A drink …..a mug …… and a heap of Chorlton History

So, what do successful local author’s give each other for Christmas?

Well, if you are Peter Topping, one half of the successful Simpson/Topping masters of all things local history, you produce a delightful mug featuring all their publications.

Individually and collectively, they have written 14 books, most of which feature the story of Chorlton, but they are also responsible for a study of Manchester during the Great War, the history of a Manchester children’s charity a light-hearted look at how the news could have been written as well books on Manchester pubs, an Elizabethan hall and bits of stuff about Didsbury. *

And having put all the covers of the 14 books on a mug, Peter presented one to Mr. Simpson.

Ah the jaundiced might mutter “an outrageous bout of self-promotion by the team", which it probably is …. But what fun.

Location; Mr. Simpson’s kitchen

Pictures; Mr. Simpson’s present, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, made by Peter Topping

*You can find us and our books at www.pubbooks.co.uk

The one stop meal ………. and a little bit of culinary history

 I call it the one stop meal, but I suppose to be more accurate it should be the meal cooking on the cooker that everyone thinks needs a little something extra.

So today before even the birds were awake the base of the soup was prepared, put on the stove, and left to gently cook away.

Then a little past half eight the first person back in the kitchen checked the pot and decided the last three Brussel sprouts and a sliver of tired cabbage were not doing anything in the fridge and were shredded and added to the carrots, onion, green beans, assorted baby tomatoes and some borlotti beans.  

Not to be out done a little later last night’s left over baked potatoes were chopped up and thrown in.

Later still a random visitor checked the flavour and added a vegetable stock cube, stirred briefly, and went about their business.

Leaving the last contributor to break up some dried pasta, popping into to the pot before sitting down to a late breakfast.

And so the one stop meal was complete and did rather challenge that old warning “too many cooks ……”

There is of course a serious historical point which is long before designer soups and plates of interesting and expensive food, most families just put together what ever they had mixing leftovers with fresh produce, and if they were lucky the odd bit of meat.

So, my Italian mother-in-law just goes through the fridge, the freezer and the pantry and makes soups from what she judges to be on the cusp of being thrown away.

Leading to one wonderful soup which included mashed potato.

All of which leads me to think that many of those wonderful dishes from pizza, and lasagne to "purée de choux et pommes de terre" which appear in posh restaurants began life as leftovers.

Pause for comments, and recipes for using up what ever needs eating up.

Location; any kitchen

Picture;  One stop soup, and aubergines, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 

The shape …… and the memory ……. iconic things

I won’t be the first to nominate a Coca-Cola bottle as an iconic “thing” and something which unlocks the door to heaps of memories.

If you were born in the first half of the last century, thrilled to the opening lines of “She Loves You” and thought the light had gone out of the world at the news that Otis Reading had died, then the Coca-Cola bottle is likely to have been a friend.

It will have accompanied you at countless coffee bars, popped up in films and cinema adverts, and was  just a badge of being young.

And a decade or so later featured in that alternative message about the Vietnam War in IT.

That said in the mid-1960s it was being supplanted by the red can, and later a plastic version, to which can be added I am told by one of our kids a green version.

But all these later additions can not detract from the original “contour bottle”.

At which point I could wander over its history, but that has been done tons of times and can be easily accessed, so I shall just ponder on what other iconic “things” people would offer up.

Location; our Kitchen

Picture; an iconic thing, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Calling in at Barlow Hall trying to recreate that visit in 1887

Now I have been fascinated by Barlow Hall for a long time but I have to confess I have never been there so when Andy Robertson sent me some pictures of the place I decided it was time to rerun an old story.

Andy visited the hall earlier in the month and that prompted me to repost a story of Mrs William’s tour of the property back in 1887.

“In rambling through Barlow Hall only a short time ago, we found a succession of tiny silent bedrooms, each opening into its neighbour, and each into a long narrow, rickety corridor. 

From the corridor we could see, through square bits of coloured glass, traces of a quaint timbered court yard and learnt that this was the oldest part of the house, and these bedrooms were probably used by the daughters of Alexander Barlow.”

For me this remains a pretty exciting if short tour of our oldest building.  Mrs Williamson had wandered through the hall sometime in 1887 by which time it had been the residences of William Cunliffe Brooks for over thirty years.

The hall had been the home of the Barlow family since the Middle Ages and there may have been a building on the site dating from that period, but the present half-timbered structure dates probably from the reign of Henry VIII. Little of the original structure was visible by 1848 when the Brooks family moved in.

Most of the timber work had been covered in plaster or hidden under ivy. The old great hall, which occupied most of the building and was open to the roof, had been divided to create two storeys, with the lower floor given over to three entertaining rooms.

 But according to various observers William Cunliffe Brooks was keen not only to preserve the building but also to share his love of the hall.

This interest never appeared to have left him, and led Mrs C. Williamson to write in her Recollections of Fallowfield that his ‘love for old things is so great that every relic is sacred to him, and even mindful alterations are made in such close imitation of old, they look the real thing’.

