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Rich Inheritance ........... stories of Manchester from 1962
Now history books do date and eventually get passed over and eclipsed by newer ones.It is partly fashion but also that as the scholarship moves on what was said at best only tells half a story and at...
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Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 45 ............ the one many wish...
Now there will be a fair few who wish that this tiny access to Piccadilly Gardens didn’t exist, and that ignites the whole can of worms which is the story of the redevelopment of the Gardens.And that...
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Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ...................... nu 18 St Simon...
Now you can still walk along St Simon Street but it no longer follows the route that it did when it led from Blackfriars Street to the Anaconda Works of Frederick Smith and Co who were producing some...
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Looking for our lost launderettes, no 1 ........... Manchester Road
Now most of us like looking at old pictures and trying to spot the changes from then till now.For me it was always preferable to those photographs in the Sunday newspapers where you had to spot the...
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Harold Morris of Eltham and Welling, a life lived out in service to the...
In that great sweep of history marked by revolutions, wars and natural disasters most of us will not even get a footnote in some long and detailed history of the 20th century.Ours are “little lives...
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The stories behind the picture ................... Manchester in the 1870s
Now you know just by looking at the photograph that there is a story here.And the more you look it is apparent that there will be as many stories as there are people staring back at us.It starts with...
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Look and Learn ............. a grand way to discover a shed load of knowledge
Now for reasons I don’t fully understand I wasn’t a great reader as a child.And that was odd because both mum and dad devoured books which they got from the public library and the private lending...
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Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 19 ........ compare and contrast
Now I am the first to admit I have become fixated by Greengate.Greengate, 1980And that is all the more ironic given that I wasn’t born in Salford and until a couple of decades ago was only vaguely...
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Mrs Keal and the mystery of 419 Barlow Moor Road
Leon's, 2015It has taken sometime but I am closer to solving the mystery behind the date on the wall of 419 Barlow Moor Road.Most people will know the place as Leon’s the fabric shop but I have long...
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The Manchester soldier outside Burrage Grove school in 1915
Outside Burrage Grove school in 1915Now I rather think this photograph will set off a trail of comments.We are on Burrage Grove sometime around 1915 and the picture comes from the George Davison...
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Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 46 ...... the one with the canal
I am on Camp Street just off DeansgateCamps Street, 1938And if I wanted to be more accurate we are standing in the Manchester and Salford Junction Canal Tunnel in 1938.It is one of series of pictures...
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Calling on the past with a package of Manchester stories
I was wearing my light weight raincoat..... I was neat, clean, had my note pad and two pens and I looked the part. I was what I should be a dedicated researcher and proud of it. I was calling on Ron...
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Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ............ nu 20 remembering a bit of...
Now I don’t go in for nostalgia and rarely spend a lot of time reflecting on what might have been.But a long time ago I regularly waited outside the solicitor’s which was housed in that tall glass...
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Of sewers, music halls and deep deep tunnels, Barlow Moor Road in 1911
Barlow Moor Road, circa 1911They're moving father's grave to build a sewer ........ They're moving his remains to lay down nine-inch drains, To irrigate some rich bloke's residence.* It was one of...
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Back on Plumstead Common in the summer of 1905
This is one of 12 picture post cards which Tuck and Sons issued in the summer of 1905, and I rather like it.So as I have more in the collection I rather think I will show some more over the next few...
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Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ........... nu 47 Spam Court, one...
I have been drawn back to Spam Court. Spam Court, 1965It was a collection of six back to back houses in a partially enclosed court off Artillery Street which runs from Byrom Street to Longworth Street...
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Sitting in a backstreet in Florence ......... thinking of WLS radio station,...
Florence, 2012Now if you belong to that generation which was born just after the last world war, who grew up with the sound of Buddy Holly, and the Beatles, and trembled during the Missile Crisis of...
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“Having a good time, travelled 140 miles today” .......... on holiday in the...
Now as we move effortlessly towards October the season of sending holiday postcards will slowly come to an end.Not of course that we send as many as we did at the beginning of the last century.Back...
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“Dear Eddie & Bert do you know the Clough?” ............ picture postcards...
Now as we move effortlessly towards October the season of sending holiday postcards will slowly come to an end.So with that in mind here is number two of a short series which will come to an end when...
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Pictures from a family album, Dartford 1928
I have to confess I am drawn to old family photographs.Nor does it matter that they are not my family. In fact very few of ours have survived. Now this may be simply bad luck or a tendency that runs...
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