Another day in Warrington ................. nu 2 passing the pub on Buttermarket Street in 2016

Yesterday we were promised what would be the best day for catching the sun.

And that was pretty much the case although there were great chucks of the day when the clouds did their best to both hide the sun and threaten rain.

But there was enough sun, the day was warm and the result was more pictures of Warrington a place I have only been to once before.

And as you do I was drawn into the shopping centre and ended up outside the Lower Angel on Buttermarket Street, which of course begs the question ... was there and is there an Upper Water Angel public house?

I shall go looking but in the meantime three is this, "a step back in time in the traffic-free area of Warrington town centre's heart with a traditional vault and lounge layout and rear beer garden. 

Memorabilia from the former Walker's brewery and stained glass windows can be seen. 

There are plans to relaunch the mothballed brewery behind the pub in future. The six changing beers are mainly from independent breweries. 

The Dark Mild is invariably from Dunham Massey but does occasionally change. Real cider is available spring through to summer whilst up to 70 malt whiskies are offered."*

*WHAT?UB, https://whatpub.com/pubs/CNC/390/hop-pole-warrington

Location; Warrington

Picture;the Lower Water Angel, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Pictures with no stories ........ no 4 at the seaside

Now we may well be at Blackpool and the woman smiling back at us could just be in between a walk on the pier and fish and chip supper.

But it is equally likely that we are in a photographer’s  studio on Greengate or Market Street  and the Tower and all those buildings nothing more than a painted backcloth.

There is sadly no way of knowing.

There is no name, date or location on the back and that pretty much is that leaving me with that very unhistorical suggestion that you let your imagination go and play with the image.

Location; Blaclpool















Picture; from the collection of Ron Stubley

Another day in Warrington ................. nu 1 in the park

Yesterday we were promised what would be the best day for catching the sun.

And that was pretty much the case although there were great chucks of the day when the clouds did their best to both hide the sun and threaten rain.

But there was enough sun, the day was warm and the result was more pictures of Warrington a place I have only been to once before.

So wandering up from the station I fell across the little park and the memorial to the men of the 1st Battalion of the South Lancashire Regiment who participated in the South African War.

It was unveiled on February 21 1907.

Location; Warrington, 2016

Picture; memorial in the park 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Looking for Mr Anderson .......... 79 years after his debut in the gardens of Chorlton and pretty much everywhere

Now there was a time when Mr Anderson could be found in 4 million gardens across the country and certainly in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Mrs Waterworth's Anderson, 2018

The Anderson Shelter was cheap effective and could be built in a day which was an important consideration with war just round the corner.

The Government began issuing them in the February of 1939 and by the outbreak of war there were one and half million of them, which by the end of the conflict had risen to 4 million.

Yesterday I wrote about the one in Lambton Road and its proud owner a Mrs Waterworth.*

And as I hoped people came forward with the location of others along with stories of growing up with one.

The Anderson arrives, 1939

So this is the competition ....... how many are left and how many can be located?

And that it is.  You can reply via the blog, or by social media.

Already, John H Parker,  commented "We had one buried in the back garden in the house we moved into in November 1943 on Barlow Moor Road. 

It was buried just over four feet deep and covered with grass sods. 

We used it once between 1943 and the end of the war in 1945.

It was removed by the Council in 1946, the hole filled in and covered with mowable lawn".

Putting he bits together, 1939

And Marion Jackson recalled, "the damp smelliness of them!We had a Morrison shelter which was a big metal cage in our cellar, needed large cellars to fit them".

Location; all over Britain


Picture; Mrs Waterworth’s Anderson, 2018, courtesy of Peter Topping, delivery the Anderson Shelter, Daily Herald, 1939,m09586, and erecting it, 1939, Daily Herald, m09587, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass 

*At the bottom of almost every garden ...... a shelter from Mr Hitler’s bombs ..... in Lambton Road in Chorlton, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/07/at-bottom-of-almost-every-garden.html

At the bottom of almost every garden ...... a shelter from Mr Hitler’s bombs ..... in Lambton Road in Chorlton

Now I bet Mrs Elsie Waterworth of Lambton Road would have been pretty surprised that her Anderson air raid shelter would still be standing at the bottom of her garden, 79 years after the workmen delivered it.

Mrs Waterworth's Anderson haven, 2018

Of course I can’t be exactly sure that it was one of the one and half million which were delivered to homes across the country between February and September 1939.

She might instead have been one of the two and half million other householders who received theirs during the war.

Nor do I know if she got hers for free or had to pay the charge of £7 to get the peace of mind that Mr Anderson’s shelters offered.

