Monday 31 October 2016

A day out in Deansgate ......... nu 1 stepping out of the railway station

Now I am always pleased when Andy Robertson goes out on an adventure.

And this is the start of a new series which looks at how bits at the bottom of Deansgate are fast changing.

I have to say that this one was still in Andy’s camera an hour ago as he travelled home, sadly not on the tram but on the bus, there having been problems at Trafford Bar.

Location; Deansgate

Picture; Knott Mill Station from the collection of Andy Robertson

"Affectionately yours" .............. messages from the Western Front January 1916

Now I wonder if either of these two men is "Botty."

In January 1916 he sent the picture postcard back to Dibdale Road in Dudley with the message, “Hello Mabs Laugh and the world laughs with you Snore! And you sleep alone.  Love to all at home.”

I went looking for the house but Dibdale Road is a long one and even though I know that the house was Dibdale Villas I doubt that I will find it.

But I might strike lucky by using the street directories and the census returns but even then there is no guarantee that either of the two men is “Botty."

So for now it is that ambulance and the casual smiles of the two soldiers which drew me in.

There will be those who can tell me much more about the type of ambulance, when it came into service and its general specifications.

For now I note that it could hold eight patients along with the driver and one attendant.

We will probably never know much more and as such it is just one of those many pictures from the Great War with images of young men who are now lost in time.

But it does allow me to mention David Harrop who lent me the picture postcard and may well be exhibiting it in his collection of memorabilia which tells the story of the Great War and are on permanent display in the Remembrance
Lodge at Southern Cemetery.

Location; the Western Front circa 1916

Picture; ambulance and two soldiers, circa 1916 courtesy of David Harrop

Sunday 30 October 2016

Relics of a former glory ..............

There was very little left of the building when took this image back in 2014.

And I have a vague memory of someone telling even thishas gone.

Which will prompt me to go and look

Location; Salford





Picture; a Salford building 2014, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Saturday 29 October 2016

78 Manchester Pubs to see Christmas in

It is day five of that outrageous bout of self promotion for Christmas and what better stocking filler than the book that tells the stories of our most iconic Manchester Pubs.

Less a guide and more a detailed set of tales featuring the people who lived, worked and drank in those 78 historic boozers from the Northern Quarter down to the Universities.

They are grouped together in easy to do walks and so along with those stories there are descriptions of the areas where the pubs are situated, allowing the causal tourist to put the pubs into a context and making it easier to understand why one was named after a potato and another was renamed.

Added to all this there are the paintings by Peter with each pub getting its own painting.

And so with a planned publication date of just before Christmas at least one present will have been sorted.

We are just waiting for the book to be delivered from the printers and are taking pre-orders now at www.pubbooks.co.uk 

Manchester Pubs The Stories behind the doors, Peter Topping and Andrew Simpson

Friday 28 October 2016

Four hundred years down at Hough End Hall .............the stories in the book for Christmas

It is day four of that outrageous bout of self promotion for Christmas and again it is time to include Peter Topping.

This time it is our joint venture to tell the story of Hough End Hall.

The book was produced to raise money and awareness for the campaign to save the hall which back in 2015 had an uncertain future.

In its time it had been the home of a wealthy Elizabethan family, was a farm house for 250 years and more recently was a restaurant.

And as a restaurant it will be remembered by a plenty of Chorlton and Withington residents who sat under its oak beams to celebrate birthdays, special events and even funerals.

But of course for many it will be the “works do” and particularly Christmas parties that the Hall did best.

Sadly those oak beams were false and the original were hidden behind a mix of wooden two by on and painted canvas.

That said there are plenty of real stories which roll through the book along with plenty of period photographs and original paintings by Peter.

The Story of Hough End Hall, 2015, Andrew Simpson, Peter Topping

Thursday 27 October 2016

A garden in Martledge on an August day in 1882


It looks like a fairly ordinary Chorlton garden and if pushed you might suggest a location bordering the meadows which pretty much means Meadow Bank or Ivygreen Road.  

But the title is the giveaway for we are in the garden of Sedge Lynn* and the open land beyond is not the meadows.  We are facing Oswald Road, and the long roads of Newport, Nicholas and Longford and the year is 1882.

In fact to be exact it is August 11th 1882 which was a Tuesday and judging by the light sometime around midday, but I could be wrong about the time.

