midnight he would disappear into the night with his four saved cans and return on New Years’ Day.

It was a pattern he repeated every day until his death in 2003.

The house became a little more silent after that, but he is still a presence, and is there in conversations between the kids, and aunty Lois, and in the odd items he bought for the house which have survived the passage of time.

And in those conversations more often than not what comes through is the unstated affection we all had for him as he did for us, and the sheer pleasure in confronting some friends who just couldn’t understand the custom of the man who turned up every afternoon, stayed for his tea, didn’t say much and then absented himself only to repeat it all the following day.

Uncle Michael and John,out side the house,  circa 1974

But that said many families will have the ununcle uncle who becomes adopted by the kids and has semi-permanent residence.

In some cases it was the unmarried sibling who came with the marriage or arrived later and just stayed.

Uncle Michael was ours.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; Uncle Michael  in our house, 1988-1993, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Uncle Michael and John, circa 1974, courtesy of Lois Elsden

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-day-uncle-michael-came-for-tea-and.html

 

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 157 ..... old traditions …. new customs ..... and a challenge to Brexit

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Nougat, and Roccocò napoletani , 2025

I have no idea how Joe and Mary Ann celebrated Christmas, but given that they moved in soon after the start of the Great War when certain foods were becoming scare, and prices were rising I suspect “all the trimmings” were in short supply.

By contrast the rising prosperity after the Second World War will have seen an increasing abundance of nice things for the table, although I am guessing what they ate will have been reflected by the fact that they were born in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and that moulded their tastes.

In the same way when we came to celebrate Christmas in the house in the mid 1970s, the traditional festive dinner and the extra bits like boxes of Quality Street and preserved fruits rubbed up against pasta, and curry.

So always a blend of the new and the old.

And that hasn’t changed.  This year Rosa brought over a variety of Italian sweets including Roccocò napoletani  which are Neapolitan Christmas biscuits.

They are made with mixed spices, nuts and candied fruits, and are rather crunchy on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside. 

They are traditionally made starting on December 8, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and enjoyed throughout the holiday season, ending with Epiphany on January 6. 

These days post Brexit her cache of Italian food is far more modest, while one year an entire suitcase was given over to oranges, heaps of nougat, nuts, cooked meats and even a chicken, not to mention packets of coffee.

More nougat and Ptasie mleczko, 2025

And not to be out done our Julia came from Warsaw with a packet of Ptasie mleczko which my Wikipedia tells me translates into “bird's milk which is a confectionery originating in Poland and is a small, chocolate-covered bar with a soft marshmallow-like interior.

E. Wedel is one of the most recognized chocolate confectioneries in Poland, having exclusive rights for the name Ptasie mleczko. Its owner created the original "bird's milk" in 1936”. 

So that is it.  Other brands of “interesting foods will be available" in other people’s homes.

And extending out beyond Christmas, I am consrtantly attracted to the food served up by Jewish friends during Hanukkah.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; special treats from Naples and Warsaw, 2025 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2025/12/one-hundred-years-of-one-house-in_12.html

** Ptasie Mleczko, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptasie_mleczko

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 156 ..... the telly that makes you feel ancient

 The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

We all have those moments when you realize just how many years have passed you by.

For me it can be any one of a heap of things from the comics of my youth, the shocking revelation that I grew up eating sugar sandwiches, or that back in the 1950s our first phone was shared with another family, which meant we could only use it when they weren’t but we could listen into their conversations.

But today it is the telly, and not any telly but the one we rented which offered up just three channels.  It was colour and was a recent upgrade from a black and white one and yes to change channels you had to get up, cross the room and push the button.

No fancy remote gadget for which every family spawned a different name, which in our case was “the dit dit”.  

Of course, the absence of one meant we couldn’t lose it and end up arguing about who had lost it, only to find it down the side of the settee two hours later.

But it did have a wooden case which allowed you to polish it and think it was really a bit of furniture.

And that I suppose was a step forward from our first 1950s set which had double doors with a walnut finish which I I suppose was a statement about how tellies were not yet fully accepted and had to be hidden as a piece of something else.

This particular set dates from 1978 and is a reminder that the first colour transmissions by the BBC were only a decade earlier.

I remember going to the Welcome Inn one summer afternoon to watch Wimbledon, not that I am a tennis fan rather it was the novelty of watching one of the first colour transmission.