It was a passion that led him to display a piece of the original timber which had been exposed after a fire in 1879, and our own Chorlton historian may well have been speaking from first-hand experience when he advised that ‘Mrs Brooks’s morning room is worthy of a visit, with its quaint old china, and the vestibule containing some fine old Furniture and an engraving of Wellington with his autograph’

Pictures; the coutyard in 1910 and the sitting room window which looks out onto the courtyard 1890-95 by S.H. Jones, from the Lloyd collection, and the Hall in August 2014 courtesy of Andy Robertson

FDR's Four Freedoms ..... one to listen to

Now I grew up with the statement of the Four Freedoms, and this programme offers up the background.

"In January 1941, American President Franklin D Roosevelt delivered an epic speech about the Four Freedoms that he believed to be vital for the post-war world: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from fear and freedom from want. 

These words became the basis for a global understanding of “human rights” and they also shed light on how the United States viewed itself and its global role at the dawn of the so-called "American Century."

But could the US really live up to such lofty ideals? Do those four freedoms remain relevant as a goal for the international community? Or do they need to be reimagined for our own century?

With help from contributors such as FDR's grandson, James Roosevelt, as well as former UN Human Rights Commissioner, Zeid Ra'Ad Al Hussein, Cambridge Professor of International History David Reynolds examines the genesis of the speech, its immediate impact, and its far-reaching consequences.

Presenter: David Reynolds

Producer: Claire Bowes and Sandra Kanthal

Editor: Clare Fordham

Studio Manager: Rod Farquhar

Production Coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Helena Warwick-Cross"*

Pictures; Freedom to speech, circa 1994, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*FDR's Four Freedoms, Archive on Four, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fm6c 

"The Irish Rebellion of 1798 ..... one to listen to

Now today's In Our Time should be interesting.

It airs just after 9 this morning and then will be available soon afterwards by following the link.

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the momentum behind rebellion in Ireland in 1798, the people behind the rebellion and the impact over the next few years and after. 

Amid wider unrest, the United Irishmen set the rebellion on its way, inspired by the French and American revolutionaries and their pursuit of liberty. 

When it broke out in May the United Irishmen had an estimated two hundred thousand members, Catholic and Protestant, and the prospect of a French invasion fleet to back them.

 Crucially for the prospects of success, some of those members were British spies who exposed the plans and the military were largely ready - though not in Wexford where the scale of rebellion was much greater. 

The fighting was initially fierce and brutal and marked with sectarianism but had largely been suppressed by the time the French arrived in August to declare a short-lived republic. The consequences of the rebellion were to be far reaching, not least in the passing of Acts of Union in 1800.

With, Ian McBride, Foster Professor of Irish History at Hertford College, University of Oxford, Catriona Kennedy, Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of York, and Liam Chambers, Head of Department and Senior Lecturer in History at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick

Producer: Simon Tillotson"

Picture;  Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763 - 1798), prominent member of the United Irishmen, courtesy of Radio 4

*"The Irish Rebellion of 1798", In Our Time,  Radio 4,  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fwb9

Following the 81 bus on a winter’s day along Upper Chorlton Road ……. now that’s a zippy title

I am the first to admit that following the 81 Corporation bus along Upper Chorlton Road on a winter’s day sometime in the early 1960s might seem a little dull.  

But not so, and I am indebted to George Cieslik who posted his picture a while ago and gave me permission to add it to the collection and tell its story.

We  are heading towards town and this is the bus stop just before Wood Road, and for those who know the stretch the block of flats to our right still exist, but pretty much everything else on either side has gone.

That starts with the large house, pocking out of the trees,  behind its impressive brick wall on the corner of Wood Road and Upper Chorlton Road .

While the even grander house close to the bus stop, and marked only by the stone gate posts, had only a few more years.

It had once been the residence of Mr. Demosthenos Tchaoussoglou, who was a shipping merchant, from the Ottoman Empire.  He had applied and was granted naturalization in 1905 and in 1911 was living in the house, with his wife, Helene and three children along with a cook, housemaid and “nursery governess”.

Mr. and Mrs., Tchaoussoglou, had married in 1906, and their first child was born the following year.

Theirs was a large house which in 1911 had thirteen rooms which I suppose made it perfect as the home of the Allied Libraries Ltd.

Just when the company moved into the property is yet to be discovered.

It had grown as a chain of rental libraries in the years after the last world war and at its peak in March 1962 it hired out 362, 000 books through 1,489 bookshops.

Just when it closed is also yet to be discovered, but I do know it was still there in 1969.

Look more closely and there beyond Mr. and Mrs.Tchaoussoglou's, home is Carlton Terrace, which had been built in 1871 and has recently been renovated and redeveloped into modern apartments.

Location; Upper Chorlton Road

Picture; following the 81 along Upper Chorlton Road, circa early 1960s, from the collection of George Cieslik