When we had an aerodrome

There are always more stories to tell, and I think it’s time for one on our own aerodrome.

I first came across Hough End Aerodrome while reading articles by Nora Templar* who lived at Dog House Farm for 47 years.

She remembered “the landing of the first small aeroplane in the fields, the forerunner of many between 1916 and 1918. Manchester’s first aerodrome was built by the Government at Hough End.  

The first planes were delivered by train.  Pilots came in low over the Dog House chimneys and waved from their Avro’s and Handley Pages.” **

It may well be that the plane that took our first picture of the aerodrome had already flown over Nora's home.  It is a wonderful picture showing not only the hangers and admin buildings but a military aircraft on the ground.

The aerodrome was on what is now Hough End Playing Fields and was opened in May 1918 by the War Department for the assembly and delivery of aircraft to the RAF.

The planes were built by A.V. Roe & Company at Newton Heath and the National Aircraft Factory No 2 at Heaton Chapel and were brought in sections by railway to the Alexander Park station which was just 300 yards away.

After the war it became a civilian airfield and from 1922 flew a service down to Croydon Airport near London, and as Nora remembered was used by aircraft competing in the King's Cup Race air races in 1922 and 1923. “There were also a number of flying displays at the aerodrome and the Lancashire Aero Club, the oldest flying club in Britain, was formed at and operated from Alexandra Park until 1924, when it moved to Woodford Aerodrome.”***

But the aerodrome closed in 1924.  Like our brick works it had been given a set life by the Egerton estate who leased the land on condition that it ceased being used five years after the end of the war. So on August 24th 1924 the place closed and the hangers and workshops were demolished.

Today nothing remains save two plaques recording the presence of the aerodrome.  One in the sports pavilion at Hough End Playing Fields and the other in the grounds of No. 184 (South Manchester) Squadron, Air Cadets in Hough End Crescent.

There are of course a few photographs and there is also one special picture.  It is a pencil sketch of the aerodrome as it was being demolished and what makes it special and I think unique is that it was drawn by Nora Templar’s father which I suppose takes us full circle.

Pictures; courtesy of Nora Templar and now in the Lloyd collection

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Nora%20Templar
**Chorlton Journal 1977
***http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Park_Aerodrome_(Manchester)

The lost Eltham & Woolwich pictures ...... no. 48 ..... our house

This is another of the pictures I took of Eltham and Woolwich in the mid ‘70’s.

Our house, 1974

They sat undisturbed in our cellar for a decade and a bit but all good things eventually come to light.

They were colour slides which have been transferred electronically.

The quality of the original lighting and the sharpness is sometimes iffy, but they are a record of a lost Eltham and Woolwich.

At which point I have to confess this one was taken by one of my sisters on one of those cameras which gave you a print straight away, but it will still date from the 1970s or at the latest sometime in the mid 1980s.

Looking at the house today little has changed.  The porch added by Dad in 1964 has gone, the front has been painted white, and the wall that ran alongside the pavement has been replaced by a wooden fence which was what would have been there back in 1915 when the property was built.

The same house, 2014

The great tree which stood almost in front of our house was long ago demolished but a new one has been planted.

But that is not quite the end of the story because for Christmas I got one of those scanners which can scan old negatives and I have a lot of old negatives of Eltham, Woolwich and beyond, so as they say, watch this space.

Location; Well Hall Road

Picture; our house,1974 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and our house in 2014, courtesy of Chrissie Rose

On carrying an identity card

I was no great fan of the idea of identity cards and said so.  

Some friends smiled and pointed out that any in store loyalty card probably carried more information on me, my habits and bank details than any official document while the Italian side of the family just couldn’t understand how anyone would object to a piece of paper which proved who you were.

And I suppose that is the point.  It is not my job to prove who I am, it is their job to prove I am not who I say I am.  Old fashioned I know and possibly unrealistic but it is what I firmly hold to.

Of course in time of war such niceties go out of the window, and I was reminded of this when I came across two family documents.  The first was my father’s Travel Identity Card issued in the May of 1940 which “together with the holder’s national registration identity card and ration book must be presented by the traveller to the Immigration Officer at the port.”

