Painting Well Hall and Eltham ....... nu 1 the Library

An occasional series featuring buildings and places I like and painted by Peter Topping.

Like many in Eltham I continue to remember the library with great fondness.  It was a place I used a lot, borrowing books and records from its collection and spending hours in the reference section.

It was also where our Stella worked and for all those reasons it was the first building I asked Peter to paint using a photograph taken by Chrissy Rose.

Peter and I have been working together on projects for almost a decade including two books and an 80 meter installation along with various smaller displays and plenty of commissions.

And that is all I want to say.

Location; Eltham, London

After all I have written about the library already and its history is well known.*

Painting; Eltham Library © 2015 Peter Topping from a photograph by Chrissy Rose 2014

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

* The Library on the High Street, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Eltham%20Library

Happy birthday …. Woyaya

I say happy birthday Woyaya, but to be accurate the LP of the name by Osibisa was released in 1971 it was just that we bought it in the March of 1974.

“We give you our treasure” they sing and “Be Happy”.

It’s not the oldest LP in the collection, that falls to Peter Seeger at Carnegie Hall recorded in 1963 but it remains a favourite of mine.

It has travelled with me across Manchester to  Chorlton and a full half a century since I bought it it still gets played with pleasure.

And reminds me of a magic night in the Til Kenedy building which was in the early 1970s  home to the Student's Union of Man Poly in All Saints.

Exactly when we saw Osibisa is lost in time but l guess it will have been around 1971.

Behind number 14 Major Street in the winter of 1905

14 Major Street, 1905

Now as ever there is a story behind this picture.

We are on Major Street in 1905 and the building is the Boys’ and Girls’ Refuge which was established in 1884.

It was the second shelter opened by the Manchester & Salford Boys’ & Girls’ Refuges offering food and shelter to destitute young people.

The first shelter had been opened by the charity on Quay Street and later relocated to Strangeways but the scale of the problem was such that one refuge was not enough.

That lack of provision was highlighted “in the winter months of 1871 when three boys applied at the Refuge looking for shelter. 

As the home was already full, they had to be turned away. Seeking warmth and shelter and being unable to afford three pence to stay in a lodging house for the night they had wandered up to the brickfields of Cheetham. 

A few days later a newspaper reported on the demise of a young boy who had been burned to death at one of the brick kilns in the neighbourhood. This boy was one of the three who had, had to be turned away much to the consternation of the committee. 

It was this incident that convinced the charity that they needed another building in which to receive any child in need of help, whatever the hour. 

On admittance, date unknown

The result was the Children’s Shelter at 14 Major Street. Open all day and all night children in need of shelter could be brought and receive food and a bed for the night, whilst their individual circumstances were investigated. It ensured that no child requesting aid would ever be turned away again.”*

The story comes from the excellent blog of the Together Trust which describes the work of the Manchester & Salford Boys’ & Girls’ Refuges during the 19th and 20th centuries and is a first stop forthose wanting to trace family members who were cared for by the charity.

I am always impressed by the extent of their archives and the help offered by the archivist to those who want to know more about an ancestor.

Sadly for anyone wanting to stand in front of number 14 Major Street it has long gone.

To be truthful there is very little left of Major Street which runs from Aytoun Street down to Princess Street

Major Street in 1886**

On the corner with Princess Street there is the old Mechanics Institute where the TUC met in 1868, but walk the length of the road today and it  is dominated by two car parks a whole tranche of huge office blocks dating from the end of the last century and the beginning of this one and stuck in the middle is the bus station.

As for number 14 which was on the right hand side just down from Aytoun Street that is now one of those car parks.

At which point I could I suppose regret its passing but it was just a building and the work of the charity still goes and in the fullness of time I hope the archivist will be able to shed some light on what life was like at number 14 Major Street.

Reading back stories from the blog there is much that would help anyone wanting to know about its work and much to set interested descendants on a path of discovery.

All of which leaves me to point you in the direction of that blog and in particular the rest of the story on the opening of number 14.


Pictures; 14 Major Street, 1905 and one of the young people cared for by the Trust courtesy of the Together Trust, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-together-trust.html

*The Second Annual Meeting, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/

**Slater's Directory of Manchester & Salford, 1886. [Part 2: Trades, Institutions, Streets], page 508, Historical Directories, http://cdm16445.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/search/collection/p16445coll4/searchterm/Lancashire/field/place/mode/exact/conn/and/order/nosort

Posters from the Past ........... no 12 ......... something is stirring down in Woolwich

Now the project is simple, take a modern image of a building we all love and turn it into the style of poster which was popular in the middle decades of the last century.*

And supposing these figures had been in place in 1946, may be the Tourist and Information Office of the Borough of Woolwich might have used them to draw those who seldom cross the river from the north of the city to see our bit of London.**

Greenwich might have had the Naval College, and the Royal Observatory and later the Cutty Sark but we had the Royal Arsenal, a pretty busy market ,and trams that could take you south to the delights of Shooters Hill, Well Hall Pleasaunce and Eltham Palace.

