When Granby Street and Humberstone Gate offer up a heap of surprises …

In Leicester we are tourists.

Granby Street and the Grand Hotel, 1926

We started going about four years ago to see the kids and now we have added the grandchildren to the reason we travel down from Manchester to Knighton.

But when they are at work and school we revert to being tourists, which is how we got to properly explore the city centre last January.

The Airbnb on Charles Street was perfect for forays out to see the sights, take in a meal, and discover Richard 111, the old Town Hall, and the museum.

In between there were all those tiny little streets which offer up a heap of surprises.

Reverse of Granby Street card, 1926

Not that Granby Street or Humberstone Gate can be said to be little, although they did both yield up some surprises.

The first was that the Grand Hotel was still there and still impossible to photograph, for which I took a tad bit of pleasure given that the photographer for Tuck and Son’s postcard did no better than me.

It is of course a big building, and the street is quite narrow making a decent shot which gets in all the detail a challenge.  At which point I am aware someone will contradict me and send one over.

And that is the challenge should anyone choose to attempt to pull off a photographic coup.

Knowing we were going to do the city centre tourist adventure I had brought along a selection of my Tuck picture postcards.  

Tuck and Son were a major postcard company with offices across the world and a huge catalogue of British and international locations.

Humberstone Gate and Bell Hotel, 1943

And amongst their Leicester collection are a series which appear to date from 1926, although the actual photograph might be older, and the usage date might stretch way beyond their first issue.

So, in the case of the Humberstone Gate card, it was posted in 1943, and was sent from the Bell Hotel which was located at number 26 Humberstone Gate.

Part of the surprise for this one was that the message records a Mr and Mrs Clayton were spending part of their honeymoon at the Bell, and “were having a grand old time there”.

Alas, the hotel and the rest of the buildings are now under the Haymarket.  Well I say so, but I am but a tourist so I shall wait confirmation.

Reverse of Humberstone Gate card, 1943

Location; Granby Street or Humberstone Gate, Leicester

Picture;  Granby Street or Humberstone Gate, Leicester, 1926, from Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdbpostcards.org/ 

When we had a piano shop on Beech Road

Sometimes a picture captures a moment which with hindsight allows you to see that things were just about to change.

Here is another of those photographs taken by Tom McGrath in the middle 1980s.

I don’t suppose any of us could have realized that as we walked past the old closed up off license that within a couple of years two out of these three shops would be part of the transformation of Beech Road.

For as long as I can remember Muriel and Richard had run the green grocers in the centre of the parade.

On one side had been the off license which had sold bottled beer since the early years of the 20th century, while on the other the shop had been many things, including in the 50s a grocery store and by the time I washed up here was selling pianos.

But all of that was about to change and Tom’s pictures captures that point of change.  The off license which had struggled on into the 1980s became the Italian deli while the piano shop became a cafe before becoming a series of wine bars and growing its extension.

Only Richard and Muriel’s stayed the course, but were about to have a new and very impressive sign put above the door announcing that they were the Purveyors of fine fruit and vegetables, which they were.  But back in the mid 80s such things just didn’t seem to be done in the same way.

If you wanted fruit and veg, then that is where on Beech Road you went.  Just like if you needed paraffin or the odd nail or screw you went to the ironmongers next to Wilkinson’s the butchers.  Everyone knew them and knew what they sold.

Of course within a few years the old council offices had become the Lead Station, the grocers' beside the barbers' had become Primavera and the Wool Shop was to become Truth.  All of which makes Tom’s picture such a wonderful record of the old Beech Road some of us still remember.  And as if on cue as I was standing outside one of the new shops a couple went past telling their friend about “trendy Beech Road.”

What a lot has changed.

Picture, Beech Road circa 1980s, from the collection of Tom McGrath

Far away places ……..

I collect hotel luggage labels, which I know marks me off as odd, especially as I have never visited any of the hotels in the collection.

But then as most of them date from the 1950s and 60s, and given that I was born in 1949 it’s unlikely that I would have ever ordered a meal in the Semiramis in Cairo or the Palm Beach in Beirut.

Move on a decade and it just possible that I might have scrapped up enough to sit in the hotel lounge sipping a G&T and people watching.

That said the Lebanon was sliding into civil war and Beirut was fast becoming a battleground.

The surprise is that both these “luxury” hotels are still doing the business in the 21st century, with the Semiramis announcing that it is “located 0.9 km from Egyptian Antiquities Museum, guests of 5-star Intercontinental Cairo Semiramis Hotel may find a night club and loungers on-site. This venue is just 550 metres from Garden City.

