A year and a bit of the story of that petrol station on Wilbraham Road

It began back in March of last year with a picture of that closed petrol station on Wilbraham Road, became a series of stories featuring  our first variety theatre and cinema which opened soon after the death of the old Queen and went on to encompass other garages on the same site.

And running through all of them was a set of photographs by Andy Robertson recording the demolition of one petrol station, the building of another and finally today the new one.

Taken together the images are a wonderful story of how one bit of Chorlton changed in just over a year and brought out of the shadows an early bit of our history.

Picture; the Morrisons Petrol Station on Wilbraham Road, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson

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

The men and women who built our railways, revisiting the Railway Navvies by Terry Coleman

I don’t think that when I bought The Railway Navvies back in the September of 1970 it would still be on the bookshelf today or that I would be sitting down rereading it  for the third time.*

And yet I don’t know why I am surprised.

It was one of those books that addressed a group of people few historians had bothered to look at in any great detail.

They were the stuff of walk on parts which has been the plight of most working people in history books until relatively recently.

I grew up reading about the good and the rich, the clever and the powerful sprinkled with a selection of Kings and a few Queens, but how ever important these contributors to history were they were not my history.

None of them would be seen going into the Co-op at Well Hall, or catching the early morning bus to Metro Vics or for that matter cleaning the stairs at Central Ref.

And yet their lives, their aspirations and what they did were equally important.

After all the armies of Napoleon, Wellington and Alexander needed cooks and blacksmiths while the good and the great wouldn’t have got far without a host of servants, clerks and tradesmen.

All of which brings me back to the men who built the railways with little more than shovels, wheelbarrows, their own physical strength and the odd bit of gunpowder.

They were often feared by the locals who saw their temporary encampments as blots on the landscape worse even than the railway the navvies were constructing.

But it makes fascinating reading from the opening chapter on the Navvy Age, to ones on their work, the encampment, and dangers along with much on their wives and individual workers.

Moreover it has stood the test of time and was recently singled out Christian Woolmar the railway historian as one to read.

So there it is, and I shall close with the concluding lines of the book,  “Of the navvies, Samuel Smiles said that their handiwork would be the wonder and admiration of succeeding generations.  Loking at their gigantic traces, the men of some future age might be found ready to say of the engineer and his workmen, that there were giants in those days.”**

Picture; Working Shaft – Kilsby Tunnel from a lithograp published by J C Bourne London and used on the cover of the Railway Navvies

* The Railway Navvies, Terry Coleman, 197, Pelican Books

**ibid page 237

Growing up in Eltham, another story from Sue Hurley

I was born in Woolwich in the British Hospital for Mothers and Babies in October 1957, to a family
who lived in Cuff Crescent Eltham SE9. 

Sue and Viv Cuff Crescent, 1964

I grew up in that street and made many friends on the Middle Park Estate, and many I still have to this day.

Friends with whom, I shared many laughs and games. I lived there until I married in 1979 at the age of 21.

We would play on the green at the bottom of our road, kids altogether, all ages, playing rounders, or football, or game of Feet Off England.

If not on the green we would play knock down ginger, two balls up the wall, or sit on the kerbs or front door steps swopping whatever we were collecting at the time.

I would be called in at tea time,and many a time dragged in a friend or two and asked if they could have tea too.

I went to Middle Park School and walked to school like many others did. Not many of us had cars in
those days.

The boys and girls had separate playgrounds when we were in the Juniors. As a girl I spent many
a lunch hour with elastic round my ankles…..playing French skipping. I knew you were thinking the
same thing!! It became very popular, hooking one side of the elastic with one foot over the other
side with little skips.

Cuff Crescent, 1972

In the shelter when it rained playing two balls up the wall or seeing the world from a different view doing handstands. Oh we were very fit back then!

Saturday mornings were spent at the pictures. Always with a group of friends. We didn’t have far to
go to the Gaumont on Eltham Hill.

We didn’t go there for long as the Saturday morning show moved to the ABC in Eltham High Street.

And there we started with “We are the boys and girls of the ABC….” as the spotlight (or big torch) was shone on us and we all hoped we might just get picked. Saturday afternoons we were in the park by Queenscroft Rd.

I loved roller skating on the rink, or sitting around the pool in the summer chilling my feet in the water while chatting to friends.

When December came in the 1960’s I used to go carol singing with one of my best friends
Vivienne. Not just knocking on the door singing one verse of ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’, Viv
and I did it right.

We practised hard beforehand and learnt our carols. We stood at the doors and just sang, we didn’t knock. And we always got people coming to the door and they would stand andlisten. We earned our Christmas spending money that way every year and happily went to Eltham High Street and often Woolworths to spend our wages on presents for our families.

A couple of times we put on shows in our gardens in the summer months. Mum’s old curtains
across the washing line to make a stage and dining room chairs on the lawn. We sang, we learnt
dance routines. We were probably rubbish, but we thought we could sing like Connie Francis.
Stupid Cupid being a real favourite.

Teenage years were spent going to Kidbrooke School. A walk up King John’s Walk every weekday
to catch the 161 bus, by Cater’s. A walk which awakened me to the beautiful Eltham Palace which I
could see from my bedroom window along with the farm which was next door. It was then taken
over by the Army, and I always wished I could go in and look around.

Debbie and Sue, 1973

Saturday morning pictures were taken over by Saturday afternoon pictures at Well Hall and sometimes with a boyfriend on my arm. (Don’t tell Dad!) And six of chips on the way home from the chippy in Well Hall Road.

Or some Saturdays we would venture to Woolwich or Lewisham to the big shops and the markets.

The wonderful record shop in Lewisham which had the listening booths and we would spend ages
listening to all the new records.

Didn’t have much money but it what I did have was always spent
on records or new coloured tights.