It is the third of my pictures by Aaron Booth of Martledge where he with his family lived during the last two decades of the 19th century.

I would like to think we are looking at a garden in transition and given that they may only have been in the house for a few months that seems plausible.  So here is a Victorian garden in the making with its Victorian wooden wheelbarrow, spade and packing case and perhaps at a moment when the labourers had gone off for lunch.  Of the three in the collection this casual and untidy scene for me is the most endearing and sets you down on an ordinary day when ordinary things are being done 130 years ago.

And then there is the view.  Back then it was open land popularly called the Isles because of the large number of ponds and small streams that crisscrossed the area.  The land here is clay and for centuries it had been dug up to make bricks or as marl to spread on the fields.  The pits then filled with water and gave the place its distinctive feature.  I counted 17 such ponds around Oswald Field in 1841, and they were a mix of the small and very large.

The Booth family would have had an interrupted view across the Isles towards Longford Hall only obscured by a row of trees.  It was a view which would have lasted into the late 1890s, but within another decade it would have been lost as the first rows of houses went up on the newly cut roads of Nicholas, Newport and Longford and behind them the sprawling brickworks.

All of which makes our picture a poignant image and one made a little more special because the photograph was donated to the collection by one of five daughters.

* Sedge Lynn stood on Manchester Road on the site of the old cinema which is now the Funeral Directors

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

In Firswood with the Cookson family at Firs Farm in the June of 1841

Firswood Metro stop, July 2013
Firswood metro stop is one of the new ones on the old railway line that ran out from Central Station south through Chorlton, Didsbury and on into Derbyshire.

And a little to the west of the stop was Firs Farm.

Now I can’t be exactly sure when the farm house was built but it was there by 1830 and four decades later John Cookson was farming 225 acres and employing 12 labourers.

This was something of a success story because ten years earlier his father had farmed just 137 acres earlier still had described himself as a potato dealer rather than a farmer, and from 1830-36  as a labourer*

By 1841 he was at Firs Farm so the transition from labourer to tenant farmer will have occurred sometime during the previous five years.

And pretty much straight away the family begin to grow the farm, so that during that June of 1841 they already had eight farm servants living with them ranging from the eldest at 20 down to George Baker aged just ten.

The practice of employing farm servants is an interesting one, and had benefits for both farmer and employee.  The contract was for a year, often made at a hiring fair and in return for a slightly reduced wage the farm servant lived in with the family or in accommodation nearby.

Firs Farm and east to West Point, 1893
This suited younger farm workers who had left home and offered a degree of job security.  In some cases the contract was struck between the farmer and the parents of the labourer.

Like so much of the area Firswood remained farm land until quite recently, so while to the east at West Point the first fine houses were being built in the 1860s the area around the Quadrant came much later with the social housing arriving only with the end of the farm in 1930.

Pictures; the Metro stop at Firswood from the collection of Andrew Simpson and detail of the area surrounding the farm east to West Point from the OS map of South Lancashire, 1888-93, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*1841-71 census for Stretford and parish records of St Mathews Stretford 1834

Stories from behind Didsbury doors ...... this Christmas

It is day three of that outrageous bout of self promotion for Christmas and it is time to include Peter Topping.

Peter and I produced Didsbury Through Time two years ago and unlike other books of the same style we decided to concentrate on telling the stories of the people who lived behind the doors of the houses in Didsbury, added to which Peter painted many of the street scenes which made the book quite unique.

My favourite is the story of young Bertha Geary who in 1911 wrote to afriend that she "had heard the Flying Man" and if you want to know more you will have to buy the book.






Didsbury Through Time, 2014, Peter Topping and Andrew Simpson

Wednesday 26 October 2016

Christmas in Chorlton in the 1850s ............ day two of that bout of self promotion

Now yesterday I kicked off with the first of a new series Andrew Simpson for Christmas 2016 promoting the book Manchester and the Great War due out in February of next year, and today it’s the first one I wrote.

This was The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy published in 2012

“Here for the first time is a detailed account of an agricultural community that was just 4 miles from Manchester. 

Much of the narrative is rooted in the people who lived here, using their words and records. 

It tells of daily lives, setting them in a national context, and balances the routine with the sensational - including murder, infanticide and a rebellion.

Partly a narrative of rural life, and a description of a community's relationship with a city, the book also includes guided walks around Chorlton to bring this history to life. A database of references and sources is also provided.