The observant will spot that we rented this set.  In those years we were customers of both Visionhire and Rediffusion, although I can’t quite remember which we finished up with.  Suffice to say I think Visionhire occupied a double fronted shop on Barlow Moor Road, and Rediffusion or maybe Granada were almost opposite on the corner of St Annes and Barlow Moor Roads.

As a story it’s not perhaps the most dramatic piece of history but is how we lived in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and looking at the set now I do feel old.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; Our telly, circa 1978, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 155 ..... is it Christmas yet?

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

The tree, 2023

I have often wondered when Joe and Mary Ann put up their Christmas tree.

Of course, given that they didn’t have children the magic of Christmas may have been less magical.

Still, I would like to think they did order one up and on a chosen day set it up in the front room.

But just when is lost in time.  Judging by the number of people trudging up Beech Road with one under their arm, or on their shoulder last Saturday, the date November 22nd seems to be a popular choice.

When I was growing up it would be in mid-December, while in this house when the lads were small I tended to go for the first Saturday after the start of the Christmas holidays, an event which variously involved all or some of us going down to Adams in the precinct and mulling over the best one to go for.

It had to be real and tall enough to reach the ceiling and usually was too tall, and after a couple of disastrous choices I left it to Tony from the shop to decide which to sell us.

All of which leaves the question of when it should go up.  I sought advice and found a multitude of suggestions from early, to mid or late November, to early, mid to latish December.

I suppose for many it will be when the trees first appear in the shops or when the first Christmas adverts bounce across the TV screen.

Historically the start of the Advent Festivities seems an appropriate time, which was also tempered in the past by the practical consideration of ensuring that the pine needles stayed on the branches for Christmas Day.

Traditional decorations

There will be many who have memories of brushing against the tree and watching an avalanche of needles fall to the ground.

Today most trees seem to have been treated to avoid that disaster, which solves one problem but leaves that anxious fear that if you leave it too late, all the best have gone.

But still curious I went looking for when the Victorians traditionally got theirs and while I found out about Prince Albert, the German tradition, Charles Dickens, and how to decorate the tree, a date was missing.

Which I suppose means that even during the mid-19th century onwards the choice of a date was down to practicalities and family tradition.

Bringing it down is more certain, that traditionally is on twelfth night, although I know some who whip the tree down directly after Boxing Day or on the Sunday before the kids go back to school.

The family selection, 1984-2024

As for decorations, we over the years have acquired plenty, and the decision is less what to use, but what not to use.

And that entails adding ones handed down from parents and even grandparents, to ones made or bought by the kids.

Likewise every few years a new set of lights are purchased, freeing up the older ones to be hung across the house.

But at least we do not follow that tradition of candles.  And yes, when I was growing up in the 1950s we still decorated the tree with coloured candles which sat in a green cup attached to the branches with a small metal grip and were lit.

Happily sometime in that decade we got a set of coloured lights shaped like longish light bulbs which lasted into the 1990s.

To which were added those favourites of the period …. the paper lanterns, and the paper chains which first had to be assembled by licking the gummed edges and adding each to the chain.

Christmas Eve, 2022

But fashion as ever marches with Christmas, and so those paper chains, the lines of gaudy tinsel and bright coloured lights have vanished.

They have been replaced by delicate white lights which illuminate the assortment of past decorations un themed but full of happy memories.

And when ever our tree goes up this year, that will be when Christmas has arrived.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; Christmas tree, 2023, and Christmas Eve, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Christmas decorations; from the collection of Catherin Obi

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2025/08/one-hundred-years-of-one-house-in.html

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 154 ..... one day in the kitchen and a look back

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Seven A.M

Kitchen's change, dictated by fashion the changing needs of the house and the family that occupy it.

Eight A.M

Ours has undergone four transformations in 50 years.

The first ripped out the original from when the house was built in 1915, creating a bland utilitarain space.

This was followed by that 70's love affair for white tiled units on reclaimed brick which gave way to wood and a natural wooden floor.

All were bespoke and with an eye to the aquistion of more and more electrical goods saw more and more power points added to the walls.

Finally we called in the experts to design kitchen number five.

Ten past ten

2019

Along the way we discovered the house had been designed for an old fashioned kitchen range, but Joe and Mary side stepped the installation and instead went for a free standing cooker.