Sunday mornings were often spent at Eltham swimming baths. I wasn’t the greatest swimmer.

I couldn’t swim until I was 10. I had the luck of a great teacher at Middle Park who took me and 2
others who had a fear of the water, swimming on Sunday mornings. She was amazing and showed
great patience with us. She had me swimming within 3 weeks.

We had a Middle Park reunion a few years back and Mrs George came along.

How pleased I was that she remembered me and our swimming trips. She also remembered our school journey to the Isle of Wight and how Patsy Stenning and I had tidied the boys chalets for them so they could have buns and hot chocolate for supper and not miss out.

That was the rule. If your beds were not made, and your things not put away on inspection, you were denied your supper.

Not sure what me and Patsy got out of that. We also sang on the stage for our talent contest.

I couldn’t do that now for all the tea in China, but somehow back then, I seemed to have no fear of an audience!

When I hit the magic age of 14, I started to go to King’s Park (Eltham Palace Road) most evenings.

Night school for most people but for us young ‘uns it was more of a youth club. We took pottery
classes, cookery classes and I even dabbled in the woodwork class. Best of all was Friday, when
we played records that we had taken there and sat and listened to them on the 1960’s Dansette
style player while chatting in our groups, or dancing. Or even playing table tennis.

Viv, Sue and Debbie at Viv's 50th, 2008

I had a wonderful upbringing in Eltham. I loved my young life.

Friends I made then, I have now.

Friends that recall all of the same happy times, all the memories, all of the laughs and the
misfortunes.

And with two very special friends Debbie Stewart Joy and Vivienne Grimwood Hamilton, we have the honour of saying we have stayed close for over 50 years. I can only ever look back and say “I wouldn’t change a thing! Happy Days!”



© Sue Hurley, April 2015

Pictures; from the collection of Sue Hurley

Down on the Rec today with the story that never

Now I wonder what’s going on down at the Rec today

I took the picture but haven’t had time to ask the chaps who are working  there.

I rather think it might be something to do with the Egerton Sewer.*

Now I remember major work done on this sewer sometime in the mid 1980s which involved a huge hole on Beech Road and an equally big one on the Rec in the north east corner.

It dates from the late 1860s and was built at the same time as Wilbraham.

I first came across the sewer when this picture postcard came into the collection.  It dates around 1890 and was taken directly in front of the old parish church.

To the right is the Bowling Green Hotel which was demolished in 1908 for the present building.

According to the caption, “the circular opening, bottom right is the out fall of Wilbraham Egerton’s sewer since extended and covered by a bank and not the arch of the bridge which was later rebuilt.”

One of the only historic references comes in one of the articles written by Thomas Ellwood in a series of articles published in the South Manchester Gazette between 1885 and 66.

The sewer he wrote “runs along the road to within a short distance of the railway bridge at Chorlton station, and then passes through the fields to Barlow Moor Lane, adjoining Lane Edge, crossing High Lane, Cross Road, and Beech Road, thence through various gardens, finally emptying itself into the Chorlton Brook at a point about 200 yards below the bridge which crosses the stream leading to Jackson's boat.”*

All of which just leaves me to walk across, have that conversation and update the story.

Picture; of the Egerton outfall circa 1890 donated by Mrs May Boardman to from the Lloyd collection and the Rec in 2105 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Looking towards our village sometime in the summer of 1890, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013_03_01_archive.html

**Ellwood, T.L., Chapter 6, South Manchester Gazette,

A quiet day along the Rochdale Canal ........ part two

I first stumbled across that stretch of the Rochdale Canal which runs from the Dale Street Basin to Castlefield through the heart of the city.

It was sometime in the mid 1970s and still find it a fascinating place.

So here over the next few days are some images taken by Andy Robertson on a sunny March day.

Picture; the Rochdale Canal March 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson

Living through the Blitz ........... Manchester and London and eight short films

I cannot really imagine living through the Blitz, those nightly ordeals of making preparations to spend a night in the shelters, waiting for the wail of the siren and then that night of broken sleep listening to the whistle and crump of bombs mixed with the fear of a direct hit.

So London Can take It which is a collection of short films made during the last world war are a vivid record of what was once a nightly experience for people across the country.

And despite the title and the emphasis on London there is a brilliant short from the Co-op on the Manchester Blitz.

All of the eight were of course made as propaganda and the thing about propaganda films from the last world war is that you can take them in many different ways.

On the surface they present an insight into how we got on with the war which despite the fact that they are propaganda show real people in real situations.

But looking at them from a distance of three quarters of a century they show how the British Government wanted the war and its prosecution to be seen by both the home population and countries around the world.

And layered on top of that were how the film makers play writers and documentary makers saw their role and went about their work in telling the story of Britain at war.

Sometimes their perception of what should be made and showed ran counter to that of the Governments of which the best example is the film The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp by Powell and Pressburger which Churchill didn’t like and wanted suppressed but which was a strong film about British values.

I still enjoy watching it and count it alongside a handful of others which in their different ways portrayed a nation at war.

All of them focused on that powerful idea that this was the Peoples’ War.  Now I am not naive enough to think that everyone thought so, there were still much snobbery, a degree of corruption and a practical cynicism of some of what we told.

But that said remembering conversations with my mother and others there was a degree of purpose and ideal which these short films convey.

So I reckon they are well watching.  The collection which starts with London Can take it and finishes with that Co-op film on Manchester are available on a DVD from the Imperial war Museum.

Pictures; cover and rear of London Can Take It, IWM, Design by Simple Design

Back in Well Hall

Now I think you can never get enough pictures of Well Hall and especially photographs by Chrissie Rose, so here are the last of those she took earlier in March.

Picture; Well Hall in March 2015, from the collection of Chrissie Rose