This is the story of a group of people that history has forgotten and scholarship has ignored.”

The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 2012, £18.99, available from Chorlton Book shop and from the History Press, http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/search-here/?s=Andrew+Simpson&p=1&ps=9

Tuesday 25 October 2016

The book on Manchester and the Great War ......... an outrageous bout of self promotion

Now when you get to my age you don’t dawdle, instead you seize the time.

Young Clara
So with that in mind and having spent the last month stumbling over Christmas puddings, Christmas cards and Christmas hampers in our supermarket  I have no shame in parading a selection of history books  by me which will make wonderful presents.

So over the next few days I shall post stories about all my books at frequent intervals, followed by others that I like and finishing with some from my childhood and then just for good measure all over again those that I have published over the last four years.

And I am starting with Manchester Remembering 1914-18 which actually will come out on February 2 2017, which means you can pre-order following the link, offer up a cardboard cut out for Christmas Day with all the added anticipation for the New Year when all the other presents have been forgotten.

“The First World War claimed over 995,000 British lives, and its legacy continues to be remembered today. Great War Britain: Manchester offers an intimate portrayal of the city and its people living in the shadow of the Great War. 

A beautifully illustrated and highly accessible volume, it explores the city's regiments, the background and fate of the men on the frontline, the changing face of industry, the vital role of women, conscientious objectors, hospitals for the wounded and rehabilitation, peace celebrations, the fallen heroes and war memorials. 

The Great War story of Manchester is told through the voices of those who were there and is vividly illustrated with evocative images.”*

And that is it for day 1.

*Great War Britain Manchester, 2017 £12.99, http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/search-here/?s=Andrew+Simpson&p=1&ps=9

Monday 24 October 2016

Discovering a lost soldier of the Great War .......... with a nod of thanks to facebook

Now it is easy to deride social networks and write them off as the preserve of the trivial and the vain but that is to ignore their potential for allowing people to showcase their talents in a whole range of artistic endeavours from photography to painting and much else.

Added to which there are a growing number of sites and individuals who share their research and are willing to offer advice, and encouragement to those writing about their family history as well as those wanting to tell the story of their community.

All of which is why my friend Tricia and I decided to make an appeal for help in finding out more about this young man who as far as she knew was an officer in the 16th Battalion of the Manchester’s and disappeared in July 1916.

There was a photograph, and a comment on the back and nothing else.

Given the date Tricia began with the Somme war memorials but drew a blank and so that was when we made the appeal through a blog story and posted across a selection of facebook sites.

And within a day Michael Gorman came back with a carefully researched set of comments and the suggestions that our young man might be George Hoarce Plested, who was a “Second Lieutenant Manchester Regiment 4th Bn. attd. 16th Bn” who died on July 30th 1916.  He was just 19 and came from Putney.

Now what marks Mr Gorman’s contribution off as special is that he didn’t claim the credit, quoted his source and carefully presented alternatives which I think makes my point about just how useful social media can be in advancing our general knowledge.

Tricia I know is pleased and has now got engaged in searching for our young man to put an identity and a story to the photograph.

Location; London & France

Picture; Unknown Soldier, date unknown, from the collection of Tricia Leslie, and cap badge of the Manchester Regiment courtesy of Paul Wright

It’s what you miss in the big picture ......... ghost signs and abandoned interiors

Now I always welcome a new selection of photographs from Andy Robertson.


Andy spends a lot of time recording the changing landscape in both the twin cities and beyond.

It will begin with an image of a derelict building or industrial site and will follow the development of the place from demolition to new properties.

Along the way he captures some fine scenes like this one with the City pub and the new build in the background.

But as ever his prime purpose is to chronicle those changes and in this case it is the building that ran along Whitworth Street West.

It has excited lots of interest over the years not least because of those designs in the windows.

And it is a building I looked at, briefly thought about and then moved on.

But Andy in his pursuit of recording the buildings demise caught some interesting detail of the interior, from the old fire place to the ghost sign above the door.

And that is history.

Sadly the sign it’s almost impossible to read and has now gone with the rest of the building, leaving just a hole in the ground for Derek the Developer and of course a whole new series of potential pictures for Andy to take.

And that as they say is coming soon.

Location; Manchester







Pictures; Whitworth Street West 2016 from the collection of Andy Robertson

Bargains and pictures in Bury Market on a day in March

Now the thing about Bury Market is that it offers up a shed load of stalls to wander around.

