A clutch of Manchester poets …. one library ……. and some bittersweet memories

It will be a full 55 years since I first walked into Withington Library and last night I was back in the company of some friends and a clutch of Manchester poets.

The poets meet once a month to share their poems, and I was there to listen to Rod Whitworth who I have known for over half a century.

Back a long time ago we both lived in Ashton Under Lyne, worked together and shared similar politics.

Since then, we have drifted in and out of each other’s lives occasionally meeting up to swap stories of grandchildren, books we have read and where in Manchester to get the best cheese barm.

And it was on one of those encounters that I discovered Rod was a poet, and an accomplished one as many of his poet friends have testified.

His book of poetry “My Family and Other Birds”, came out at the beginning of the year and my copy arrived not long after it was published.*

At which point I could fill the page with reviews but will add just one from Peter Sansom, poet and co-director of The Poetry Business who wrote “it's so compellingly written that it's also that rare thing, a poetry page-turner.  Wonderful."**

So, last night in Withington Library was a bit special, more so because the first part of the evening was given over to seven other poets who offered up a mix of  funny, thoughtful and elegant verse.

It is a long time since I spent the night listening to poetry read aloud and shared with an audience and I enjoyed it.

But the passage of time has done for my ears, and the combination of poor acoustics and gentle voices rendered some of the poems difficult to follow.

It was a bittersweet moment for someone who at the age of 19 could follow the hushed conversations of others across the reference section of Withington Library and made more so by wandering the nearby streets.

They say you should never go back to places and there is indeed some truth in it.

In that half century since I lived on Rippingham Road, so many of the haunts I used have gone, from the Scala Cinema, the White Lion, and the telephone kiosk which was the link with home along with the launderette that haven of wet Sunday afternoons.

That said the house on Davenport Avenue is still there. 

It was home to my friend Lois whose parties were legendary, one of which had me sitting perilously on a low roof in an effort stop Mike and John driving off into the night on a quest to settle a silly disagreement with someone whose name I have forgotten over a quarrel which has faded into the mists.

It could have been the subject of an epic tale of love, angst and alcoholic fuelled evenings to rank beside the Trojan Wars, The Lady of Shalott and the tangled story of Bathsheba Everdene and her suitors in Hardy’s Wessex.

But that would be stretching it.

Best leave such themes to the poets.

Location; Withington Library

Pictures; a clutch of Manchester poets, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* My Family and Other Birds, Rod Whitworth, 2024, is available from the author at rod.whitworth@me.com or Vole Books,  https://www.dempseyandwindle.com/rodwhitworth.html

**The Poem Man, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-poem-man.html

Wilmslow Road, a scene now lost to living memory

Wilmslow Road and wellington Road, 1910

This is another one of those pictures which has all but passed from living memory.

The photograph was taken in 1910 but the scene with the horse trough and the trees behind would be gone in just another seventeen years.

We are on Wilmslow Road in Withington looking up towards Fallowfield and Wellington Road is there on our left.

The water trough errected in 1876

The horse trough was moved in 1927 to a site opposite the White Lion before moving again to Copson Street and disappearing sometime in the late 70s or early 70s only to be discovered in Heald Green in 1985.

Behind those tall trees the large house which was still occupied as a private residence would become the post office and temporary library in December 1911.

It was demolished in 1925 to make way for the new purpose built Carnegie library.

This was to be the last of three built in Withington as part of the promise made when the four townships of Burnage, Chorlton, Didsbury and Withington voted to join the city in 1904.

Withington Library in 1959

It was opened in 1927 and has so dominated the corner of Wilmlsow Road and wellington Road that it is hard to imagine the scene captured by the photographer in 1910.

The new library had 11,000 books including a small techical section.  It was according to Councillor Davy the largest ofthe  three built in the old Withington Districy Council.

Looking towards the water trough circa 1914

Pictures;Wilmlsow Road, Chalmers, 1910, m41784, and the same spot in 1959, taken by J F Harris, m42554, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council and the horse trough today courtesy of JBS.

The horse trough today on Copson Street

When they demolished Withington Library

The demolition of the old library, 1925

I am on Wilmslow Road almost at the junction with Welllington Road and I am looking on as workmen demolish Withington Library.

Of course the date is important.  It is a spring day in the May of 1925 and the City Engineers caught the moment when the old temporary library was being demolished for the one we know today.

It is one of those tiny little stories which I like to write about and it started with another picture from the decade before, showing Wilmslow Road on a summer’s morning.

What caught my eye from this earlier picture was the absence of the Carnegie Library.

Now this did not surprise me because it had been built in 1927 in fulfilment of a promise made when Withington along with Chorlton, Burnage and Didsbury voted to join the city in 1904.

But the promise was a long time coming.  Chorlton got its library in 1914, Didsbury in 1915 and Withington in 1927, leaving Burnage having to wait till 1931 when it got “a travelling library station” in a converted bus.

Now Chorlton had got its own temporary library in a rented house on Oswald Road in 1908 but what I didn’t know was that Withington had been given a similar temporary solution in the October of 1911.

The wall and railings of number 50 Wilmslow Road in happier times

And it was there in my earlier picture showing up as just the wall and railings of the private residence which was to become the library.

There were three of them and they were pretty grand places consisting of anything between 11 and 13 rooms a piece and gardens stretching back to Wellington Road.

They were the homes of professional people, including a dentist and a photographer.

But in October 1911the end house became a temorary library with 1861 books and a newsroom and also contained the post office which in the words of made it "small and indaquate" as a libray.

The post office moved out in the March of 1924 to just opposite and moved again in the November of 1927.

Number 50 Wilmlsow Road May 1925

All of which is quite intriguing and takes me off in new directions not least of which is why the Stephen family who lived here in the April of 1911 should have all moved on by December leaving the property to become a post office.

And for that I shall have to wander into town and look over the old street directories for the years from 1911 till 24.



Pictures; of Wilmslow Road circa 1911 courtesy of Mark Fynn, http://www.markfynn.com/manchester-postcards.htm and the demolition of Withington Library, City Engineers Department, May 9 1925, m41842, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council