On taking the first tram from Chorlton to the Airport ...... today

Now I have joined that select and rather eccentric group who try to be some of the first passengers to travel on each new metro line as it is opened.

Top of course of my list was the extension from Chorlton to East Didsbury which took me along the same route as the old trains which began their service back in 1880.

For me it was about recreating a little bit of the history I so often write about but I have to confess that sitting there was also about that long lost hobby of train spotting, model making and much more that fits me into a lad who grew up in the 1950s.

And there is nothing wrong with that, although I have never, like one of my friends bought into sounds of steam engines or taken myself off for trips on private railways.

Instead I will be on one of the first trams to pull in to Chorlton from Cornbrook and head south across the Mersey and onto Wythenshawe and the Airport.

If previous trips are anything to go by I will be surrounded by men and a few women roughly my age, carrying cameras, sound equipment and tram timetables.

Because there is always at least one person who wants to judge the running times, the distance between each stop and the speed of the journey.

Me, I will just sit back and look out at the scenery and in the fullness of time choose a few select stops to alight look around and snap a picture.

This I have done for all of the metro stops from Chorlton to East Didsbury and at least one on the Rochdale line and another on the Ashton-Under-Lyne one.

Not that I can claim to have taken three journeys on the Oldham Rochdale line every time the route was extended.

And yes I am looking forward to the Second City crossing which will prove to be fun.

There is something about travelling across the city looking down and around which is a total different experience to the same views from the bus.

That said I remain a little bothered by the number of times I have had to stand on the route from Chorlton into town.

It doesn't seem to matter if it is the rush hour or later in the day.

Now that might change with the new service but as two people have pointed out it terminates at Cornbrook which mean  changing but I guess I can do that.

And that said since I wrote this in preparation for today, last time I did the 9.30 run there were extra cars laid on which made a difference.

So we shall see I am after all one that believes that the bottle is always half full and I travel in hope.

All of which makes the trip out to the airport an exciting one.

Pictures, Chorlton and Market Street Metro stops, 2014, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Centuries of Change, a new book exploring ten centuries of innovation all downloaded to my Kindle

The shock of the new, travelling by train in 1830

I have always been fascinated by how past generations have adapted and taken in their stride the sweeping changes that confronted them during their lives.

Take my uncle George who was born in the 19th century, lived out his life in the 20th and died at the beginning of the 21st.

During that long life he would have listened  to the early radio broadcasts of King George V talking to the nation, marvelled at the first flying machines, made his own first telephone call and went on to enjoy first the cinema, then the television and in his 95th year was keen to  try out a computer.

In my own 65 years I can remember the old knife grinder who turned up at our door offering to sharpen our knives using his pedal driven grinder, followed the horse drawn milk float and spent evenings listening to the wireless in front of an open coal fire.

Space stations, 1957

Added to which  just a few years after I had given up reading the Eagle comic with its space hero Dan Dare travelling across the Galaxy I sat and watched the live transmission of the first landing on the moon.

More quite recently if someone had told me I could own a small portable device which allowed me to instantly communicate with anyone around the globe, transmit images and receive all sorts of information I would have laughed at them.

But such is change, and like many who have lived through some pretty big ones I am tempted to think that it is those of us who have lived through the last century that has had to adapt the most.

Now that of course is arrant nonsense, change didn’t start in 1963* or for that matter in 1763 and pretty much every generation has had to put up with the “shock of the new.”

All of which is a long winded introduction to a new book I have started reading on Centuries of Change by Ian Mortimer.**

As the historian Dominic Sandbrook wrote in his review of the book, “it is the arrogance of modernity to think we live in uniquely eventful times, even though none of us have has ever experienced a cataclysm like the Black Death.”***

My first Nokia, circa,1994

And so the book sets out to review changes that occurred over the last ten centuries and explores for instance the power of the railway to transform the world in the 19th century against the impact of when Copernicus suggested that the Earth rotates around the Sun and Luther broke the Christian church in two in the 16th.

Nor is that all as Mr Mortimer writes in the introduction, “the aim of this book is to provoke discussion about what we are and what we have done over the course of a thousand years, as well as what we are capable of doing and what is beyond our capabilities, and to estimate what our extraordinary experiences over the last ten centuries mean for the human race.”