All of which makes me think I shall nominate some more places for Peter to paint and reproduce as posters from the past.

And of course invite people to submit their own copyright free iconic image

Location: Woolwich

Painting; Coming home to Woolwich, © 2017 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,f rom a photograph by Colin Fitzpatrick, 2012

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk 

**Posters from the Past, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Posters%20from%20the%20Past

** Assembly, by Peter Burke, Woolwich Arsenal 2001

Remembering Skillman's ............. 108 years of selling ukeleles, nails and power drills to the discerning of Woolwich

Now when I was last on Woolwich High Street number 108 was an empty shop, and despite a coat of black paint the front still displayed the name of Skillman & Sons, which was where my friend Jean “always went ...... as they had all sorts of nails and things not found anywhere else.” 

Skilman's, 1977

And judging from conversations I have had recently so did many other people. It was one of those places where you could you get pretty much anything you wanted and was part of our history which I knew nothing about until I came across the story of the Skillman family and number 108 written by the granddaughter of Mr
Alfred Skillman who established the business in 1900*

It opened selling everything from second hand furniture, men’s suits, outdoor clothing, and musical instruments supplying harmonicas and ukeleles to the sailors docking in Woolwich. and later changing emphasis to tools and hardware.

The shop continued in business until 2002 but the closure of the Woolwich docks in the 1960s and the slow demise of the area as a major shopping centre coupled with the development of the “super store” made trading more difficult.

Skilman's in 2002

It is a familiar story where the small independent traders who knew their customers and could anticipate their needs have vanished from our high streets replaced by strings of estate agents, charity shops and coffee chains.

So I welcome the story of Mr Alfred Skillman and his family who served the needs of Woolwich for 108 years but rather than just cherry pick from the original piece I suggest you go and read their story which first appeared in 2002.*

It is a fascinating account which combines the facts of a family business with some wonderful anecdotes like the one of the drunks and the pianos, when Mr Skillman told his children to ‘close now before the drunks come out of the pubs and start spitting into our mouth organs and harmonicas.’”

And a thank you to Tricia who foist alerted me to this very personal account.

Pictures; Skillman’s in 1977 from the collection of Jean Gammons and again in 2002 courtesy of S C Skillman

*The Ironmongers Shop Opposite the Woolwich Ferry, http://scskillman.com/my-family-background/ from SC Skillman Blog,  http://scskillman.com/

Blood in the Machine by Brian Merchant ..... one to listen to ..... on the wireless

Now this is one I am listening to.*

It is runs to five episodes and will be available for 33 days.

"In Brian Merchant's acclaimed account it's 1811. 

The rise of the machine threatens the craftsmanship and the livelihoods of traditional cloth workers and they take action. Hugo Speer reads.

In the first two decades of the nineteenth century, the cloth trade was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. 

As machines were brought in traditional skills, acquired by cloth workers over years of hard graft, became obsolete. Working men and women were left without the means to feed their families, and without purpose or pride in their identities as workers.

Meanwhile, around them they could see that a handful of entrepreneurs, the first tech titans, were accumulating wealth by replacing them with machines. The response was the Luddites.

Blood in the Machine draws on a number of primary sources, as well as historical accounts based on interviews recorded later on in the nineteenth century with those who participated in and had first hand knowledge of the rebellion.

In his book, Brian Merchant finds parallels between technology's impact on today's workforce and the first time machines replaced the jobs done by human beings.

Brian Merchant is the technology columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and author of the bestseller, The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone. His writing appears in the New York Times, Wired, The Atlantic and Harper's Magazine. He is also the founder of Gizmodo's Automaton project examining AI and the future of work.

Hugo Speer known for playing DI David Bradford in London Kills, Lucius in Britannia, Captain Treville in The Musketeers and Guy in The Full Monty. He also plays DCI Stone in the acclaimed Radio 4 series, Stone.

Abridged by Richard Hamilton

Produced by Elizabeth Allard"

*Blood in the Machine, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001x4p2

*Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech, Brian Merchant, £21.20

The Outing …….

I can be exactly certain when I happened on the woman with the shopping bag.

The Outing, 1980

It was August 2nd, 1980 which was a Saturday, and I happened on the “Great Railway Exposition" on Liverpool Road.

And the rest as they say was a series of images which over 40 years later I return to.

Location; Castlefield

Picture; The Outing, Liverpool Road, Manchester, 1980 from the collection of Andrew Simpson