The accommodation is placed in the centre of Cairo, a stroll away from Tahrir Square. It is set in the shopping area, a few steps from Downtown Cairo. Intercontinental Cairo Semiramis Hotel is a short drive from Mosque of Ibn Tulun.

The hotel offers luxurious rooms furnished with ironing facilities, direct dial phone and smoke detectors. Enjoy the magnificent view over the sunset. Showers, a bidet and slippers, as well as a kettle, a microwave and kitchenware are featured.

A bar serves a buffet breakfast. Thai meals are supplied at the gastronomic restaurant. At the on-site Poolside bar guests can relax and enjoy cold drinks. Nile Terrace offers a rich choice of Middle Eastern, Arabic and Egyptian dishes daily. The nearest underground station, Sadat, is about 400 metres away. The property has a rooftop swimming pool as well as steam baths, various massages and facials. A gym area and fitness are also part of the sport facilities available”.

While the Palm Beach informs possible clientele that it “is located on the famous Corniche. Overlooking the Mediterranean Sea it is only 10 minutes from Beirut International Airport & few minutes walking distance from the Downtown”.

So that is it.

I am not sure hotels still do luggage labels, so I am grateful to Ann Scot Cooks who collected these in the 1960s and donated them to the collection, as a timely reminder of how travel used to be.

Location; Cairo and Beirut, circa 1960s

Pictures; the Semiramis, and Palm Beech Hotels, circa 1960s, from the collection of Ann Scot Cooks

Lost in Kibworth ….. ten miles from Leicester ……..

Now I am not surprised that I have no idea where I am.

The picture postcard just says Leicester Road Kibworth, and despite wandering up and down the road today, I can’t get a fix on just where the picture was taken.

To be fair it comes from a series that Tuck and Son marketed in 1926 which gives plenty of scope for change.

But once I have located the row of houses, I have the census returns for 1901 through to 1921 and street directories lined up to help tell a story.

And Kibworth has come to fascinate me since I came across it a few days ago.

It was and still is a small village just 10 miles south of Leicester, with a population of 990, which has only doubled in a century.

Back in 1916 there were just 446 people with the usual list of tradesmen, and those linked to the land, but also a number who were engaged in the hosiery trade.  

To these can be added the 15 “posh people” who got their own listing in Kelly’s directory for 1916 including Col. Worthy Chaplain C.B., V.C., at Kibworth hall, and Major George Travers in the Old house.

It boasted three pubs and a beer seller and those hosiery frame knitters one of whom also ran the Admiral Nelson.

So, lots to find out and while the purists will point out it ain’t Leicester, its close enough to draw me in.

All I need to do is found out where I am. 

And that has been supplied by Ben who wrote, "Hi Andrew. My folks live just round the corner on Main St in Kibworth. This is the area around 63 Leicester Rd facing north towards the city of Leicester".

Location; somewhere in Kibworth

Picture; Leicester Road, 1926, from Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdbpostcards.org/, and Kelly’s Directory for Leicestershire, 1916

Buying a holiday and shopping at Liptons in 1981

It is one of those pictures which you recognise instantly and then reflect on just how different it is today.

It is sometime in the early 1980s and I have to say I remember going to most of the shops in the parade.

My favourite was the Travel Agents, two doors down from Liptons.  This was the age before internet booking, and the cutting edge of arranging a holiday was the telephone.

So my trip to Paris was arranged over the phone, first the chap behind the counter phoned the hotel, checking availability, and then I bought the railway tickets from Manchester to London, London to Dover and lastly from the French coast to Paris, booked the ferry crossing and lastly confirmed the hotel.

And while I waited, I stared at posters advertising train excursions to Scarborough, a mystery coach trip to somewhere in the Midlands and two nights in Blackpool, "bed and breakfast for the weekend and the wonderfully romantic Illuminations".

I suppose I could have flown but it never even crossed my mind.  I do know that with the money I thought I had saved by not flying I ate in the restaurant next door.

A decade earlier as a student it would have been the three course business meal offered for the staggering price of six shillings. It was a good deal and an instant introduction to the variety of Chinese and Asian food.


So leaving aside my cheap student meals, I think I will close by reflecting on holidays.  For many they were still a thing you did in Britain and if like me you didn’t have a car then it was the train. Just a few decades earlier it would have been how most of us went off to the seaside.