And as a twist I downloaded it electronically to my Kindle which neatly offers up a little observation of how change can work.

That said I for one will always want to call in at Chorlton Bookshop, partly to ensure such a good place survives but also because my kindle, does not perform well in strong sunlight and is challenged by sea water and sand.

Pictures; Inaugural journey of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway 1830, A.B.Clayton, from the front of the Eagle February 11 1952, my first Nokia circa 1994

* Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP"   Annus Mirabilis, Philip Larkin

** Centuries of Change by Ian Mortimer, Bodley Head, 2014


***When the worlds changed, Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times, November 2 2014

Home Thoughts of Well Hall from a distance ........... nu 5

Now I am not one to get over homesick but this is the time of year I left Well Hall for Manchester.

In the intervening 45 years I haven’t been back as many times as I would wish and so for all those like me that miss the place and in particular the Tudor Barn here over the next few days courtesy of Chrissie Rose is what we are missing.

Picture; Well Hall Pleasuance, from the collection of Chrissie Rose

Thank you to Wilbrahams of Chorlton for preserving one of our ghost signs

Now as everyone knows I have a fascination for ghost signs which are the names of businesses and products which have long since vanished.

You find them on the walls of buildings and sometimes briefly come to light when an old sign is taken down to reveal the even older one behind.

Those that have survived are often in a poor state and are left to the elements which means that they will in the fullness of time is lost forever.

So I was very pleased to see that the owners of Wilbrahams of Chorlton decided to retain the old signs which are even more interesting given that the name of J D Gannon who ran newsagents was painted over an even earlier one.*

Now I have yet to dig into the street directories but J D Gannon’s are listed at 550b Wilbraham Road in the 1964 telephone directory.

By 1968 they have moved next door to 504 and were still there in 1975.

And given that this is well within living memory I have high hopes that stories of that shop will come flooding back.

In the meantime all credit to the current owners who have kept a little of our history for all too see.

Picture; Wilbrahams of Chorlton and those ghost signs, 2014 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Ghost signs on Wilbraham Road, two for one courtesy of Ted Harris, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/ghost-signs-on-wilbraham-road-two-for.html


from the series The Ghost Sign, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Ghost%20Sign

The schoolgirl, the mangler, and the railway porter’s wife

Another story  from my friend Lois

Lois, 2014

In my latest novel, ‘Magick’, a genealogical mystery, the main character Thomas says “Daphne wanted me to do her family tree; I was pleased to, although mentioned again that sometimes people appear and disappear, and sometimes unexpected things crop up, things which might have been secret”. 

This is so true!

When you are researching a family history, the most unexpected things can turn up, not necessarily that there is royalty in a family or a famous person, but the ordinary everyday lives of your ancestors maybe not be quite as ordinary after all.

While looking up a friend’s family I found that a distant great-however-many-times grandfather had married his step-sister; another friend, another tree, and a son had married his aunty… Both these details had been ‘smudged’ in the family history as my friends knew it, but research and a little genealogical detective work found the truth.

However, sometimes other ‘secrets’ are revealed.  My character Thomas is searching for his maternal ancestors; a woman appears in a census, the wife of a distant member of his family, but in the following census she disappears from the family home.

She hasn’t died… she was an inmate of Bethnal Green Lunatic Asylum. My character is fictional, but there is always the possibility that anyone’s missing ancestor might have been locked away because they were mentally ill.

As part of the research for my novel I looked at the 1881 census return for Bethnal House, The Licensed House for the Reception of the Insane. At that time the Doctor in charge was John Millar from Glasgow, who lived at the hospital with his wife and son.

Bethnam Green 1872

There were thirty-four staff, and twenty attendants.

I looked at one page in particular to get a sense of what might be found about an ancestor if he or she had the misfortune to suffer from mental illness in the nineteenth century.

The census page gives a lot of information that anyone might expect about the inmates; date and place of birth, occupation etc., but the last column on the return has a disturbing heading:
a) deaf and dumb
b) blind
c) imbecile or idiot
d) lunatic

On the page I looked at, all the women ‘inmates’ were noted as ‘lunatic’ and three of the poor women were also blind…

These women came from all over the place, Peterborough, Haverfordwest, St Just in Cornwall, Gosport in Hampshire… and New Zealand!