Those earning less than £5 a week were exempt from paying, but she worked as a telephone operator and shared the house with two other women who I guess made a contribution to the income of the household.  All of which suggests hers was not free.*

The design of the Anderson, was very simple and consisted of six curved panels of galvanised and corrugated steel sheets, bolted together, with a front and a back made of the same material.

The Bedford Anderson, 2007

The shelters could sleep six and were six feet high, 4.5 feet wide and 6.5 feet long.

They could be buried in the ground with more soil added on top which was sometimes turned into a vegetable garden, and given that they were often underground a pump was incorporated into the floor.

The internal fitting out of the shelter was left to the owner and so there were wide variations in comfort.**

Not that sitting in one with the ever present threat of German bombs could ever be described as comfortable, and I doubt Mrs Waterworth, or her two companions were overjoyed at a night in the garden.

One day I might go looking for her fellow shelter sufferers who were the 67 years old Lily McNolorey who was blind and Alice Leeboth who was three years younger.

The Bournemouth shelter 1941

Despite the shelters being cold and damp, they offered better protection from blast and ground shock than the brick and concrete ones.

In the case of ours, we will never know how many times it was used, and in particular if the three sheltered there during the Christmas Blitz of December 1940.

I suspect as the war progressed and moved closer to its end their stay out in the garden became less, and as often happens the shelter became a place to deposit “stuff”.

And that became the fate of many of these shelters, for while it was expected that they would be returned so the metal could be salvaged, many paid to keep them.

In the case of ours someone decided to make it more permanent by adding a brick wall at one.

And that is all I have to say.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Mrs Waterworth’s Anderson Shelter, 2018, from the collection of Peter Topping, and an “old and badly rusted Anderson shelter, that has in it's time been converted for use as a garden shed, on display in the courtyard of Bedford Museum, Bedford, Bedfordshire, England”, 2007, Simon Speed, and, Anderson shelter in Bournemouth in 1941,The Brit,licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

*1939 Register

*Anderson Shelters, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raid_shelter

Pictures from an Eltham bus ........ no.21 ....... coming soon a cinema near you

The top deck of a London bus has to be a pretty neat way of seeing the world below.

And when it is the same bus at about the same time every day then you have got yourself a project.

All you need is a camera and the patience each week to record the same spot and the rest as they say is Larissa Hamment’s “Pictures from an Eltham bus”.*

One step nearer to that first performance of Gone with the Wind" in Eltham since its premiere .

Pictures;  the site of the new cinema, 2018, from the collection of Larissa Hamment

*Pictures from an Eltham bus, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Pictures%20from%20an%20Eltham%20Bus

Of porcelain bathing huts, big boots and seals ....... with of course a story

Now I am quite a fan of crested china.

These are the small porcelain objects often bearing the name and even the coat of arms of the town, city or village where they were purchased.

Not that I was always such a devotee.

With the arrogance of youth I dismissed them out of hand which was silly, because they are superb examples of our popular culture, dating back into the 19th century, and shed a light on our past.

And that is how my fascination for all things crested and porcelain began when I was writing about Manchester and the Great War, and came across some fine examples.*

From there I went back into my own past, and remembered some of the pieces that sat on our mantelpiece, none of which have now survived.

So I was very pleased when Fred Page got in touch, and told me about his parent’s collection which included items from the Great War, along with a selection made more recently.**

One of my favourites must be the one from Wallington of what looks like an old fashioned bathing hut, the sort that allowed bathers at the sea side to get into the water without the look walk along the beach.

And as you do I went looking for Wallington and found four, one in Hampshire, a second in Hertfordshire, another in the London Borough of Sutton, and a final one in Northumberland.

Of these the most promising was a village in Hampshire, part of the borough of Fareham. It is situated between Portsmouth and Southampton near where the River Wallington enters Portsmouth Harbour and so I guess is the closest we will get to the sea.

Not that we should be over tied to accuracy because the porcelain makers turned out the pieces in vast numbers and to distinguish a piece and make it attractive to a passing tourist or resident they carried those place names.

And there wasn’t always a direct match between the porcelain figure and the place.

So during the Great War one company marketed a battleship with the name of Manchester, to mark it out as against similar ones named after other cities.

The only problem was that during that war the Royal Navy didn’t have a battleship called Manchester.
Still it is a fine piece.  In time I will follow up on the other two pieces in the story, but for now that is it.

Location; everywhere

Pictures; crested china courtesy of Fred Page

*Manchester Remembering 1914-18, Andrew Simpson, The History Press, 2017 and A new book on Manchester and the Great War, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/06/a-tank-souvenir-and-soldier-far-from.html 

**Of porcelain nurses, the odd tank and the battleship which showed up in landlocked Paisley, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/06/of-porcelain-nurses-odd-tank-and.html