The bus ride from home to the station, the wait on the platform and if you were posh or just sensible flopping down in reserved seats and watching as people walked up and down looking for somewhere to sit.

Usually we were part of that scramble.  The kids sent on a head to grab enough places, and once we were all settled and the row about who had the window seat were sorted, it was time to open the sandwiches and begin the campaign to persuade the grownups that a jam filled choc roll bought from the local supermarket was no substitute for the delights that were offered in the buffet car.  All of which was made easier on those trains where the trolley of food and drinks was brought down the corridor.

Still all of that is a long way from Liptons, and the old fashioned travel agents.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; from the Lloyd collection, Wilbraham Road and Chorlton station

Behind the Green Door ……………what's that secret you're keepin'?

Well yes, it is a play on that old song The Green Door which is all about the mystery of what was behind the door.

The song was written by Marvin Moore to the music composed by Bob ‘Hutch’ Davie in 1956 and was a hit, recorded by Jim Lowe in the United States, and Frankie Vaughan in Britain.

I grew up with the mystery and in 1981 for some silly reason bought the version by Shakin’ Stevens which I promptly lost.

I suspect the story behind this green door will be equally intriguing and given that for many decades it was a residential home there will be plenty of stories.

When I passed in 2019 it was empty and waiting for something to happen.

It could be developed into fine apartments with views across the grounds of the hospital opposite, or face the fate of many grand old buildings which are left neglected, fall victim to vandalism and finally are demolished.

And having passed it a few times when we were down visiting our Polly and Joshua, I decided to go digging for its past.

In 1916 it was the home of a Mr. John Frears, and consisted of 13 rooms with the grand name of Hillsborough. 

Here Mr. Frears lived with his wife, Minnie, their five children and one servant, who described herself as the cook.

He was a director of the Frears Bread Company who were located at 11 Frog Lane in 1916.

Alas that building has gone, but I can track him back to a more modest property on Osborne Road, and follow his path on in to 1924 when he applied to be admitted to Freedom of the City of London, in the Company of the Framework Knitters and to his death in 1937 when he was still at Hillsborough, and left £26,107.

His father ran a grocer’s business on Northgate Street in 1870 and progressed to running the bakery on Frog Lane by 1881, at which point the young John was an art student.

There will be more about the Frears family and a trawl of the directories for the period after 1936 should fix the moment that Hillsborough became a residential home.

But for now, for no other reason than I like the song I will close with,

“There's an old piano
And they play it hot behind the green door
Don't know what they're doing
But they laugh a lot behind the green door
Wish they'd let me in so I could find out”,

Location; Leicester









Pictures; Hillsborough, Westcoates Drive, Leicester, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

If its Tuesday it is Lake Garda ........ travelling by hotel labels in the 1950s ..... part 1

Now I don’t even know if hotels still give away suitcase labels.

If they don’t that is a shame because I am sitting beside some of the ones my dad collected in his years as a coach driver and they are fascinating

Not that he ever stuck them on his suit cases, he just brought them home which may have been an earlier version of the tourist habit of collecting the soap and shampoo from the bathroom.

He was at the luxury end of the motor holiday trade and his passengers would be whisked on a seven, nine or fifteen day tour of mainland Europe from the Benelux countries as far as the Swiss Alps and the Italian Lakes.

They would be fed and accommodated at good hotels, provided with a first class guide and had time off to wander as they wished.

But it was a fairly rigid timetable which has often prompted me to think that if you dozed off or looked away long enough from the window you might well have missed an entire country.

It is not my idea of a holiday but was so successful that it kept Glenton Tours going from the 1920s well past the time Dad retired in 1982.

That said it was still a wonderful way of seeing new places allowing you to get a sense of what  made each country and town along the way that little bit different.

Today most of us just get on a plane and with in a couple of hours have arrived at the destination,  having spent the entire journey ordering a drink, wrestling with a packet of peanuts and pondering on what to buy from "the onboard offers."

Only after the bags have been collected and passport control completed do you get a sense of where you are which even then may be some what muted by the long wait for the holiday tour bus to fill up and set off.

All of which makes me think that the fifteen day coach holiday to the Italian Lakes, taking in a bit of France, lots of Luxembourg and Bellgium and northrn Italy has some merit.

And so for no other reason than I haven’t looked at these labels for half a century I shall post a few a week, and in the fullness of time will go looking for each of the hotels.

Pictures; hotel labels from the 1950s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson