Looking out of Stretford

I wonder just how many people remember this bit of Stretford before the precinct.

I have only seen old pictures, and with a bit of luck, Bill and others will be prompted to post pre-precinct photographs.

What I like about Andy Robertson’s two pictures is that they capture this new bit of Stretford from angles most people never photograph.

Added to which, they were taken at moment when the area is undergoing fresh change.

All of which means that these with the others that he took yesterday will become part of the story of changing Stretford.

The fate of the old cinema is still shrouded in doubt, and I have lost count of the proposed uses for what is still an iconic building.

But happily the old Town Hall has been saved.

And just one of those memories comes from Gordon Howe, who told me, "My Mum worked in Stretford Post Office from approximately the mid 40s to the mid 50s, and I know that amongst my many boxes of family photos (which I have stored and will get round to sorting out and scanning one day!) there are photos taken around the building. I promise to share them when that happens!"

Location; Stretford



Pictures; Stretford, 2018, from the collection of Andy Robertson

A Christmas Day delivery for Didsbury ……….

Now here is a neat idea ………… a postal delivery on Christmas Day.

That said I would be the first to agree that such a service may not sound so good if you are a postal worker with a family looking forward to Christmas Day in front of the tree, opening presents with the kids.

But once upon a time, as well as multiple deliveries and collections on any one day, the Post Office offered the service of “Posted in advance” for Christmas Day.

This was designed to relieve pressure on delivering Christmas mail, by allowing people to hand in letters and cards from early December for Christmas day delivery and was marked with a special postmark.

All of which makes this picture postcard of Didsbury just that bit different.

The scene is familiar enough and little appears to have changed, although today the pub has been transformed from “young things venue” to a restaurant and the station building to the right has disappeared.

In the same way, I went looking for 6 The Crescent in Disley, but with no success, still I am sure Miss Bennet will have been pleased with her Christmas Day picture postcard from “auntie”.

And more than that, she might be surprised that, according to my old friend David Harrop, an expert on all things posty, these special Christmas day cards can command three figures.

Location; Didsbury & Disley

Picture; picture postcard Didsbury, 1905, from the collection of David Harrop

Miss Ethel Isabel Simpson a bracelet a teacher's certificate and ……… a life revealed

Now I am the first to concede that other people’s lives should remain private, but I am drawn to the story of Miss Ethel Simpson.

She is not a relative and died before I was born, and what I know about her is still very scant.

Moreover, until yesterday I knew nothing about her and even now apart from a few records that I have turned up, her life is still in the shadows.

But I have seen one of her possessions and as ever there is something powerful in holding an object which once remained special to an individual.

In this case it is a bracelet, made up of silver threepences dating from the reign of King George V.

I remember the coin well because my uncle gave me a collection of similar ones which to my eternal shame, I squandered on Aifix kits.

The coin has a long history but had become unpopular because of their small size, and so in the 1940s the design was changed to a bras coin which was more substantial.

All of which me brings me back to Miss Simpson’s bracelet.

I have no idea whether it was a present or whether she had decided to make them into the bracelet.

But I can be pretty sure that it dates from the mid-1930s, given that the newest coin was minted in 1934, by which time she was living in Southport at 39 Pilkington Road, where she still was until her death

In 1939,  she shared the house with two other residents, one of which was “the housekeeper and owner”.

So far that is almost it.

I know she was born in 1889, worked as a teacher from 1912 at the Girls’ Grammar School, Lancaster and from 1914 at the High School for Girls’ in Southport, teaching modern foreign languages.

Added to which, she had qualified with a 1st Class Honours in German and French and was awarded a Diploma of the Alliance francais (Paris) with Distinction, along with a Cambridge Teacher’s Diploma and 1st class Certificates in Spanish and Italian.

Other than that, there is very little at present.

She died in February 1945 in Longdendale, and the proceeds of her estate which amounted to £3945 4s 3d were left to a Miss Elsie Thorpe, who had been a teacher of Art and who shared the house on Pilkington Road.

It is not much to mark a life, but it is a start, and for any one who questions the point of digging into the records which may appear to be intrusive, I would just say that everyone’s life is special and deserves a level of recognition.

And providing the research is factually accurate, and respects the person in question, it is a valid exercise.

In time I might be able to find out more, including which of the census returns for 1901 and 1911 belong to our Edith Simpson, and whether any employment records have survived.

She may turn up on electoral rolls, for Southport, although these will be limited to the pre-war years, and there may be press cuttings.  Likewise, there is always Miss Thorpe, but all of that is for another time.

Location; Lancaster, Southport.

Pictures; bracelet, 2018, courtesy of David Harrop 

“thrashed many a time by Bower’s servants” childhood memories in Fallowfield

It is easy to forget that south Manchester was not always just a sprawling set of suburbs on the edge of the city centre.

Once upon a time and really not that long ago it was a distinct group of townships, each with its own rural traditions set apart from its big neighbour but with close links none the less.

Our farmers and market gardeners went into the Manchester markets with their agricultural produce and we in turn received the Sunday trade out for a day in the countryside, along with the carriers and itinerant tradesmen.  Then there were the increasing number of wealthy Manchester families moving out to the fields and meadows away from the grime, smoke and noise of the city.

What always surprises me is that these rural communities lasted into the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  There are still people here who remember our blacksmith on Beech Road and can tell stories of being sent for milk from the local farms.

So I have decided to spend a little time in Fallowfield in the 1840s getting an idea of how they did things.  Like our own Thomas Ellwood, Fallowfield had  Mrs Williamson who in the 1880s collected the memories of older inhabitants of what the place was like in the early part of that century.*

Here were stories of handloom weavers and of the apple plantation at Lady Barn where children collected crab apples, and one woman confessed to being “thrashed many a time by Bower’s servants” for stealing the fruit.

And if you had washed up in Fallowfied in early August you would have been right in the middle of the wakes.

This was once popular all over England and was linked to the local saint to whom the parish church was dedicated. In Chorlton’s case this was the third Sunday in July when we celebrated St Clements’s Day, but here in Fallowfied it was August 5th in memory of St James.

It was the custom whereby villagers brought fresh rushes to spread on the church floor after the old ones had been swept out gave the day its other name of rush bearing.

The rushes were brought on a rush cart which was a farmer’s flat cart decorated with garlands, branches of oaks, ribbons and flags, drawn by 20 or 30 young men harnessed in pairs and covered in garlands and ribbons.

They were accompanied by men carrying banners, as well as pipers, drummers and bell ringers.

According to Mrs Williamson who wrote about Fallowfield in the early 19th century,

“Ashfield was the limit of Fallowfield, and so the limit of the Rush-bearers’ march; the cart was drawn into the grounds at the further gate, and placed in front of the house; the heroes unharnessed themselves and were regaled with beer distributed by the young ladies and gentlemen.  

Then came the Dance; it was not exactly a Morris Dance, because there were no castanets, in later days not even bells, but all the grotesqueness of dress and antic suggestive of Moorish origin.

After an hour’s hard work, another and more plentiful regaling took place, this time on pies, cakes and every good thing the hospitality of a kind-hearted hostess could suggest; and after three good English cheers for their entertainers, the procession reformed and left the grounds in the order in which it had entered.

As gentlemen’s houses increased in number, the visits of the Rush Cart increased; as time passed, gifts changed from food to money, the money to be spent at the Sherwood of White Lion; but in the early part of the century the party came directly from Ashfield and Mabfield to the village, danced there until even the girls were tired, and then dismissed.”

So a little bit of Fallowfield a long time ago.

Picture; Grundy’s Farm, Ladybarn Lane, 1890, m22340, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass maps from Sketches of Fallowfield

* Williamson Mrs W.C., Sketches of Fallowfield and the surrounding Manors, 1888

One hundred and forty-four years remembered ……….

