Watching the coronation procession in Didsbury on June 22 1911

March 13, 2019, 7:00 pm

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It is June 22nd 1911 and we are in Didsbury watching the coronation festivities for King George V and Queen Mary.

Along with countless other communities across the country Didsbury celebrated the event with a procession, and a series of events at the local park.

The day was captured on a camera and later reproduced in a slim volume by the local historian Fletcher Moss.

The book, along with the event and some of the photographs from the day have featured on the blog already but today I decided to focus on two pictures which I guess were taken fairly close together.*

The captions on the two images record that the procession was on the way back and was heading towards the Playing Fields.

And so we have them as they have reached the point just past the old Methodist College hard by the green in front of the old Cock and Didsbury Hotel.

Now this was obliviously a central point for people to gather and so amongst the crowd are two photographers and a mix of people who in the time lapse between the two pictures are more to watch different parts of the procession.

Our woman in white watches as the Didsbury Lad's Club wagon prepares to swing round past the lamp post and as it moves out of sight back up Wilmslow Road begins a conversation with her companion dressed in black.

The woman in the shawl having finished talking to the man beside her turns also to watch as the procession moves on, leaving the smartly dressed young lady by the lamp post to turn her back on the events and stare off into the distance her attention caught by something off camera.

And my attention in turn has been caught by that Didsbury Lad’s Club wagon.

The movement began in the later 19th century and was part of the attempt to keep young boys off the street and channel their energies and interests into activities which could be fun, character building and help them later in life.

It may well be that the movement had a strong part to play in eroding the dominance of the gang culture of the twin cities of Manchester and Salford.

The Scuttlers as they were popularly known had a brief but terrifying hold on young men in our inner city areas lasting from roughly 1870 till the end of the century.

Not unsurprisingly then the Lads’ Clubs tended to be in the poorer areas which raises fascinating questions about the presence of a club here in Didsbury.

Now so far all I know is that it later became a scout group but as to who set it up and when it made the transition is as yet unclear.

But there will be someone who does and if they get to me before I do the research I shall let you know.

Pictures; from Didsbury Coronation Festivities, Fletcher Moss, 1911

* The 1911 Coronation Festivities in Didsbury, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%201911%20Coronation%20Festivities%20in%20Didsbury

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Buses I have known and routes I travelled

March 13, 2019, 8:00 pm

≫ Next: Looking beyond the obvious, a photograph and the story of a strike and of strikes yet to come ..... part one, this day on July 4 1911

≪ Previous: Watching the coronation procession in Didsbury on June 22 1911

I have to say I remain a fan of those old rear loading buses.

Of course they did nothing for those in wheelchairs, or wanting to board the bus with a buggy, or even a shopping trolley, but they were what I grew up with.

Even now the idea of running after the bus and jumping on, or judging the speed and slipping off before it got to a bus stop appeals to me.

To this day I have no idea why I photographed this one in its old Corporation livery or for that matter how I got the shot of the line of buses proceeding down Princes Street.

Given that the pictures date from 1979 when the old council buses departments had been merged to form SELNEC I rather think this might have been part of the steam outing which saw vintage cars buses, and traction engines make their way through the city in a glorious homage to our transport past.

But I could just be wrong, have mixed up the two pictures, and saw no more significance in the first other than back then I regularly caught the 105 along with the 100 and 101 to work.

That said the building behind on the corner of Bombay Street went long ago, replaced by by one with coloured pillars, and bits of ornate ironwork and glass leaving me just invite stories about the 53.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; old buses, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

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Looking beyond the obvious, a photograph and the story of a strike and of strikes yet to come ..... part one, this day on July 4 1911

March 13, 2019, 8:00 pm

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Photographs are not always what they seem.

We can stare at an image and on the face of it draw all sorts of conclusions.

Conclusions about when it was taken, who the people were and what purpose it served.

I had seen this photograph countless times and never really studied it. There was a suggestion that the date was 1880 and clearly the presence of the police hinted at trouble.

But study the picture and it tells its own story.

A line of policeman are walking beside the horse and cart and alongside flanking them is a crowd, many of whom are keeping pace with the procession.

Usually at least one person would be caught smiling at the camera perhaps even fooling around but not today.

Look more closely and their faces suggest a collective sense of seriousness perhaps even anxiety.

To our right a young woman is running and the purposeful expression on her face hints that all is not well.

There are questions that need to be asked of the image.

Why are the police escorting a cart? Perhaps it was stolen but would this bring so many people out on to the streets?

And why is the young woman running to get ahead of the police?

The caption in the police archives reveals that the cart is heading from Piccadilly Gardens along Newton Street.

Now there was a police station on Newton Street, but it is also the direction you might take to get to the wholesale food market.

The clothes of the crowd are much later than the 1880s and put the photograph at the beginning of the twentieth century.

This was a time of major industrial confrontation and the years around 1911 saw some of the bitterest clashes between employers and the Government on one side and organised labour on the other.

There were strikes in the south Wales coal fields, and trouble in Liverpool which began with a sailors strike and spread across the city involving other industries.

And while the miners lost the workers in Liverpool were mostly successful and pointed the way forward for other workers in other industries around the country.

There was a growing feeling that industrial action would deliver a better life for working people. And the agitation even spread to the schools. In over sixty cities and towns children came out as well.

The number of working days lost because of strikes climbed as did the number of trade union members, and in Parliament Churchill, the Home Secretary was often preoccupied with questions on the industrial unrest.

All of this was against a backdrop of wage cuts, poor working conditions, and rapid inflation. Between 1889 and 1910 the cost of food rose by 10 per cent and the cost of coal by 18 per cent.

The life expectancy for working men was just 50 years of age and 54 for women, five per cent of children aged between 10 and 14 were already at work and the richest one percent held 70 percent of the wealth.

Tensions mounted and the army was sent into the striking areas with fatal consequences. A miner was killed in south Wales and two workers in Liverpool.

Here in the city the same awful poverty, dreadful housing conditions and bleak prospects were evident to anyone who cared to walk just a few minutes from the tall impressive headquarters of commerce.

Just a little east of the scene in our photograph were the crowded streets and courts of Ancoats and Ardwick, while in the direction the procession was taking could be found New Cross, Redbank and Strangeways, all of which commentators agreed should be raised to the ground.

The photograph also provides a clue to the time of year. Our young woman is in shirt sleeves and the men in the crowd are dressed in suits.

The summer of 1911 was particularly warm. June had been a mix of sun and showers but July was fine and hot and gave rise to fears of a prolonged drought and it is in early July that our picture was taken.

It may have been Tuesday July 4th but certainly during that week.

I can be fairly certain because it was during this week that the carters went on strike here in the city. Twelve thousand men were on strike and in pursuance of their claim were picketing the docks to prevent the movement of food to the wholesale market.

Picture; Greater Manchester Police Archive, July 1911 by kind permission of Greater Manchester Police Archive, July 1911

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Dangerous times and peaceful protests

March 13, 2019, 8:00 pm

≫ Next: The lost 1950’s collection ....... No1 catching the tram in Brussels

≪ Previous: Looking beyond the obvious, a photograph and the story of a strike and of strikes yet to come ..... part one, this day on July 4 1911

“the dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.”

That was Abraham Lincoln speaking to the US Congress in 1862 on the eve of the Civil War, and it aptly sums up the response of many to the international scene during the 1980s.

This was a time when there was a growing feeling that the world was a less safe place. Relationships between the two super powers had entered a more hostile phase. This was only in part due to the election of hard line politicians in the west and the elevation of equally conservative leaders in the Soviet Union but also to events across the world where the USA and USSR were engaged in a new round of support for proxy governments.

What made it all the more dangerous was that a new generation of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems had come on stream just as the Cold War deepened and hardened.

The US cruise missile which was being deployed in Britain and West Germany took just 15 minutes to reach its targets in the USSR while American Pershing missiles and the Russian equivalent took just 4 minutes from launch to detonation over the cities of Europe.

I remember travelling across France with a young American back packer from the Mid West who remarked how he had come to see the European perspective to this arms race which from the comfort of middle America had never occurred to him.

Here in Britain the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament saw its membership increase dramatically, there were growing numbers of demonstrations across the country and the woman’s peace movement focused on Greenham Common which was one of the sites of the deployment of US missiles.

Here in Chorlton there were attempts to set up a women’s peace camp on the Rec on Beech Road and on a hot summers day in 1984 hundreds attended a peace festival in the park while the City Council declared Manchester a nuclear free zone.

There were those who derided such actions and some who still scorn this popular response. They point to the demise of the Soviet Union and the other Communist Governments of Eastern Europe for a relaxation in those tensions.

But this is to ignore the genuine belief by countless millions that something had to be done.

Picture; badges from the collection of Andrew Simpson, photograph of the peace festival on the Rec from the collection of Tony Walker

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The lost 1950’s collection ....... No1 catching the tram in Brussels

March 13, 2019, 8:01 pm

≫ Next: The Library on the High Street

≪ Previous: Dangerous times and peaceful protests

Now like all good things the lost 1950’s collection was not really lost just misplaced.

The collection was passed onto me by a friend and in the midst of redecorating the house last Christmas were carefully stored away in the cellar and came to light this week when the said cellar was also going through a makeover.

There are about 30 picture postcards from the 1950s which are part of a bigger collection ranging from Edwardian birthday cards to a vast selection of seaside scenes from Britain, France and Belgium with a few of the Swiss Alps.

But it is the 1950s group that has caught my eye which I suppose is partly because that was the decade when I was growing up and because they have a quaintness about them which makes them look almost like today but not quite.

And to start the series, this is of the Stock Exchange in Brussels, chosen because of that tram.
Trams first came to the city in 1869 and the first electric one 25 years later.

Over time the livery of the trams has changed but in the 1920s they were given a primrose colour which lasted till the mid 1990s.

Location; Brussels

Picture; the Stock Exchange, Brussels, circa 1950 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

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The Library on the High Street

March 13, 2019, 8:30 pm

≫ Next: Looking down on the Chorlton green .................... 1925

≪ Previous: The lost 1950’s collection ....... No1 catching the tram in Brussels

Now the Library is a special place for me.

It was where I spent many happy hours in the reference room and later where our Stella worked.

And it is also a pretty impressive building.

It was built “with funds from the Carnegie Trust to a design by Maurice Adams. The classical frontispiece is recessed and on either side are oriel windows and tile hung gables flanked by urns.”*

Next door at nos 183-5 “is the old electricity showroom which was built in the early 1930s by the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich; upstairs at that time was the office of the Council’s Registrar [and] behind it was a building used from the early 1900s as the electricity works, Woolwich being the electricity supply authority at the time.”*

Now the electricity offices may have gone but the Library remains and looks no different from the building I can see in pictures from 1910 and 1971.

So some things remain the same although since I left they have sneaked in the new swimming baths just behind the place but that is for another story.

Picture, the library in 2014 courtesy of Chrissie Rose

*Discover Eltham and its Environs, Darrell Spurgeon, 2000

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Looking down on the Chorlton green .................... 1925

March 13, 2019, 8:30 pm

≫ Next: Living in interesting times ……..

≪ Previous: The Library on the High Street

An occasional series dedicated to looking down at Chorlton from the air.

Here is the green in 1925 taken from an Imperial Airways aircraft.

At first glance there is little that has changed, but the village school would still have been in use, the Horse and Jockey would have occupied a small foot print, and on Beech Road the smithy and Joel House had yet to vanish.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; aerial view of Chorlton Green 1925, m72054, Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

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Living in interesting times ……..

March 14, 2019, 6:08 am

≫ Next: Salford buildings that tell a story ........ part 3 Mrs Burke's beer shop on the corner of Bank and Encombe Place

≪ Previous: Looking down on the Chorlton green .................... 1925

Now there is not an inevitability to that simple observation that we are a two-party democracy, or for that matter that any political party is guaranteed to last forever.

The SDP office, Chorlton, 1983

The Tories split over the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, the Liberals over Irish Home Rule in 1885 and split gain over Lloyd George’s decision to form a coalition to fight the 1918 General Election, and The Labour Party copied them in 1931 over Ramsey McDonald’s austerity package which was meant to solve the economic mess which followed in the wake of the Wall Street Crash and the onset of the Depression.

The upshot for each of the political parties was a period in the wilderness, with the ever-present threat that they would be marginalised for all time.

Election Poster, 1929

Some like the Tories and the Labour Party did come back. In the case of the Labour Party their electoral success in 1945 ushered in major social and economic changes which benefited large section of the populations.

But others didn’t, and while the Liberals and the Lib Dems mounted a sort of come back at local level, this was never translated into a significant Parliamentary present and theirs remained a series of false dawns.

I was born just 49 years after the foundation of the Labour Party and experienced at first hand the departure of the Gang of Four who formed the SDP and counted close colleagues in those who joined that political party.

Briefly in the early 1980s they were seen by many as a serious challenge to the Labour Party, and for those of who were engaged in the 1983 General Election, the main preoccupation was not whether we would win, but the chances that we might come third behind the Tories and the SDP.

Election poster, 1966

And what I also remember was the level of animosity towards those who had left, which was mirrored in the 1931 Labour split. I grew up against a backdrop of comments about“that traitor McDonald” and remember seeing trade union banners carrying the faces of Keir Hardie and Ramsey McDonald which been had McDonald’s eyes cut out.

All of which brings me to an interesting program on Radio 4 yesterday on the history of party splits from 1846 onwards.

When to Break Up the Party*, reflected that “as the consequences of the creation of the Independent Group of breakaway MPs play out, Brexit continues to put extraordinary pressure on the cohesion of Labour and Conservative Parties alike.

Professor Steven Fielding draws on the few examples from our history of party splits to dissect what forces cause them, and why some are bigger and longer-lasting than others.

He assesses the significance or otherwise of what’s happening now against the background not just of the birth of the SDP in 1981, but all the big splits since 1846.

Labour's 1983 Manifesto

With: Laura Beers, David Davis, Angus Hawkins, Clive Lewis, Martin Pugh, Chuka Umunna

Producer: Phil Tinline” *

Now, I am well aware that some might find the program shallow, and others ask, “but where was the Class analysis?” I found it an interesting survey of how each party split, and the consequences of that split.

As to where we are going, that has yet to be seen.

Pictures; the SDP office, Chorlton, 1983, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, posters and manifesto covers, 1929-1983,

*When to Break Up the Party, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00035ng

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Salford buildings that tell a story ........ part 3 Mrs Burke's beer shop on the corner of Bank and Encombe Place

March 14, 2019, 7:00 pm

≫ Next: Binswood in Didsbury, 611 Wilmslow Road ...... begins to reveal its story

≪ Previous: Living in interesting times ……..

The beer shop which is now no more

It is amazing what little bits of history you come across when you just set off wandering across the twin cities.

Bank Place, 2014

This is the corner of Bank and Encombe Place and it is somewhere you could easily miss.

But if you did turn off Chapel Street and wander along the route that comes out at Upper Cleminson Street I doubt that you would be aware of its former history.

The road twists and turns and as it does actually changes its name five times, starting as St Paul’s Place, then turning left to become Bank Street then Wilton Place before briefly assuming the name Bank Place and finishing off as Encombe Place.

Bank Place, 1894

All of which is a clue to what we have lost because until relatively recently Bank Place continued from Wilton Place round the side of the church to join up with Bank Street with the church in the centre.

Today all of the ten houses which ran from Bank Street round to Encombe Place have gone.

Back in 1911 these were seven and roomed properties and home a mix of people from Joshua Ross who was a foreman and Daniel Roberts a printer to an office cleaner, clerk and carrier.

But it is the building in Andy’s picture that draws me in. I don’t know when it stopped selling beer but I do know that in 1911 it was the beer shop of Mrs Josephine Burke who shared the six roomed house with her five children and one niece.

Mrs Burke and her neighbours, 1911

Mrs Burke was a widow and she had taken over the business from her husband on his death in 1907.

In time I will go looking for Mr Burke but for now I shall content myself with Josephine who had been married in 1882. She had been just 21 gave her occupation as a sewing machinist and came from a comfortably off family. Her father was a plumber employing four men.

Three of her own children were clerks and two helped behind the bar.

Hers was the only house on the west side of the street but her neighbours included the Rev Arthur Lyle who was the curate of St Philips, a Miss Hood who ran a “Free Kindergarten” along with a clerk plumber and caretaker.

Bank Place, 1849

Today there is little sense of what was once here, the buildings have gone and with them the small community that lived around the church.

Go back another fifty years and that life around St Philips is even more apparent.

All of which makes me think there is even more to find out about the people of Bank Place and its neighbouring streets

And just minutes after the story was re-posted Rick has written in to say that "the Borough Tavern,when I worked at Farmer Norton.On the corner of Upper Cleminson St and Adelphi St was the Brewery Tavern,so named after the Adelphi brewery Co.

Later the buildings were used by Wire drawing dies and Anglardia Ltd.".

And breaking news ....George Edwards tells me "sadly I think it was only in the last 12 months. I was hoping since they have rejuvenated this area with new town houses (time keepers sq) to go with the remaining Georgian townhouses, that someone might reopen it as a pub". News which has been confirmed by Pete Harrison

Picture; Bank Place, 2014 from the collection of Andy Robertson, the same place in 1844 from the 1842-49 OS Manchester & Salford, and in 1894, from the OS for South Lancashire, 188-94 courtesy of Digital Archives Association,http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

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Binswood in Didsbury, 611 Wilmslow Road ...... begins to reveal its story

March 14, 2019, 7:30 pm

≫ Next: The lost 1950’s collection ....... No 2 eating tapas in London

≪ Previous: Salford buildings that tell a story ........ part 3 Mrs Burke's beer shop on the corner of Bank and Encombe Place

Now the thing with stories about old houses, is that they draw you in and can take you off in all sorts of directions.

And so it was with Binswood which is on Wilmlsow Road in Didsbury.

It started with just a picture of “Binswood Red Cross Old People’s Home", sent to me by my old friend David Harrop and given that he is particularly interested in the Red Cross hospitals from the Great War, I made the assumption that the house had served as a place to care for wounded servicemen.

A search in the Red Cross book of war time hospitals published in 1916 didn’t show Binswood, but then the charity continued to acquire properties right up to the end of the war.

And it may be that it will turn up as a hospital, but I think not.

In 1918 it appears in an article in the Manchester Guardian which includes a list of subscribers to the Christmas Comforts Fund and there at Binswood Didsbury was a W. Ruttenau who sent in £3. 3s.

And the property looks still to be a private residence in 1949 when it came on the market advertised by J.H. Norris & Son as “one of the finest large RESIDENCES, situate Binswood, corner of Fog Lane; large accommodation includes three fine entertaining rooms, ten bedrooms, billiards room, etc; 6,679 sq yards; vacant possession”.*

This may well have been when the property was bought by the Red Cross. A decade later there is a photograph of the house with a notice board announcing that it belongs to them and in 1967 The Guardian carried an “Appeal for a lift for the elderly”.

“The British Red Cross Society (East Lancashire branch) is appealing for contributions towards the sum of £7,000 needed to install a lift and make other improvements at Binswood, 611 Wilmlsow Road, Didsbury, Manchester, a short-stay home for the elderly”.**

Since then the house has returned to residential use and sometime in 2017 was redeveloped, with the addition of a new block which has been given the name of “The Fairfax” and sits beside “Binswood Hall”.

And as you do I went looking for the property and found that the new block offers 12 energy efficient executive apartments on of which one was on the market for £399,950.***

That just leaves me to track back the history of Binswood. I know who was living there in the early 20th century and that it appears on the OS map of Didsbury in 1894.

So a trawl of the rate books and directories will establish when it was built and those directories may also reveal when it ceased being a Red Cross Home.

We shall see.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; Binswood, date unknown, from the collection of David Harrop, and in 1959, J.F. Harris, m42289, & in 1967, W. Kay, m41900, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council,http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Sales By Private Contract; Manchester Guardian, July 15, 1949

** Appeal for a lift for the elderly, the Guardian September 5, 1967

*** 2 bedroom apartments for sale, The Fiarfax, 611a, Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, rightmove, http://www.rightmove.co.uk/new-homes-for-sale/property-64063198.html

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The lost 1950’s collection ....... No 2 eating tapas in London

March 14, 2019, 8:00 pm

≫ Next: The walk in the park........ no. 18 ...... from the Goldsmith Collection

≪ Previous: Binswood in Didsbury, 611 Wilmslow Road ...... begins to reveal its story

The second in a series taken from a selection postcards produced in the 1950s.

I like this one, it is of the Ronda Room in Martinez Spanish Restaurant on Swallow Street off Piccadilly in London.

The restaurant opened in 1923, survived the death of its owner in 1951 and continued for another three decades.

I was drawn to it by the unabashed claims for its warmth and brightness, but know I would never have been able to afford to eat there, which is all to the good because as it was a haunt of the Spanish dictator Franco I rather think I would have avoided it.

That said there is a fascinating article on the place well worth a read.*

Location; London

Picture; the Martinez Spanish Restaurant, London, circa 1950 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Interesting bits and bobs from my research into the connections between Britain and Spain during the long nineteenth century

OF COCKTAIL SAUCE AND KINGS, OR, LONDON’S FIRST SPANISH RESTAURANT (PROBABLY)
April 25, 2014· by Kirsty, in Anglo-Spanish.·
https://hispanicbritain.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/martinez-spanish-restaurant/

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The walk in the park........ no. 18 ...... from the Goldsmith Collection

March 14, 2019, 8:00 pm

≫ Next: Picking a municipal bus company and travelling across the city in 1963

≪ Previous: The lost 1950’s collection ....... No 2 eating tapas in London

Our Jillian often gets her best pictures first thing in the morning when the light is sharp, the air is fresh and there is a promise of another exciting day.

Location; Greenwich Park

Picture; A walk in the park,, 2017 from the collection of Jillian Goldsmith

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Picking a municipal bus company and travelling across the city in 1963

March 14, 2019, 8:00 pm

≫ Next: The end of the demonstration ........

≪ Previous: The walk in the park........ no. 18 ...... from the Goldsmith Collection

Cover of Maps of Manchester & District, 1963

Now I am looking at a copy of the 1963 Manchester bus routes which my friend David has passed on to me.

Like me he was one of those that never went to a grammar school and recalled that

“I went to St Gregory's Technical High School in Ardwick Green from 1960-1967.

And because it was over 3 miles from Chorlton I was awarded a free bus pass...Joy of Joys, and could travel freely anywhere I liked in school hours for free.

Not that I did - but it did allow me to experiment with the various routes to Ardwick Green from the stop near Chorlton Baths.

I finally ended up using the fastest way - the 81 or 82 to Brooks Bar, and then the 53, a great route known as the 'banana' service because " they came in bunches" and from Greenheys the 123 to Ardwick Green.”

Now all of this reminded me that even the humble guide to the City’s bus routes comes with a story and opens up a fascinating glimpse into that not so distant past.

Back then according to another friend there were bus loads of students crisscrossing the city.

And like David many were in receipt of a free bus pass. I too briefly had access to the same although in my case it was a season ticket for the train to travel from Well Hall to New Cross and back again.

Of course the sting in the tail was that they could only be used in term time and during school hours which rather limited the opportunity to boldly go and explore to the outer limits of the Corporation’s bus routes.

Detail of bus routes in and around Chorlton

But they were just another part of that welfare provision which some today frown upon.

Looking again at that bus guide is to follow long forgotten routes, and be reminded that the early 60s was still a time when a lot more people relied on public transport or did it themselves on a push bike.

The scenes outside all our big factories at clocking off time were characterised by people cycling home or waiting to catch one of the long line of buses parked up waiting for the evening rush.

And here there was a bewildering choice. Running through Chorlton there was the 80, 81, 82, 85, and 94 along with the 41 and 43 all of which went into town.

Stevenson Square December 1966

There was also cross routes including the 16, 22, and 62 and it was possible to travel by bus into Chorltonville up to Rye Bank Road and out to Firswood.

The network also provided for more connections and all of this ran alongside a regular train service from Chorlton into Central Station or out to Didsbury, Stockport and the Derbyshire hills.

It was a complex system which involved not only Manchester Corporation buses, but also those of Salford, Oldham, Ashton, smaller local authorities, and the North West Bus and Car Company.

And so beside the distinctive red livery of Manchester and the blue and cream of Ashton there was the green of Salford and the green of the Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Joint Transport and Electricity Board along with the maroon and cream colours of Oldham.

Piccadilly with an Ashton-Under-Lyne trolley bus, 1960

For those of a certain disposition this was a wonderful cornucopia of municipal transport that made the car less essential and can only be dreamed of today and one that vanished at the end of the 1960s.*

Ah I hear you say all of that is fine, but getting in a car at work and driving home with the radio to listen to is far superior than having to wait in the rain at the bus stop, fight for a seat and end up beside that rather boring chap from the end house whose sole topics of conversation revolve around pigeons and the poor performance of Huddersfield F.C.

All of which maybe so but I do miss the ease with which you could move around the city and so I shall revisit David’s 1963 bus route book and plan a few trips of my own, which may or may not have left me at ease in the company of that chap from the end house.

*Of trolley buses and a company called SELNEC
http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/of-trolley-buses-and-company-called.html

Pictures; Maps of Manchester and District, Manchester Corporation, 1963, courtesy of David O’Reilly and Manchester Corporation trolley bus, Stevenson Square 1966, © Alan Murray-Rust, geograph.org.uk Wikipedia Commons, Ashton-Under-Lyne Corporation trolley bus in Piccadilly, 1960, from the collection of J.F.A.Hampson, Museum of Transport, Wikipedia Commons

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The end of the demonstration ........

March 14, 2019, 8:00 pm

≫ Next: Making their home in Chorlton, nu 2 the Clarke Family

≪ Previous: Picking a municipal bus company and travelling across the city in 1963

Now the cynic will quip, that at the end of a march or demonstration there is just unfilled hopes and sore feet.

The end of the demonstration

It might be a clever take on what sometimes happens, but I tend to think that more often than not, something is achieved.

It may be that the issue has been highlighted and more people are aware of the problem which in turn may lead to action on behalf of the authorities and a change in the law or a change in attitudes.

And part of that impact will be in the numbers who attend, and speeches which accompany the end of the demonstration.

Listening in Crown Square

I have done my fair share of listening to speeches and I can testify that they run the full range from the uplifting and inspiring, to the dreary, the mundane and the downright boring.

Some like those of Dr King’s “I have a dream" or Abraham Lincoln’s "Gettysburg Address" will roll with poetry, power and resonance, while others will drone on with clichés and empty slogans.

And when all of that is done there will be the things people leave behind which will be a mix of the placards carried along the way, and the discarded and unread newspapers sold by groups wanting to advertise their own version of what the future could be like.

George Morton

This one was in Manchester sometime in the 1980s.

It began at All Saints on what was then a piece of waste ground beside the old Chorlton on Medlock Town Hall and made it way via St Peter's Square to Crown Square.

Judging by some at least of the placards it was an anti racist demonstration and amongst those speaking at the end was George Morton who was the MP for Moss Side.

I have no recollection of the event but as I took the pictures I must have been there.

Those pictures have sat in our cellar as negatives for all most four decades, and are now slowly being reclaimed with the use of a scanner.

Speaking in Crown Square

They are a mixed bunch, from demonstrations to carnivals, to street events and are a record of how we were in the 1970s and 80s.

Location; Manchester, sometime in the 1980s

Pictures; discarded placards and speeches, 1980s from the collection of Andrew Simpson

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Making their home in Chorlton, nu 2 the Clarke Family

March 14, 2019, 8:30 pm

≫ Next: The lost 1950’s collection ....... No 3 Eastbourne “wishing I was somewhere else"

≪ Previous: The end of the demonstration ........

The sales transaction, 1860

The Clarke family arrived on Chorlton in 1860 and worked the smithy on Beech Road for nearly 100 years.

I know this because I have a copy of the sale transaction he made between himself and the widow Elizabeth Lowe. He paid £55 for the “Goodwill, fixtures about the forge. Also the pig sty and wooden shed.....”

It is a remarkable document for many reasons. Not only does it shed light on what was in the smithy but it is in Clarke’s own handwriting which makes it one of only two dozen or so personal records from the period to have survived. But there is more.

This was a time when many were still illiterate and Elizabeth Lowe was one of these. Just a decade before in 1851, 45% of the women who were married gave a mark rather than a signature on the marriage certificate.

The Clarke family were to remain on the Row well into the 20th century, and their shop would have been at the heart of the rural community.

John Clarke and before him William Davis supplied the needs of the village, repairing broken tools, forging new ones and shoeing horses.

Charles Clarke, date unknown

When he was hammering and heating at his forge on the Row he acted as a magnate for people. Some coming to collect a repaired tool or bringing a horse which was in need of a new shoe would stop and pass the time of day.

And there were always requests to personalise a farm tool. This might mean making a left handed scythe or widening or narrowing hoe blades used to chop out weeds. Then there would be the endless procession of labourers needing tools sharpened from bill hooks and scythes to axes and all the other types of edged tools.

In the process William might well replace the broken or split staves

And all the time, gangs of children attracted to the smithy by the red hot metal and frequent shower of sparks would stand and stare rooted to the spot. Marjorie Holmes remembers being late for school in the 1930s because she, like countless young people before her had been lost in the magic of the smithy.

But as busy as they were they could still pose for a photograph, and so sometime in 1913 John’s son Charles stood outside the smithy and had his picture taken.

He was 55 and still lived beside the forge. He had been married for over 26 years and he and his wife Sarah had five children.

The two boys had followed their father into the trade. In the 1911 census John described himself as a plumber, and Charles the younger son as a blacksmith striker.

Lillian the eldest of the daughters described herself as a machinist while Ethel worked in a laundry and Florence was still at school...

Charles Clarke Junior, 1893

One of the boys was also active in the Chorlton Brass Band and in the summer of 1893 was also photographed when the band played at Barlow Hall. Sadly he was to die in Gallipoli in June 1915 aged 23.

Pictures; sale of the smithy October 1860, picture of Charles Clark, 1913 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, picture of Charles Clark, DPA 328.18,
Courtesy of Greater Manchester Archives, and photograph of Charles Clarke junior 1893 from the collection of Alan Brown

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The lost 1950’s collection ....... No 3 Eastbourne “wishing I was somewhere else"

March 15, 2019, 7:30 pm

≫ Next: Don't look back ... thoughts after finding Looking at Eltham, 1970

≪ Previous: Making their home in Chorlton, nu 2 the Clarke Family

Now this is not a sideswipe at Eastbourne and its attractions, just an observation that for many of us growing up in the 1950s, the seaside may have been magic as a child but was never guaranteed to deliver hours of constant sunshine.

And judging by the overcoats and that strong wind the day this picture was taken was one of those moments which were less about glorious summer and more “when do the pubs open?

I may be wrong and for that I apologies to Eastbourne and all those who had a good time by the sea in the 1950s.

Location; Eastbourne

Picture; Eastbourne, circa 1950 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

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Don't look back ... thoughts after finding Looking at Eltham, 1970

March 15, 2019, 8:00 pm

≫ Next: The story of a strike and of strikes yet to come, part two .... a Chorlton postcard

≪ Previous: The lost 1950’s collection ....... No 3 Eastbourne “wishing I was somewhere else"

Front cover showing the High Street

Now Eltham is a long way from Chorlton but it was where I grew up and occasionally I am drawn back.

It is in south east London and was once in Kent.

It has an old Tudor barn long since converted into a restaurant, a medieval palace and a lot of my own personal history.

And I am back here again because of a tiny booklet dating from 1970 which I had entirely forgotten I had.*

I guess I must have picked it up on one of those trips to see the family and brought it back with me.

It was produced by the Eltham Society and was designed as a mix of history and current descriptions of the place.

But it is now 44 years old and so the contemporary accounts have themselves become old and dated which in its way makes it as much of a then and now publication as any which set out to mark the passage of time.

The High Street in 1910

And that is why I have come back to it, because here is a perfect time capsule, continuing old pictures of the High Street with what were once contemporary but are now also a record of an old Eltham long gone.

All of which is interesting enough to the historian but what is really fascinating is the section on THE FUTURE for here the writers have taken the present and with a backward glance at past developments have speculated on how Eltham will change.

The High Street in 1970

What struck me was the preoccupation with the impact of the motor car both in the form of parking and congestion and of the coming motor ways.

"The motorways are not yet with us but the process of land acquisition is well advanced and corrugated hoardings and partly wrecked houses are already blighting our streets.

It remains to be seen whether a town can survive the devastating experience of enormous engineering works which, when completed will draw a tight noose around its heart.”**

Of course the area did survive and remains a popular place to live and for many people they will not know any different. And those like my sisters and friends who stayed have embraced the changes and still enjoy living there.

But when you are just a visitor it is different because although I missed most of the blight and certainly all of the building work when I do return I find the transition a bit odd and more than a little disconcerting.

It is a bit like someone has taken your best toy or better still your best memory and altered them. Not enough to totally eliminate them but just enough to make them seem out of kilter with what was.

Advert for H.C.Payne

All of which is perhaps the best reason for not going back.

As they say nostalgia is a cruel thing which messes up the present and spoils the future.

H.C.Payne at 116 Eltham High Street was where I bought my first sports jacket, skinny knitted ties. It was a place I loved and it is now a restauraunt.

So I will stick with the Eltham of 1970, after all I know what it was like I still have the book.

Location; Eltham, London

Pictures; from Looking at Eltham, Eltham Society 1970. I haven’t asked them for permission to use the images and quote from the book but I hope they won’t mind.

* Looking at Eltham, Eltham Society 1970.