And in its first sixty years the kitchen had just three power points and a dark scullery with a tiny window looking out into the garden.

Over the years we added a variety of fridges and freezers culminating in those big double door leviathans. 

To these were added a heap of labour saving and fashionable appliances many of which have gone, including the toaster, electric kettle and microwave.

All of which reflects the history of the domestic kitchen in one room in one house.

That said we never knocked through into the dinning room, or created the "hatch".

Both of which turned out to be very sensible as all the kids came back and spent the statutory year and a bit with us.

And confimed my belief that the best you can do with an old house is respect the original design which often as not got it right ...... except for the power points.

2009

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; One day in the kitchen and a bit more, 2019-2025, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2025/08/one-hundred-years-of-one-house-in.html

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 152 ….. birds …. Mr Gratrix …. and a pipe

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since. *

In the garden, 2025

Yesterday we had the crows.

Well, I think they were crows.  They were black made that distinctive caa, caa sound which was both loud and repetitive and stayed with us all day.

But then apart from robins, pigeons and magpies I would be hard pressed to identify any bird.

Back in the 1950s growing up in southeast London there were heaps of house sparrows, those brown small birds which were the backdrop to urban living.

Not that they seem to like us in our house.  

I can’t remember the last time there was one in our garden, which my Wikipedia confirms with the brutal observation that since the 1970s house sparrows have “declined by 68% overall and about 90% in some regions … [with] the RSPB listing the house sparrow’s UK status as red”**

Not so in the 1840s when our bit of land was rented by Samuel Gratrix who lived just a little east of us on the other corner of Beech and Beaumont.

Mr Gratix's farmhouse and his field to the left which is our house, 1854

His farm was known as Bowling Green farm and in total he rented seven acres of land.

Some, like our field was turned over to arable, but he also had pasture and meadowland along with an acre and a bit of orchard.

And I doubt he would have welcomed the sight of sparrows in his fields. 

They were particularly thought of as troublesome and a danger to the crops in the township, and so there had been a tradition of paying a bounty on each dead sparrow presented to the constable who paid the prize from the local funds.  

A dead sparrow or its head duly taken to the constable was worth a halfpenny each, while an egg brought in the lesser sum of a farthing.  For the young eager for a little spending money this was a wonderful incentive, although some enterprising young lads were less than honest when they found a few dead sparrows on a manure heap at Oak House Farm in 1843.  

The sparrows were given to John Brundrett who was the constable for the year, which had a tinge of irony given that it was his farm. ***  

The clay pipe, 2014

But already by the time of this great sparrow crime, the practice was on the way out.  Farmers were realizing that the bids actually performed a valuable service in eating insects which were more of a pest, and it was down to Thomas Cookson another constable and farmer up by Dark Lane to abolish the custom. 

Where in all of this were crows is yet to be discovered.

But I have always associated them was cold winter weather, which has more to do with a book I read in Junior three at school sometime around 1959. 

The book featured a young boy much my age living in the countryside in the 1920s.  Given the other reading books available to us I suspect mine dated from that decade, and what has stuck with me is the image of a desolate and empty country lane in the middle of December save for a pair of crows making their melancholy call to each other across a crisp landscape.

Along Beech Road, 2024

Of course there is no evidence that back then they were here, and all I do have for that time when Mr Gratrix farmed our garden is a small broken clay pipe, which may have been discarded by someone walking past the field or perhaps even by the man himself.  

That said it is equally likely to have come from a consignment of night soil transported here from Manchester and spread over the fields.

Looking for the butterfly, 2025

His close neighbour Mr. Bailey regularly bought the stuff to spread on his bit of land on the opposite side of Beech Road and we have a receipt for a ton which he bought in 1853.

None of which gets me closer to the crows, which today have left us, making the garden a quieter place, save for the occasional butterfly which flits from one plant to another, reminding me again of the abundance of such insects which occupied my growing up.

But that is for another day.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; Photographs, 2014-2025 of our garden from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Mr Gratrix's field, 1844, from the OS Lancashire, 1844, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/11/one-hundred-years-of-one-house-in.html

**The House sparrow, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_sparrow

*** Ellwood, Chapter 8 Pace Egging & other customs, December 26th 1885

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 151 ….. building the boat

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Bare frame, 1977

I doubt that many in Chorlton can claim to have had a boat built in the back garden of their house.