My sisters and our Geoff are particularly taken by the food side of the market but once that has been done, it’s on to pretty much everywhere else.

For Jill it was the wool stall, for Theresa it was a sideways slide back to the stall offering pies and for Jeffrey it was anywhere where there was a bargain.

And me?  Well I just took pictures.

We spent the day there and then let the tram do the serious business of bringing us back to the city.

And really that is that only to add that  for once there is not a history story in sight.

That said I did wonder about reflecting on the passing of the old Grey Mare Lane Market, which f we lived opposite for nearly two years.

On market days it was just matter of leaving our front door walking across Butterworth Street and we were there.

I have still got a Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terell LP bought from the record stall.

It had the same feel as the market in Beresford Square, but unlike Woolwich was contained within a set of walls.

All very different from Woolwich where the stalls spread out across the square and buses carefully made their way along a narrow stretch of road.

I was back home in Woolwich recently and it is all a pale imitation of what it was once.

But that is bordering on a history story so I shall stop.

Location; Bury Market



Pictures; Bury Market, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Sunday 23 October 2016

Who was this young man?

I wonder who this young man was.

This question has been preoccupying the thoughts of my friend Tricia from Bexley who sent me the picture with the comment

“Would you do me a favour and walk the streets of Manchester and pin the attached picture of the mysterious Manchester Soldier to every lamp post in the hope that someone may recognize him.

I am getting no nearer to identifying the young man the only info I have is on the postcard with the exception of the fact that underneath the photo it stated he was a 2nd Lieutenant I assume they came to that conclusion through the evidence of his one pip shown in the photo. 

It may be the person who wrote on the postcard knew the young man perhaps a relative.

I have been through all the cemetery records at Deville Wood where he fell and am halfway through the Thiepval Memorial but have had no luck. 

I have also tried Ancestry but the outcome was the same.”

Now the reverse of the card simply says, "16th Manchester, (30th Division.) Missing
Reported “Wounded and Missing” from 26th July 1916, probably taking Deville Wood.”

It is not much to go on but if Tricia has the names of those officers killed at Deville Wood or in the July of 1916 we may be able to move forward.

My old friend David Harrop has lent me the huge volume containing the Roll of Honour of the Manchester Pals and between the two we might be able to identify him.

And this is an appropriate moment to try and find him given that next month marks the end of that battle a century ago and of course will also be dominated by the acts of Remembrance across the country.

Here in Manchester as elsewhere there will be ceremonies for the anniversary of the Armistice as well as Remembrance services.

David will be participating in a “remembrance walk and talk” in Southern Cemetery with Emma Fox and has also added to his permanent exhibition in the Remembrance Lodge in Southern Cemetery, of which more later.

But for now it may just be that someone recognises the picture and can help us.
Location; Manchester

Picture; Unknown Soldier from the Manchester Regiment, date unknown from the collection of Tricia Leslie

Saturday 22 October 2016

What a difference three months can make ............ from August to October in the story of a building

Now as ever Andy Robertson continues to be on hand to chronicle the changes to the city’s skyline.

And here in just two pictures is the story of one building.

Looking down from the metro stop across Whitworth Street West.

There is a history to the building but for now I will leave you with the two images.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; changing Manchester 2016, from the collection of Andy Roberston

Friday 21 October 2016

The Feathers on Barlow Moor Road, from a pint in 1959 to a packet of salad 57 years late

I can’t really decide whether I mourn the loss of the old Feathers or accept that its present use as a mini supermarket was a “good thing.”

Food, wine and the other convenience things, 2014
Now I say that not out of any prejudice against either the pub or the present shop.

The Feather’s was another of those lost pubs I rarely drank in which may or may not account for its short existence.

It opened in November 1959 and just about staggered into the 21st century.

Near the end it seemed to have a number of fresh openings followed by swift closures and is now a supermarket.


A pint with a packet of crisps, 1959
Its attraction was those small front rooms which were just the right size for a gathering of a few friends or when you fancied escaping from the usual haunts and it was opposite the cinema so was available for a quick drink.

But having said that we always raced down to the Trevor after a film to catch last orders.

Nor is the present shop a place I go too often.