** ibib page 55

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The story of a strike and of strikes yet to come, part two .... a Chorlton postcard

March 15, 2019, 8:00 pm

≫ Next: When an Eagle sat in a Didsbury pub

≪ Previous: Don't look back ... thoughts after finding Looking at Eltham, 1970

On Newton street in July 1911

The Carters came out on strike in Manchester at the beginning of July 1911.

It was the picture of police escorting a strike breaker which first caught my interest and led to the first story yesterday.

But they were not the first or the last during the next few years to withdraw their labour to advance a demand for better pay and conditions.

Early in 1912 the miners had come out following a ballot “in favour of giving notice to establish the principle of a minimum wage for every man and boy working underground,”* and at the beginning of March Manchester Municipal workers voted to follow those of Stalybridge, Salford and Stockport and strike for higher pay.

You can get a sense of the mounting conflict from the newspapers of the period. The Manchester Guardian was quick to comment on the concerns over coal stocks in the Greater Manchester area just weeks after the miners had come out, and carried reports that in Nottingham the bakers and painters were about to go on strike while in Manchester there was serious disruption to the rail network.

Leonard's fears

And here in Chorlton on the day the Guardian reported that 60% of trains from one Manchester railway station had been “knocked off” Leonard wrote to a friend of his worries about his mother’s illness and that “all our staff intend to come out on strike this weekend.”

Now it may never be possible to discover the business that he ran or what happened on Friday March 15th when the strike was due to start, but I shall endeavour to try.

He was “busy making arrangements to fill their places” and thought that “this Coal crisis ..... is a terrible affair.”

All of which rather eclipsed his pleasure that at the Parliamentary bye-election earlier in the year “our man got in (Good old Blue) turned a liberal majority from over 2,000 to a conservative one of 500, great excitement.”

It is a fascinating glimpse on how people here in Chorlton looked out on the mounting political and industrial unrest and sadly represents the only comment we have so far.

As it was the strikes rumbled on through the year, but more about them tomorrow.

Picture; detail of a postcard sent on March 12th 1912 from the Lloyd collection, detail from the Carter's strike, courtesy of the Greater Manchester Police Museum

*Balllot paper issued by the Miner’s Federation of Great Britain, January 1912

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When an Eagle sat in a Didsbury pub

March 15, 2019, 8:00 pm

≫ Next: The places I usually don’t photograph ...................nu 1 that other entrance

≪ Previous: The story of a strike and of strikes yet to come, part two .... a Chorlton postcard

I am the first to admit that as a title it might not pass muster under the heading of true stories about Didsbury pubs, but there is an element of truth.

The Royal Oak, 1959

This is the Royal Oak, famed for its cheese and pate lunches, mentioned in the Guardian Food Guide back in 1988, and regularly in newspaper articles and blogs ever since.

But once upon a time it received its beer from the Taylor’s Eagle Brewery, which was based behind the University on Lloyd Street.

The brewery was founded by Joseph Taylor in 1849, registered in February 1888 and was sold in 1924 to a company which retained 60 pubs and was acquired by Marston, Thompson and Evershed Ltd in 1958.*

Now, if you are at all romantic or imaginative, you might well speculate on the origin of the name Eagle in the title, and I wish there were something bizarre about how it came to be included.

The Eagle Brewery, behind the University, 1894

But alas it is nothing more exciting than that the brewery was situated on Eagle Street, although later it was listed on Burlington Street which almost adjoins it.

It was here by 1863, and was advertised as “Taylor, Joseph, ale & porter brewer Eagle Brewery, Lloyd Street, Burlington Street, Oxford Street, Chorlton on Medlock”.

Mr. Taylor does appear to have prospered, because thirteen years earlier, he didn’t qualify to be listed in the trades section as a brewer and only appears in the alphabetical listings of the directory as “brewer 12 Calder Street”, and “beer retailer 25 Brownhill Street”, both in Salford.

It is a measure of just how modest his two enterprises were back in 1850, that neither Calder Street or Brownhill Street were significant enough to be included in the directory.

Nor does he show up in the historic records.

In 1851, a Joseph Taylor is recorded as a pauper in the Salford Workhouse, while a second was living in Prestwich, was 73, and on “private means”, neither of which is he.

So, the search will go on, but in the meantime, I do have a map showing the brewery in 1893, a couple of beer bottles bearing the company name, and of course the ongoing mystery of where to find Mr. Taylor.

But, for all those who like lists, I do have a full list of the pubs owned by Taylor’s Eagle Brewery. Most are in Manchester, with a few in Salford and others in faraway Altrincham, Knutsford, Timperley and Urmston, but the company had two in Didsbury, of which the second was the Station, which is a story for another day.

Leaving me just to make that appeal for stories, memories or memorabilia for our new book on Didsbury pubs.

You can contact us by leaving a comment on the blog or leaving a message on social media.

Location, Didsbury, Chorlton on Medlock and Salford

Pictures; The Royal Oak, 1959, J.F. Harris, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and the Taylor’s Eagle Brewery, 1894 from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Brewerypedia, http://breweryhistory.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

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