But that was exactly what happened in Joe and Mary Ann's property.

And despite being a builder and building many of the more modest houses in Chorlton, it was not Joe who was responsible.

It was in fact John  who on death of Mary Ann bought the house, and after a year of "renovating" the place, set off n the grand plan of building a bout from scratch.

Just when he started is now unclear but by the time I washed up in the house in 1976 the hull had been constructed and the vessel turned upright.

That "turning" the vessel had involved all of us and as you do on completion turned into a party.

Jack & John, 1977

I think that would have been in the summer of '75 and project was finished in the Easter of 1978.

Jack, 1978

And of course building it was one thing, getting it out was another, which in turn led to the demolition of the side wall which was never rebuilt for another 30 years.

I remember the early stages had been done in the cellar with the bending of the ribs completed in the dining room.

Along the way John attracted the interest of Jack Harker, who being retired quickly found a new a role, as assistant, often completing  while we were all at work.

The boat was moored in North Wales, John sold up in 1979  only for me to move back a few years later.

Out and ready, 1978

In the interim John's two companions from the  house moved in with me and in turn helped me return.

To this day we still turn up the odd bit of glass fibre and blue resin in the garden which compliment the stains in the cellar.

And that is it.

Jack Harker, 1983

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; building a boat circa 1976 from the collection of Lois Elsden and Jack Harker, 1983 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Location; Beech Road

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/11/one-hundred-years-of-one-house-in.html

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ....... part 150 ….. the grand plan

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

The grand design, 2025

Despite having lived for almost half a century in one of the six houses Joe built in 1915 I have never stood back to admire them.

For years they were just where we lived, brought up the kids and entertained friends and family.

But yesterday on one of those sunny Spring mornings I decided to record them from the vantage point of the Rec.

It helped that there was no passing traffic, and the recreation area was empty and what was revealed was Mr. Scott’s grand plan.

To many it’s a simple almost basic plan but I think it works and was a new direction for Joe who up to then had specialized in smaller two up two down properties which can be seen all over Chorlton, but particularly in some of the roads off Beech Road.

And in turn the terrace was the step before he embarked on going into the semi-detached market.

Like all his properties they were built for rent, and only later did he began to sell them off.

The six on the row were an important bridging point in house design.

Joe does electric, 1928

They incorporated electric lighting rather than gas had large rooms with high ceilings but appear to have been built with an open range.  Our kitchen still retains the concrete plinth upon which the range would have sat, although there is no evidence that one was installed.  

The Scott’s were adept at embracing change and along with electric lighting may have bought or rented a gas cooker which the Corporation were already promoting.

That said the cellar floor does gently slope towards the front garden which would have allowed water to flow out from the copper used for washing clothes. 

But again, there is no sign that our house had a copper, although others in the row did.

And to add to that modern outlook, the house had a telephone by the mid 1920s and a television in the early 1950s.

Of course the design did reflect the period with separate rooms off the hall and landing with a small bathroom and even smaller kitchen which back in the 1970s was still served by only a few power points.

Still, it was home to the Scott’s for 58 years and in all of its century and more of existence has only seen four owners of which we are the only ones to have had children in the property.

From the Rec, 2025

Some may mutter that the gardens are a tad small but then we face the Rec, and on warm spring and summer days the recreation area offers up almost all you could want. Our kids played there from morning till dusk and there are those who gently childe me as the voice echoing across the open space calling them in for bed.

Which may be a good enough claim for fame to rival Andy Warhol’s fifteen minutes along with that of saying we lived in Joe and Mary Ann’s house.

Location; Beech Road

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 2025, and advert for Joe Scott from the St Clements Church Bazaar for 1928

*The Story of a House, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/11/one-hundred-years-of-one-house-in.html

A history of Chorlton in just 20 objects number 20, the electric supply box circa 1920

When Joe Scott built his own house on Beech Road he included electricity from the outset and this is the main supply box complete with the initials of the Manchester Corporation Electricity Works.

From memory it remained in use until the 1980s.  Those in Chorlton whose houses predated electricity could take part in "the Assisted-Wiring and Prepayment-Wiring schemes, whereby consumers may have their houses wired at a small or without any initial payment.”  