Still I am glad that Andy Robertson was passing and chose to record the place as it is now, full of food, wine and the other convenience things the late night shopper needs and allowed me to contrast it with R.E.Stanley’s photograph soon after it opened its doors to the thirsty drinkers.

Pictures; Tesco Express, 2014 from the collection of Andrew Robertson, and The Feathers, December 1959, R.E.Stanley, m49581, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

I cannot ‘Bare’ to leave this Plaice just yet” ..... seaside humour from 1935

Another in the series of seaside humour through time.



I am not sure what more there is to say.

It was sent to Mr and Mrs Turner if Harpurhey in the summer of 1935.

The weather had been rainy but Bertha and Edith “were having a good time.”

Location; Wales & Manchester


Picture; postcard, 1935 from the collection of Ron Stubley

Thursday 20 October 2016

After the Raid .............. discovering the preparations for the Manchester Blitz

Nell lane after the air raid, 1940
I suppose for most people the sound of an air raid siren is one of those historic curiosities which feature as a backdrop to fictional accounts of the last war or accompany a TV documentary on the Blitz.

Now I was born four years after the war and will never have heard the warning alert or the all clear played in earnest.

But I remember watching my mother react to hearing them and in an instant she was back on some night waiting for the bombs to fall.

After the Raid, 1940

And just briefly a little of that fear caught me one summer’s day when at the height of the second Cold War in the 1980s the local police station tested their siren.

Of course all of that is now long gone, but occasionally you come across vivid reminders of that period.

There are still a few painted signs for EWS on walls which indicated the site of Emergency Water Supplies, and the odd gas mask appears at a jumble sale.*

But I doubt that many of the millions of leaflets issued by the Ministry of Home Security in the December of 1940 will have survived.

After all once the war was over few people I think would wanted to hang on to such a document and yet it is a fascinating piece of history.

AFTER THE RAID began “WHEN YOU HAVE been in the front line and taken it extra hard the country wants to look after you.  

For you have suffered in the national interests as well as in your own interest in the fight against Hitler.  If your home is damaged there is a great deal of help ready for you.”

Bombs over Chorlton, 1940
And then went on to provide advice on preparing in advance, what do about food and shelter along with guidance on obtaining a new homes, tracing friends and relatives, compensation and repairs.

It makes chilling reading especially given that as it fell through the letter box many of our cities including our own were being hit nightly.
Chorlton received its fair share with most of the casualties during the Manchester Blitz just before the Christmas of 1940.

Have your plans ready 1940
Just how useful the leaflet would have been to those bombed out here I have no idea but it remains a tiny insight into what our parents and grandparents coped with.

Which just leaves me to thank David Harrop who lent me the leaflet from his collection which until recently was on display at his permanent exhibition of war time memorabilia at the Remembrance Lodge in Southern Cemetery.

Pictures; After the Raid, December 1940, Ministry of Home Security, from the collection of David Harrop,  the corner of Mauldeth Road and Nell Lane today courtesy of Brian Lee Whitworth and bomb damage at Nell Lane, 1940, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, m09736, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass


*Beware such gas masks, many used asbestos in the filter and these may now prove a health hazard.


Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ..... nu 70 the disappearing house on Major Street and the Cross Keys

Now for three years I passed Major Street without even giving it a second glance, it was just one of the streets you passed on your way up Minishull Street.

The Cross Keys on the corner of Major and Minishull Street, 1970
Although I did have my own moment of destiny on the corner where the two meet which involved the publican of the Cross Keys pub and a dispute about the length of my hair.

It was November 1969 I had been in the city for just three months and in the company of four others we went into the Cross Keys for a drink, only to be refused because we had long hair which in my case hadn’t even covered the top of my ears.

We of course left only to return a year later having seen the landlord leave as we were passing.  By then all of us had shoulder length hair and it seemed a fitting revenge.  Such are the great moments of history.  Others marched and demanded social change and we defied a publican.

The Cross Keys has gone now along with a big chunk of the two streets I knew.

That said the one I am really interested in had gone even before the start of the last century.

This was number 14 Major Street and it is a building I have been interested in ever since I discovered it was briefly one of the refuge buildings for a children’s charity.

Nu 14 Major Street, 1886
The charity was the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges which had been established in 1870 to provide a bed and a meal for destitute boys.

It quickly extended its work to include girls as well as boys, and  provide more permanent homes offering training for future careers along with holiday homes.

