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A name and a clue to a family from Little Italy in Ancoats in 1881
Your name is a very important part of your identity and for some people in some parts of the world it is an immediate clue to where the family originated from.So in the case of our Italian family the...
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Of random thoughts and the stories they hold ............... another post on...
Perhaps it is just a factor of age but I find myself in those quiet moments drifting back over the acres of the past.An unknown moment in timeIt isn’t nostalgia, it is more a random series of thoughts...
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The book on Manchester and the Great War ......... an outrageous bout of self...
Now when you get to my age you don’t dawdle, instead you seize the time.Young ClaraSo with that in mind and having spent the last month stumbling over Christmas puddings, Christmas cards and Christmas...
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Collier Street Baths Salford
Now I went looking for the old baths on Collier Street recently prompted by a series of pictures taken by Andy Robertson.And I have to say it wasn’t the actual building I was searching for. Andy has...
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Walking along Shooters Hill in the 1840s with the help of Darrell Spurgeon
Severndroog Castle, 1784It’s another story from Shooters Hill.Over the last few days I have been wandering over the tiny community that lived on this northern edge of Eltham.And today it’s the...
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Just 38 years ago in the village churchyard
Our parish churchyard in the april of 1978It is just 37 years since this picture of our old parish church yard was taken.And yet it is so far from the knowledge or experience of many in Chorlton that...
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Life beyond the front door ........Hyde Street Hulme in 1913
It is not often you get to see into the home of someone from Hulme at the beginning of the 20th century.And I rather doubt that in the normal course of things the people behind the door of this house...
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Christmas in Chorlton in the 1850s ............ day two of that bout of self...
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...
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For those with fond memories of Salford Lads’ Club
Now the story of Salford Lad’s Club is pretty well known.It was founded by the two brothers James and William Groves in 1903, opened a year later and has offered thousands of young people a heap of...
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Walkng the streets of Manchester in 1830 in the company of J. T. Slugg and in...
I am on the streets of Manchester in the early 1830s in the company of J T Slugg* and in search of Antonio Preduzzi.Over the last few days I have been exploring that Italian connection with the city...
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“The Moat, Well Hall”.......... sometime around 1903
The caption just says the “The Moat, Well Hall” and I just love this picture.It comes from Some Records of Eltham which was published in 1903 and written by Rev. Elphinstone Rivers who was vicar of the...
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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...
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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...
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Four hundred years down at Hough End Hall .............the stories in the...
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...
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Miss Rebecca Chapman gets a job on a Salford Tram in 1918 .......... stories...
An occasional serieson the stories behind the new book on Manchester and the Great War*As the war turned into 1915 the growing demand for women to replace men in the workplace took on a pace during...
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Antonio Peduzzi making what we wanted at 33 Piccadilly in 1824
Antonio Peduzzi was from Lombardy and settled in Manchester around 1810, ran a series of successful businesses, was married twice and ended his days in the Chorlton Workhouse on Stretford New Road...
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A car, a row of shops and a liitle bit more is revealed about the history of...
Now I like the way that a photograph can draw you in and sends you off on all sorts of new enquiriess.Mr Abbot's car on Well Hall Road, circa 1950sSo it was with this one that Kath May shared with...
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A lost sweet shop from Beech Road revisiting a popular story
I won’t be the only one who has memories of buying sweets at the shop which was on the corner of Beech Road and Claude Road, and there may be others like me who bought things when it sold a mix of...
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News of a Salford soldier from a German POW camp .............. May 1918
Albert Derry was 25 years old when he was captured during the last big German offensive on the Western Front in March 1918.News from Germany, May 1918It was the first day of that big attack and I can...
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79 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...
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