"Initially, the card had to be produced to a policeman on demand or alternatively within 2 days at a police station. Further regulations were also issued requiring notification of change of address, also for births so a card could be issued for the newborn, also surrendering of the card if the person dies.
In December provision was also made to make it possible to exchange an ordinary buff identity card for a green card with room for a photograph and description of the holder; the reason for this was to assist anyone who needed to provide better evidence of their identity where they did not possess any other acceptable document, for example if they required access to enter a protected area under the defence regulations.

Later in late May 1940, presumably as the danger of an invasion increased, instructions were issued that everyone over 16 must now sign and date the card and write their address on the right hand page of the card and also that the card must be carried at all times. In the case of under 16s, the parent or guardian had the responsibility of signing the card and entering the address; under 16s were instructed not to carry the card with them but instead follow advice given earlier of carrying a luggage label or card with them with their name, address and national registration identity number.
Initially, adult identity cards were buff, the same colour as children's cards, but in 1943 when registration and rationing were combined, a blue card was introduced and issued to all adults, replacing their previous cards. A new buff card for children was introduced at the same time but existing children's cards were not replaced apart from when a new card was necessary.

The Identity Card was finally abolished in February 1952, but the identity numbers were used within the National Health Service to give everyone an individual number. People who had a national identity number during the Second World War or just after still have the same number as their NHS identity today.*

Which brings me neatly to the second family document which was my own identity card, issued In October 1949; it was to run till October 1965.  And perfectly conveys that immediate post war world where much of what people had become used to during the national emergency persisted well in to peacetime.

Like all family documents it tells its own family story.  Here was my first address, followed by the homes my father bought at Kender Street and later Lausanne Road and in between a brief stay with my grandparents in Derby.  Each time we took up a new residence the card had to be produced at the local Registration Office and stamped.  And so I know that between the May and September of 1951 I was with my grandparents in Derby, and I know also it was just mother and I.

My father was away working at the job he loved all his adult life which was driving coaches for the tourist trade.  Before and after the war he worked for a firm called Glenton Tours who specialized in sight seeing holidays around Britain and later the Continent. And this meant that from the spring through the summer he was away arriving back for just one night between bringing one coach party home and setting off in the morning with another for trips which lasted between a week and fourteen days. It would in the 1950s take him across Europe, to places I only discovered in the last decade. 

So the pattern of our summers was set.  We decamped to Derby and I guess only when I began school did the long periods with my grandparents become just the six weeks of the summer holidays.  Now it has taken this long forgotten identity card to remind me of what we did.  So perhaps there is something in identity cards after all.  But on balance, for me, I am happy they vanished in 1952.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*http://www.1911census.org.uk/1939.htm

Polling day and a heap of election stories ………..

It’s that day again when you either eagerly embrace the walk to the polling station or like Brenda of Bristol exclaim, "You're joking - not another one!".*

Polling Day, 2022

Now I have always liked elections.

For four decades I actively took part in election campaigning starting in 1966 at the age of 16, and now having slowed down a tad, I still follow them.

And over the years I have written extensively on the political fortunes of the major political parties here in Chorlton.

In the early 20th century, it was a straight contest between the Conservatives and Liberals, with each alternating election victories between 1920 to 1928.

But the Liberals were on the slide. They won their last seat in 1932, saw their sitting councillor Lady Sheena Simon loose to the Conservatives the following year and after 1935 did not contest another election until after the war by which time Labour were asserting themselves as the real alternative.

St John's Polling Station, 2022

Throughout the years after the last world war Chorlton returned Tory councillors until Labour won for the first time in 1986.

And despite losing the following year, there after It was Labour the electorate returned with just a short hiccup in the early 21st century when the Lib Dems made a brief successful electoral run.

That electoral run ended in 2011 and despite their much repeated and tired slogan “only the Lib Dems can win here”, their share of the vote has fallen and in many years they have been pushed in to third place.

Voting for All Three Chorlton Ward, 1904

The weather forecast looks good and for any one who has run or participated in a campaign that it is important. 