Now I like the idea that my 46 years as a member of the National Union of Teachers is now a commemorative window in the Manchester Mechanics Institute.

Of course, that is a bit of a bold assertion.

I am only one of thousands of teachers who can proudly claim to be a member of the Manchester Teacher’s Association which is the local branch of the NUT.

The MTA was formed in 1874 and was absorbed in to the new National Education Union in 2019.

To commemorate its 144 years, the General Secretary of the Manchester Teachers Association suggested the idea of the window which I like.

In an age when some question the role of trade unions I am proud that I am still a member of the National Union of Teachers, and before that carried an USDAW card.

And that is all I am going to say.

Location; Manchester

Picture; The MTA window, from The Manchester Teacher, www.manchesternut.com

Remembering the Second World War …… today …… at St Nininan’s

Now I won’t be alone in looking forward to today's, talk by Michael Thompson in St Ninian’s Church on Wilbraham Road at 1.30.

Michael Thompson will be showing small clips from his  War Memories film , based on Wargen interviews about peoples' recollections of WW2.*

Michael told me that “much of my work has been carried out with historian Dan Snow and the  film is of high quality. **

I will show a number of 3 minute clips, and then there will be a small discussion / feedback /reminisce, touching on call up, rationing, evacuation, Americans and others visitors and then, VE day, coming home, wisdom and legacies.

We are hoping also that a few students from Chorlton High School may be able to join us that afternoon.

The initial idea for WarGen was put forward by broadcaster and historian, Dan Snow, and author and broadcaster, James Holland, and aims to record the memories of as many of these survivors as possible.

They remain crucially important witnesses to the most cataclysmic war the world has ever known”.

The generation that participated in that conflict are now quite old and while there are still many who grew up during the war, the memories of those who went off to fight, stayed at home, working in vital industries and raising families will soon pass from living memory.

All of which makes the Wargen project so important.

So, come and join us at St Ninian’s Church on Wilbraham Road at 1.30 for Michael’s talk hosted by Chorlton Good Neighbours.***

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; courtesy of Michael Thompson

*WarGen, http://wargen.org/

**Hardy Productions UK, http://hardyproductionsuk.com/

***Chorlton Good Neighbours, https://chorltongoodneighbours.org/

Remembering two men who died in the Great War

Now I was not prepared for the picture of Private James Biddle’s war grave.

He was just 27 years old when he was killed in the closing stages of the Great War.

His name appears on the war memorial in Didsbury, and his father was on the committee that oversaw the erection of the memorial in 1921.

That should almost have been the end of the story, but for the picture which was taken today, by Régine Verguier of the grave stone in Buqouy Road Cemetery, near Arras in France.

I was prepared for the white headstone and the details of Private Biddle’s life, but not for the inclusion of Lieutenant R.J. Rawlinson of the Canadian Infantry.

He too was aged 27 and died of wounds on September 30th.

What drew me, in were the badges of the Manchester Regiment and the Maple Leaf at the head of the stone.

And that led me to want to know more about Lieutenant Robert John Rawlinson who was born in 1891 in Furness.

He had enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force on September 23, 1914, at Val Cartier military training camp nine miles north of Quebec City.

He had already done four years in the 4th Battalion of the Kings Own Regiment based at Lancaster.

With more research I might be able to discover what he was doing in Canada in 1914, given that his wife was still in Furness.

But the little I know is remarkable enough.

In 1916 he was promoted to the rank of corporal, and in December of the following year to sergeant and at his death was a Lieutenant, added to which he was awarded the Military Medal in October 1916.

Unlike Private Biddle his army records have survived and will offer up more of his life.*

But for now, that is it.

Location France

Picture; the gravestone of Private James Biddle, and Lieutenant R.J. Rawlinson, 2018, Buqouy Road Cemetery, courtesy of Régine Verguier



*Library and Archives Canada, https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/personnel-records/Pages/item.aspx?IdNumber=595612