Added to this there were “hiring schemes for motors, cookers, wash-boilers, and water-heaters. Hire-purchase schemes for nearly all appliances (except lighting fittings) costing £2 and over.”*


Location; Chorlton



Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Manchester Corporation 1935

One hundred years of one house in Chorlton …. part 118 ......... olden days

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since. *

Electrical fittings, 1915

The thing about living in one place for a very long time is that you accumulate a lot of stuff, from furniture, and ornaments to memories and all those treasures from when your kids were growing up.

And if you are like me it’s hard to part with them, whether its that glow in the dark souvenir from Southport which long ago lost its glow in the dark, to the broken home made model of a rocket ship made for a school project.

This year I will clock my 48th year in our house and I am edging ever closer to matching Joe and Mary Ann’s tenure here.

They built and moved into to the house in 1915 and while Joe died in 1968, Mary Ann outlived him by another eight years which I suspect means I will never beat their record.

Still my 48 years is a big chunk of my life, and as you do, I have been reflecting on growing old in a house that long ago had its hundredth birthday.

They range from the countless different wallpapers, and paint schemes to the growing plethora of “handy" electrical household equipment to the size of the telly.

School projects, circa 1997

But as ever it’s the little things you come across which seem to shout out how far you have travelled across two centuries.

For me it started with an old electrical junction box in the cellar with the letters M.C.E.W., which remind me that there was a time when local authorities like Manchester Corporation delivered electricity and gas to people’s homes, along with water.

Or that there was a time when you could use the phone to hear Tim the “speaking clock” and later in the 1960s use the same phone at home or in a phone box to hear the song selected by the G.P.O. to listen to,

And along with the gadgets came a slightly different way of seeing things.

So back in the 1950s through into the next decade, it was common practice to go into a cinema half way through the film, watch it to the end, and then sit to see up to where you came in.  

Sugar Puffs, 1957

Which now seems a salutary lesson to all those great screen directors whose vision of a cinematic masterpiece involved the audience seeing it from the beginning to understand the plot, the message and of course the way the dramatic imagery served the story.

The choice of two TV channels, 1964

But it also rolls over into events that while I took for granted our kids find baffling, like an old property survey from 1964 on a house dad and mum bought in Eltham, which warned that the introduction of a “Smokeless Zone” would involve alterations to the house.

When I showed it to our Josh, a few years ago there was a pause while he worked out the significance of the document, and then came back with what now seems a reasonable question ......“So, dad back in 1964 they banned people from smoking”.

As the author wrote, “the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.”**

At which point there is a danger that I will slide into that worst of all failings, …. a bout of nostalgia.

Instead I will just observe that one of the most powerful tell tale signs of old age, is not the fortnightly State pension payment, the concessionary deals on public transport and entering into events, it is filling in one of those age verification requests.

Empty tin of National Dried milk, circa 1949

You type in the day of your birth, followed by the month, and then are presented with that long line of years which you scroll through, leaving the 2000s and passing effortlessly down the decades, until reaching the first half of the last century which seals your status as having come from the olden times.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures;  house hold objects, 1964-1997 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the tin of National Dried milk by Oxfordian Kissuth, Photographer and columnist, Germany and England. And available at WIKIMEDIA Commons,http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Oxfordian_Kissuth

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

**The Go Between, L.P.Hartley, 1953

So …… what do you get a 74 year old Dad for Christmas?

Yep it is one of those self-indulgent Christmas blogs, which says pretty much what my family know I like, and something about me.

I did the wish list and up came what I asked for from the “Lost Rivers of Manchester” by Geoffrey Ashworth and Brian Groom’s the “Northerner’s A History”, along with a selection of DVDs and “The Magical Amazing Robot” which I first came across 66 years ago.

And then there were the surprises, a fine pair of Polish slippers, Tom Holland’s book “Pax” on the golden age of the Roman Empire and “The Definitive Desert Island Discs” with the transcripts from 80 shows stretching back from 1942 well into the 21st century and is in its way a history book.

To say more would be to be very,  very, self indulgent and a tad too personal.

So that is it … heaps of history, some entertaining DVDs for the man who has never grown up and of course that toy from 66 years ago and the fleece lined Polish slippers.

It was the Christmas with the lot.

 

And a thank you to Tina, Ben, Lyndsey, Josh, Polly, Arlo, Ted, Saul, Julia, Luca and Rosa.

Location; Christmas

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 2023