The received knowledge was always that good weather brought out the voters, especially at teatime when families took the decision to stroll down together after work.

The counts for the Manchester elections take place on Friday morning with the results posted live as they happen on the Manchester Evening site and from the Council at Election results for Manchester City Council, 2024, https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/500329/elections/4981/the_next_election

Leaving me just to hope for good weather and reflect that in the last few years the electoral contest in  Chorlton has gone quiet.

Once posters for all the main contenders would adorn windows, loud speaker vans would patrol the streets, and a bevy of election workers would be everywhere.

Not so this time.

And more disappointing only the Labour Party has seen fit  to treat me seriously and deliver their message and a bit about their candidates in leaflets  through the door.  

An election before now, 1980

The others haven't bothered, perhaps because they haven't the resources, or the will to seek my vote or just because they don't think I am worthy.

Even now it is not to late to get a message from them.

We shall see.

Pictures; Polling day,2022,  an appeal to vote, 1904, and a selection of election material, 1980,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Brenda of Bristol,2017, BBC News, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6-IQAdFU3w

*Chorlton Elections, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20Elections

When is a building old?

Historical research is fun, or why else do it?  And that pretty much sums up what I did yesterday.  It started with a picture posted by one of my new chums on his facebook site.

Adge Lane takes and shares some remarkable pictures of the city and a few days ago he shared this one with us.  It is the building on the corner of Gartside Street and Quay Street and it provoked some interest and a debate about its age.

Now this is an area of the city I love and often wander back to.  Just a few minute’s walk away is the station and warehouse complex of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened in 1830, the site of St John’s church and basin of the Bridgewater Canal.

So a place full of history which brings me back to the buildings in Adge’s photo.  They look old but I had a vague memory of them being built in the 1980s and so the quest began.  The essential requirements are some maps, street directories, census returns, and if possible pictures which between us Adge and I could summon up.

I have to confess that for once I didn’t go looking in the census records but stuck to the maps and the directories.  A street or trade directory is a little like the telephone directory, it listed the streets and their residents along with the trades and businesses across the city.  In many cases the added bonus is that the occupations of people living in a house are also included and unlike the census they were published every year.

The drawback is that you only get the name of the householder, and the poor and those living in unfashionable streets are often missed off until late in the 19th century.  But they are a start and can be used alongside the maps of the city.

Now these go back well into the 18th century but the most useful are those made by Laurent in 1793 and Green in the following year and both show something at the corner of Gartside and Quay Street, as does the OS of Manchester and Salford for 1844-9.  This mid 19th century map was part of a series of “5 ft. town plans produced by the Ordnance Survey for the towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire with a population greater than 4000. They were produced between 1844 and 1849 during the time that these counties were being surveyed for the 6 inch maps. The 5 ft. Plans were important because of the need to improve urban sanitation to combat cholera and other diseases.


Only a few other towns outside this area were surveyed at 5 ft. usually when the town paid for the survey or as a training exercise as in the case of Southampton. After the publication of the Lancashire and Yorkshire maps, the county surveys were carried out at 25 inches to a mile and the town plans were produced at a 10 ft. scale. Although a smaller scale than the 10 ft. plans the 5 ft. plans contained, in many respects, more detail than did the 10 ft. plans. They show all street drains, street lamps and water pumps even the garden layout of large houses. Public buildings show internal layout and churches show the seating layout. The walls of public buildings are not drawn as a single line as on most maps but as a double line showing the thickness of the walls.”*

So this was a must to use, but the buildings listed here in 1849 don’t have the same footprint as those in Adge’s picture.  This detail from the OS shows the lower end of the row of buildings where Quay Street is joined by Young Street.





And this is where the two of us came together.  I had the OS for 1888-93 and Adge had the 1915 version and that same old footprint just kept repeating itself which was pretty much confirmed by the  satellite photo of the present buildings which are different in layout to those on the maps. But the photographic evidence was inconclusive and it was left to Adge to dig out the answer.