It also campaigned against some of the worst cases of child exploitation taking negligent parents to court and arguing against the practise of employing young children to sell matches on the streets of the twin cities.

And sometime after 1883 it took over number 14 Major Street as an additional home.*

I can’t be exactly sure on the date, but the 1883 street directory does not list it and the 1886 one does.

Nor did it have a long time, because by 1890 it had gone and in its place was a factory.

And just leaves me with the building which was sandwiched between the Cross Keys and number 14.

It went through various uses but by the 1880s had become an “eating house” which it remained through all the time the charity occupied the building next door.

And that is all I want to say.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; the Cross Keys, A Davison, 1970, m49464 courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and nu 14 Major Street, 1886  courtesy of the Together Trust, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-together-trust.html

*Slater's Directory of Manchester & Salford, 1863-1911

Pomona in October ............. views across the water

Now once a long time ago Pomona was synonymous with fun.

There were a set of pleasure Gardens there and in an age long before the television, the cinema and certainly You Tube this was a place to come.

Later it turned into a busy industrial spot and more recently had become tired, neglected and run down.

Just the place for Andy Robertson to wander into and record the changes.

Now I have long been a fan of Andy’s work which as people know is all about recording bits of Greater Manchester as they go through a transformation.

And it doesn’t matter if the spot is an old warehouse, a long forgotten pub or an industrial landscape.

Andy is there and just like those photographers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, his work will be an important record of what has happened to the twin cities and the surrounding areas.

So here are two looking across the water.

Location; Pomona

Pictures; Pomona, 2016  from the series Pomona from the collection of Andy Robertson

Wednesday 19 October 2016

Lost and forgotten Streets of Manchester ......... nu 69 on Major Street in 1905

Now as ever there is a story behind this picture.

14 Major Street, 1886
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, 1886 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 Meetinghttp://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/

**Slater's Directory of Manchester & Salford, 1886. [Part 2: Trades, Institutions, Streets], page 508, 

The missiles of October 1962 ............... when great events are remembered by children

Atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945
Child hood memories don’t always make good history but that said they remain a powerful link to the past.

The trouble with them is that they end up telescoped into a vague point in time and more often are jumbled up with a whole mix of things.

That for the historian makes them tricky because they can’t always be verified, may refer to different periods and above all suffer from that rosy glow which walks with all nostalgia and would have us believe that summers were always sunny and hot and Wagon Wheels were bigger.

But just sometimes they can be very powerful and lock you into the great events in a way that news reels, photographs and official histories fail to do.

And so it’s with the Cuban Missile Crisis now so far away in the past to rank for many alongside Harold dying at Hastings, the victory at Trafalgar and the news of the relief of Mafeking.

U-2 reconnaissance photo over Cuba, 1962
It began at the height of the first Cold War with the discovery by the Americans that the Soviet Union was placing missiles in Cuba with a range which would threaten many US cities.

The options were stark and pretty much seemed no win solutions ranging from bombing the sites to an all out invasion of the island.

Any such moves raised the possibility of a Soviet move on Berlin which in turn would prompt a NATO response and in all probability be followed by an invasion of western Germany by the Warsaw Pact and pretty quickly an exchange of intercontinental ballistic missiles on the major cities of each side.

Me in 1962
Even now a full fifty-five years after those days in the October of 1962 I can feel a sense of foreboding and that was nothing to the emotions I felt back at the time.
Some are still all too vivid and the power comes from reliving them through the memory of a twelve year old.

I was playing rugby out in Ewell and on that Saturday morning I kept looking for that mushroom cloud which I was convinced would appear.

Nor was I alone in picking up on that sense of uncertainty.  My friend Robin who is a year younger was also keenly aware of the events remembering “going into a room and my parents conversations falling away into silence.”

It was a tense moment and one that I was reminded of all over again when I was rereading the sleeve notes of Bob Dylan’s second LP, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan released in 1962 where he recalled that in writing A Hard Rains A Gonna Fall, "Every line in it is actually the start of a whole new song. But when I wrote it, I thought I wouldn't have enough time alive to write all those songs so I put all I could into this one."*

Tracking the missiles across the Atlantic, 1962
Of course for those at the centre of events with a great knowledge of just what was going on the future looked no less scary.

At a conference in Moscow a few years ago two of those at the heart of the crisis reflected on those few days.

