Chorlton's corner shops number 15 ........Shopping at Chas Cowsill's on St Clements Road in 1959

I can’t remember if this shop was still doing the business when I washed up in Chorlton in the mid 1970s.

And before I go any further, yes technically it is not a corner shop, but it pretty much still fits the pattern.

They were small, often existed for fairly short periods and sold almost anything.*

Today it seems odd to remember that there were so many of these shops all selling much the same products and surviving.

The street directories are full of them just around Chorlton Green all within a short walk of Beech Road, and the bigger parades on Barlow Moor and Wilbraham Road.

But people really did just shop next door and in an age before most homes had a refrigerator let alone a freezer, daily shopping was essential, made more so by tight incomes.

I cannot remember either my mum or grandparents doing a “big shop.”  Food was what you bought everyday and as for household products these were got only when strictly needed.

So Mr Cowsill’s fruit shop did the business, and like many others the evidence for its existence can still be seen in the brickwork around window.

Picture; 43-47 St Clement’s Road, A E Landers, 1959, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Corner shops, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Corner%20shops

One more day in the story of that building on Hulme Hall Road

I rather think that soon we will have another of those unique collections of pictures of the end of vanished industrial building.

This is that one on Hulme Hall Road.

Andy Robertson has been regularly recording the place since it partially collapsed recently and on Friday he was there again adding the comment “a bit more progress (if that's the right word) yesterday 1pm. you can see through to the other side.”

And that is all I am going to say, .............. the pictures tell it all.

Except to acknowledge the work of Andy in recording almost on a daily basis the passing of so many of the buildings and places we take for granted.

Pictures; Hulme Hall Road, July 31 20015

Down at the White Hart with memories of Glenton Tours and Robin Hood

Now yesterday was one of those days when the rain just came down like stair rods and when that finished we got that fine stuff, which soaks through your clothes, doesn’t stop and just makes everyone thoroughly miserable.

So it was nice to get a picture from Adrian of New Cross when the pavements were dry and the sun shone.
And like some of his other photographs it had the power to transport me back to a summer’s day around 1959.

I would have been ten and with the holidays in full swing I had wandered up Queen’s Road with no particular plan.

The only fly in the ointment was that no one was around.  My mate Jimmy was off for the week in Butlins, John didn’t answer the door and the kid that lived in one of the houses beside the Fire station was washing his hair.

All of which meant that I was on my own and a park and a long walk ain’t much fun when it’s just you and I fell back on visiting the offices of Glenton Tours at 397 Queens Road.

Now Glenton’s were the coach company dad worked for and as well as the offices in New Cross they had a West End office at 109 Jermyn Street.
I remember the place as a double fronted shop which was beside Saxton and Co estates agents who owned Glenton’s.

So as one story goes old Mr Saxton was owed money and settled for two coaches instead of cash and with that Glenton’s was born.

That was in the 1920s and it will have been sometime at the end of that decade that dad when to work for them which a part from war service he did till he retired in 1982.

I doubt I would have lingered there for long and more than likely turned past the White Hart and down New Cross Road to the library, or just maybe up past the corner of Pepys Road towards New Cross Gate and beyond.

But looking at Adrian’s picture and comparing it with my memory can also be a cruel experience.
Saxton’s long ago relocated to Brockley, and their old offices are now part of the chemist while Glenton’s  was until recently an African restaurant which I am told by a chap from the White Hart is about to become something new.

Added to which just across the way on the corner of Pepy’s Road my own wooden tower has vanished.

I say wooden tower it was actually nothing more than the entrance to the house but it resembled one of those church ltych gates and had a sign advertising the Ancient Order of Foresters which for a ten year old had the promise of Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest.

And I suppose that is one of the things you loose with time and growing up which is the ability to see your surroundings in a completely different way.

The alley round the corner from the White Hart sandwiched between the solicitors and letting agency offered plenty of room for my imagination while the fire station with its tall rounded towers on each side could be a French castle or a an eastern palace, notwithstanding the fire engines which stood ready at the entrance and the sign high up on wall which announced the building had been “erected in 1894.”

Of course the area looks far busier than I remember it and it is more difficult to think yourself back to your childhood when the width of the roads have expanded to meet the volume of traffic, but that said Adrian also sent up some fine pictures of Nunhead cemetery which are pretty much as I remember the place and will no doubt bring forth a whole shedful of memories.

We shall see.

Pictures; Queen’s Road and New Cross Road, 2013, supplied by Adrian Parfitt, and extract from Glenton Coach Cruises, 1965 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The Battle of Britain remembered ............ next weekend in Saddleworth

Now how we choose to remember and indeed revisit the past takes many forms and I have never been sniffy about re-enactment groups, those themed historical fun days or heritage sites.

They sit beside museums, and scholarly research as a valid way of bringing historical events out of the shadows.