“I've found 70 Quay Street (the extreme left on my colour photograph) listed on Rightmove......it's described as "Mock Georgian building of traditional brick construction"...but nothing of any historical description, you may be right ...1980's sympathetic build.”

So there you have it, a nice piece of detective work by the two of us.

Pictures; of the buildings and 1915 map from the collection of Adge Lane, detail from the 1844-49 OS courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Digital Archives

“... the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live" The Putney Debates ....... visions of a future England in the October of 1647

There is something exciting in the idea that in the middle of a bitter Civil War in which one in four died the army of Parliament sat down to discuss the future of England after the war with the King.

Reading the discussions there is something very modern about the position of Colonel Rainsborough who argued that “... the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it's clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under...”

And this in turn reminded me of the Forces Parliaments which took place in the British Army in India and Egypt during the Second World War.  The Cairo Forces Parliament met in February 1944 and voted for the nationalization of the banks, land, mines and transport.

In their way it replicated those debates three hundred years earlier where the men who were fighting debated the future they wanted.

Now the Putney Debates and much more of the visions of the men who fought for Parliament was never taught to me.  What we got was pretty much what was produced in The Pictorial History Book*

It is an interpretation which is replicated in other children’s history book.

Part of the reason may well have been that the records of the discussions were lost until the beginning of the 20th century but I suspect the absence of this story may also be down to content.

In an age when history was still taught from top down the idea that there should be an alternative history where ordinary people wanted a share in how their country was run and believed that they had as much a right to that say as the rich and powerful was indeed a challenging one.



Pictures; An Agreement of the People, 1647, and from The Pictorial History Book

* The Pictorial History Book, & Co, Ltd Sampson Low, Marston, 1955

Mile By Mile, travelling our railways in 1947

“The object of this book is to encourage the passenger to anticipate his progress, and to enable him to know to a nicety, what he next will see from the window at any and every stage of the journey.  

It is such a pity to sacrifice this experience to idle slumber, or to concentration on a magazine that would be better enjoyed at home.”*

Now this seems a pretty neat idea to me, and I have to say it is one that I try to practice, whether I am on a train, tram or the bus.

But I rather think it is an ambitious project that few would undertake, especially when what is being described is nothing less than the routes of the main railway companies in 1947.

But this is what Mr Pike set out to do in a series of little books just as the railways became nationalized.

The publications covered the L.N.E.R, the LMS, and Southern Railways but for reasons which have never been established he failed to keep his promise of one on the G.W.R. **

Nevertheless for the other three here were details of “the gradients of the lines, speed tests and mileages,  viaducts, bridges and embankments, along with tunnels, cuttings, crossovers and streams, rivers and roads.  

For good measure there were also lists of towns, villages, churches and mines, factories and works and an account of features of interest and beauty to be seen from the trains.”

It was all of the information which made a train journey worthwhile.

And of course with the passage of time and the end of both steam locomotives as well as many of the branch lines his guides have become a piece of history.

As you would expect I looked for Chorlton-cum-Hardy and there it was in the L.M.S on a map which included Didsbury, Withington and Central Station, along with the gradients of the line, miles from London and rivers roads and much else.

The London Midland Scottish was a family favourite, with its maroon coloured locos, and maroon and cream painted coaches.

This I suspect had something to do with my dad and uncle’s Scottish roots and for me because LMS Duchess of Montrose was my chosen Hornby Dublo loco on the model railway my father built for me and lovingly maintained.

But I also had a real interest in the Southern Railway which became the Southern Region of British Railways.  It was the one I used from being a child till I left London.

And however unfashionable it is today I remain fascinated by our nationalised railway company which was making its first bold steps soon after Mr Pile began publishing.

All of which brings me back to those railway books and the fact that they are once again available in a single volume, MILE BY MILE ON BRITAIN’S RAILWAYS, S.N.PIKE, published by Aurum Press Ltd, 2011.

It is a book I regularly go back to and one that brings alive that lost age.

Pictures; from the cover of MILE BY MILE ON BRITAIN’S RAILWAYS, S.N.PIKE, published by Aurum Press Ltd, and original Mile by Mile on the L.M.S. 1947