Their occupations are equally varied too; some are just noted as ‘housewife’ or ‘Lady’, some work in mainly domestic situations, mangler, washerwoman, charwoman, laundress, needlewoman, machinist… others are described by their husband’s occupation, cabinet maker’s wife, plumber’s wife, draper’s wife, railway porter’s wife. They are of every age from 16, yes, 16, to 76 and there are almost equal numbers of single, married and widowed women.

I looked at the 16 year old; her ‘occupation’ noted as schoolgirl… how very sad and she is the young woman who was born in New Zealand.

One can only imagine what had happened that she was locked away like this at such a young age among women of every age and background and affliction.

Bethnal House, 1872

Bethnal House lunatic asylum was opened as a private ‘madhouse’ called Kirby's Castle in 1726 but was extended and renamed the White House.

By1800 it had 300 inmates paid for by the parish, which cost nearly ten shillings (50p) per person per week.

Within 15 years there were 933 inmates. Later there were separate houses for men and women, the Red House and the White House.

One can only imagine the conditions, and abuses were reported which resulted in two resident medical officers being appointed.

By 1851, after rebuilding, Bethnal Green had nearly sixty staff and the inmates were beginning to be treated more as sick people than mad animals. The asylum finally closed in 1920.

This is the fascinating thing about searching for your family, you never know what you may find!

Pictures; Lois courtesy of Barri Sparshot, detail of Bethnal Green from the 1872 OS, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

© Lois Elsden loiselsden.com, loiselsden.co.uk

All my books are available on Amazon.

That Blockbuster's shop on Barlow Moor Road

I am pleased that local artist Peter Topping has painted the old Blockbuster shop on Barlow Moor Road, because its days are numbered.

It is a building I have written about already and long after it has gone I daresay there will be more stories.*

And I know why.

Blockbusters will be a fond memory for many people as the place the family weekend began, starting with those early evening Friday visits.

And while one of us went off to get the takeaway the other chose the movie, did the deal on the kid’s films and came away with a mountain of popcorn, sweets and soft drinks.

But the building is often also confused with the cinema which was next door which opened in the 1930s.

Our building was once a “public market place” which closed sometime before 1939 and then reopened as "E.Boydell and Co. Ltd, painting and finishing department, agricultural machinery.”

And now its days are numbered because planning permission has been granted for the
“erection of three-storey mixed use building comprising 3no. retail units of (Class A1) retail space (762 square metres total) at ground floor with 12no. two bed apartments on above two floors following demolition of existing retail store”**

So that just leaves you to read the other stories on Chorlton Blockbusters, admire Mr Topping’s painting and perhaps wander down to view this little bit of our history before it goes.

Painting; Blockbusters, © 2014 Peter Topping,

Facebook; Paintings from Pictures,, Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Picture; my Blockbuster card, circa 2010, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Blockbusters, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Blockbusters

**Manchester City Council Planning Applications, 105734/FO/2014/S1 http://pa.manchester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=N5T7KZBC6K000

Gazing into shop windows

It is pretty much one of those things that advertising and all the posters, TV commercials and catch phrases that go with a successful campaign can both date and also illuminate a period.

I still have fond memories of the little robots who thought making mashed potato using the raw ingredients was plain daft and old fashioned when a packet of powder could deliver the business.

Or that stylish and award winning commercial which featured a man under a street light at night holding a cigarette with the caption “You are never alone with a Strand.”

Awards it might have won but many associated the cigarette with being alone and sales did not match its style.

All of which is merely to state the obvious that any advert is of its time and reflects what think, value and even what makes us laugh.

Who now could make an advert using a certain primate dressed in human clothes and performing as we do?

All of which made me reflect on these two posters in two empty shops in Huddersfield recently.

Thinking back there were more than two empty retail units and the posters were doing the bit of keeping the place looking busy.

And I have to say I liked them.  Big bold and in your face.

I shall go back sometime soon and see if they are still there.

Pictures; Huddersfield posters, 2014, from the collection of Andrew Simpson