So while I have reservations about the way they sometimes sanitize what were brutal and tragic events they perform a service.

And Yanks Weekend in Saddlworth seems to do that.

This year it will be on the weekend of August 8-9 and is “the North of England’s longest runningWW2 military & living history event.”

Now I could go on about the attractions and events of the day but instead will focus on my friend David Harrop who will be there in Saddleworth School with a selection of his memorabilia from the Battle of Britain.

He has been collecting for years and has a collection which includes many items from both world wars as well as a range of material from the history of the postal service.

Amongst the complete collection are medals, photographs, letters and postcards including many everyday objects from porcelain souvenirs to leaflets about how to prepare for an air raid.

Of special historical interest are the set of correspondence from George Davison to his wife during the Great War, and an autograph book from a Red Cross hospital containing comments poems and pictures by men wounded at Gallipoli and the Somme.

For Uppermill in recognition of the Battle of Britain David will be displaying a copy of the famous “Few speech” made by Winston Churchill along with  the Line Book of 222 squadron which is the unofficial record of the unit made by the men who flew and contains anecdotes, paintings and letters.

And yes I am well aware that the United States did not join the war until 1941 and the Battle of Britain was a full year and a bit before.

Now we try to get along to Saddleworth each year for the event and have always enjoyed the day.

So there you have it, next weekend, in Saddleworth with Yanks Weekend and of course David Harrop.

Pictures; Spitfire fund, leaflet 1940, and Churchill’s speech, 1940 from the collection of David Harrop and poster from Yanks Weekend website

Get there while you can ........... that 19th century building on Hulme Hall Road

Now in the middle of the week I followed up on that story of the building on Hulme Hall Road which had suffered a partial collapse.

The MEN covered the event and Andy Robertson went down to record the state of the building and was back on Thursday.
Work on the building  is well under way which prompted Andy to comment that  “it looks like the demolition could be rapid so I had better get down there often,” adding with an after thought, “it will be interesting to view it from across the canal."

So there you have the end of another bit of our history.

As buildings go I suspect it won’t even get a footnote in a book on the industrial buildings of this bit of the city which is a shame.

I tracked a little of the history of the site earlier in the week but there will be so much more.
Andy might even be lucky and record something of interest next time.

We shall see.

Pictures; Hulme Hall Road, July 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Castlefield mill collapse: Aerial pictures show extent of damage to building on Hulme Hall Road, BY AMY GLENDINNING, July 28 2015, Manchester Evening News, http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/castlefield-mill-collapse-aerial-pictures-9740166

The story of one house in Lausanne Road number 35 ............ New Cross Library, the Police Gazette and the London Music Room

The story of one house in Peckham over a century and a half, and of one family who lived there in the 1950s.*

Dad, 1962

Both mum and dad were voracious readers devouring two or three books a week.

In the winter dad would prefer the battered old armchair in the kitchen.

Here beside the equally battered stove he would pass the evening with a succession of historical novels.

Mum on the other hand preferred the front room with the telly mixing the news, light entertainment and those kitchen sink dramas with a variety of reading stuff.

She also wrote short plays, stories and was working on a novel based on the people she came across in our bit of South East London.

Meanwhile Dad would also spend part of those long winter evenings making toys for the five of us for Christmas.

I didn’t think at the time we were unusual and I still don’t and that I suppose is the point, because it is all too easy to slip into simplistic stereo types when you are writing about growing up in Peckham.

Mum, 1956

But like any working class area it was a place rich with variety.

There were plenty of pubs, cinemas and characters who could have stepped out of a Dickens’s novel but at the same time the library on New Cross Road was always full as was the private circulating library based in the local book shop.

Both of them I remember vividly.

The book shop which was opposite the library was stacked full of books to buy and borrow.

It was one of those dark cavernous places where the shelves ran up into the ceiling and each book carried a blue sticker with the name and address of the shop on the back.

Conversations were conducted in hushed tones but they were always animated as mum swapped her opinions on the book she had just read with the owners who in turn would suggest different titles.

Some were by the same author in the same style but other’s would offer up an alternative, “Well Mrs Simpson if you enjoyed that one, why not look at this, it’s only just come into the shop and I think you would find it interesting.”

By comparison New Cross Public Library was that old fashioned style of library with neat solid reading tables, matched by sturdy bookshelves full of everything you might ever want to read, and laid out in meticulous order.

And it was visited with the utmost care to remain as quiet as possible, which if you forgot you were quickly made of aware of by the signs requesting “Silence which were everywhere.”

It was a Carnegie Library built in 1911 and not unlike our own here in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.**

I always thought it was a place to endure rather than enjoy and always tried to avoid visiting.

And yet now as I hold a copy of a book mother forgot to return that smell of disinfectant which still permeates the book takes me right back to the library which I miss.