The Russian had quietly phoned his wife and told her to take the children out of Moscow while the American had looked out from a White House window and wondered if he would see the sun rise in the morning.

But it is those childhood memories that lock me into the seriousness of that confrontation and by extension to that second Cold War in the late 1970s and 80s.

It like the first was brought on by a mix of circumstances.  There were hard line politicians in the White House and the Kremlin, a new generation of nuclear weapons and delivery systems capable of reaching their targets in ever shorter time, and an escalation of tensions brought on by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Put them together and they made for a potent cocktail all of which has been well documented so I will leave you with the comments of Kay who is a sixteen years younger than me and so was growing up during that second Cold War “I would lie awake at night, listening to planes going overhead. When they lowered their landing gear on their approach to Ringway, I was sure it was the bomb doors opening. “

And today equally horrific childhood accounts march across the news stories from Syria to the refuge camps and across the world

All of which is perhaps a reminder that history is not confined to the professional historian or the media commentator.

Pictures, Atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, Charles Levy from one of the B-29 Superfortresses used in the attack, This image is a work of a U.S. Army soldier or employee, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. Andrew in 1962 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and U-2 reconnaissance photo over Cuba and a U.S. Navy aircraft  flying over a Soviet
freighter, these image  in the public domain in the United States and badge advertising the Chorlton Peace Festival 1984, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Which I have to confess loses something from discovering the song had actually been written in the May of 1962.


Always look up ............. Piccadilly Railway Station

Nothing much more to say.


We were in Piccadilly Railway Station waiting for the train to Sheffield.

And as you do I spent some of the time admiring the glass roof.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Piccadilly Railway Station, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Tuesday 18 October 2016

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ...nu 68 a rare glimpse of King Street in the 1930s

Most of the images we see of Manchester in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were the work of professional photographers. 

They focused on the popular bits and sold them on to the postcard companies.

Then there were the serious amateurs who were often as good as the professionals.


King Street in the 1930s
But there are also the snappers, who captured whatever took their fancy.

Often the images are a little blurred and in many cases have a significance lost in time.

And so with this in mind here is the new series.

Snaps of Manchester is an occasional rummage through pictures most of which were never meant to be shared beyond the family.

Of course the advent of the camera phone has given this a new lease of life.

But for now I am concentrating on old fashioned images and I have my  new facebook chum Sandra to thank for many of these pictures.

Here is King Street before the city planners got rid of the traffic.  Now I don’t have a date for this one but judging from the cars I suspect it will during the 1920s or 30s.

To our right is the old bank which has undergone many conversions and was at one time a music store.

What I like is the way the image captures a quiet day, and while I alluded to dodging cars there is of course little danger of that.

There are few of them and the noise they made would have alerted most people to their passing.

Once we have a date it should be possible to identify some of the shops, particularly those on the left of our photograph.

And with the way these things work there will be someone who can supply a possible date, and others who will remember the shops.

All of which makes for great history.

Now I think I can just remember King Street with cars but like so much of our recent history it is easy to forget the detail.

And that is what makes such snaps all the more useful because they wander off the beaten well trod path and provide us with scenes which the professional did not think as interesting.

Location; Manchester


Picture; King Street circa 1930s from the collection of Sandra Hapgood




So farewell the Sherwood in Fallowfield some will mourn your passing and even when you were the Orange Grove

Now back in the 1970s Private Eye regularly ran short poems which I think were by E J Thrib and were a comment on the events of the day.

They began “So farewell  ............” and ran on with some impossible rhymes and often scurrilous descriptions of the passing of a politician or personality.

So with that in mind to accompany Andy Robertson’s pictures I invite poems on the passing of the Sherwood which dates back to at least the 1840s and possibly even earlier.

Andy knew it well but I rather think never visited it after its name change.

Andy writes, “Drove past today and the Sherwood/Orange Grove in Fallowfield is no more”

Helpfully he offered up an image from the Local Image Collection for those who don’t remember it or equally those who want to remember it in happier times.

I have decided to go with one of his from December 2015, and the current hole in the ground.

Location; Fallowfield

Pictures; the Sherwood in 2015 and now from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Manchester Local Image Collection, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/ResultsList.php?session=pass&QueryName=BasicQuery&QueryPage=/index.php?session=pass&Restriction=&StartAt=1&Anywhere=SummaryData|AdmWebMetadata&QueryTerms=m50564&QueryOption=Anywhere