Now the book was James Joyce’s Ulysses, which I have to confess I have never read and I rather think mum didn’t either.

The Music Room London, 2015

I have thought of returning it but the library has long since relocated but just possibly the current owners would welcome a little bit of the building's past history.

They are the Music Room London, who according to their site established their "first rehearsal studio in 1985, when it was located in the basement of The Garden Gallery on Monson Road, New Cross Gate. This small basement studio, famous for its toasted cheese sandwiches, was frequented by many including Daevid Allen’s Franco-British progressive/psychedelic rock band Gong."***

It offers, "offers 

Now that I think mother would have approved of given  she was always one for anything which shook the trees.

She was I suspect the only person on Lausanne Road to take the Police Gazette.

Looking down Lausanne Road to our house, 2007

In mum’s defence she found the stories of robberies fraud and much worse a fascinating  starting point for stories, and possible chapters in that book.

In fact thinking back our paper bill must have been mega, because along with the newspapers, Police Gazette and a shed full of comics ranging from the Beano, Eagle and Look and Learn there were also Punch, Knitting Weekly and Railway Monthly.

All told a vast acre of news print which came into the house and was devoured before being passed on to mum’s best friend, B who lived at the top of Kinder Street.

That said my Eagles were carefully stored away along with the Lion and Tiger and later the Look and Learn to be brought out on rainy days.

Alas all were junked when we left Peckham, although just last week I came across one of those knitting patterns, but that as they say is for another time.

Pictures; Dad 1962, and mum 1956 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, The London Music Rooms, New Cross Road courtesy of the The Music Room London,  2015, and Lausanne Road, 2007 from the collection of Colin Fitzpatrick

*The story of one house in Lausanne Road,  http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Lausanne%20Road  

**Debates which never go away, ......... the story of our public library, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/debates-which-never-go-away-story-of.html

***Music Room London, http://www.musicroomlondon.com/

On arriving at Castlefield

Nothing quite prepares you for the entrance into the Castlefield Canal Basin.

We had been walking the Duke’s Canal from Stretford into town one summer’s day.  The route is a mix of the residential and industrial and I have to say parts of it are quite boring.

But we were on a waterway which in its time was one of the most important and busiest waterways

The Duke’s Canal or the Bridgewater was built in the 1760s so that the Duke could transfer coal from his mines in Worsley directly into the heart of the city.

It was a great success and showed the way for many other canal entrepreneurs and led to the “Age of the Canal” a much overused title for the period but perhaps an accurate one, for in the 40 or so years after Bridgewater coal was landed in Manchester the country was crisscrossed with a canal network.

And its impact on us here in Chorlton was just as great.

It would have begun with its building for while most of the work was done by the professional “navigators” those hard working hard living men who cut and constructed the canal, there was still some work for our own casual farm labourers.

And I guess one or two would have moved on with the navvies.

These were early days in the construction of the canals and later the railways and I doubt that the reputation the navvies were to make for themselves was much in evidence in the 1760s as they did the Duke’s bidding.

All of which was a darned sight different when just under 90 years later the navvies were back driving the railway line across the same route which would connect Stretford to the city.  By now communities across the country had grown to be more than a little apprehensive of the presence of the railway navigator with their temporary camps and the stories of their riotous lives.

But this is a little away from our walk along the canal.  Today it can be a relatively solitary journey but back in the late 18th and the first half of the 19th century the place would have been alive.

There were the regular journeys of boats taking fruit and vegetables from the farms of Chorlton and Stretford three times a week to catch the Manchester Markets on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings which proved so successful that the Company had to send the food boats at night and offer farmer’s seats on the packet boats.  And on the return trip they brought back the night soil which our farmers spread on the land.

Then there were the twice daily package boats from Stretford along the canal which transported passengers in comfort and speed.  A ticket for the front room cost 6d [2½p] and the back room 4d [1½p].  This was travelling in style.  

These packet boats were fitted with large deck cabins surrounded by windows which allowed the passengers to sit “under cover and see the country” glide by at the rate of six miles an hour, made possible by  two or sometimes three horses which pulled the packet.  And if that was not style enough the lead horse was guided by a horseman in full company livery.

And as I reflected in an earlier post there was plenty to see.  But despite all this the canal was a narrow stretch of water until of course it reached the Castlefield Basin, for here was a vast expanse of water, with landing stages warehouses and boats that had travelled down the Ashton and Rochdale Canals from far distant parts of the country.

You can get a sense of how busy it could have been during high summer when the tourists and canal enthusiasts moor up, but this is not a working water way anymore.  On a warm Saturday night there might be the sound of good conversation, the clink of wine glasses and the odd snatch of the radio, but not the sound of everything from coal to fine bone china being unloaded, or the babble of different regional accents swapping stories of their trips to Manchester.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and map from Bradshaw’s Inland Navigation of England and Wales, 1830, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/