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In search of the barrage balloon on Beech Road
I have never seen a barrage balloon, apart from those in photographs.They were a common enough sight in urban areas during the war. As big as a house and filled with inflammable gas they were the last...
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Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 11 Collier Street
Now Collier Street will mean many things to many people.Collier Street, 2015For those with a preference for music there is the Blueprint Studios directly opposite on Queen Street and for those who...
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A not so festive request ................ in the event of being bombed out...
I cannot think how it must have felt to have sat down and planned for the unthinkable.But across the city and across the country that was what people were being asked to do in the event that their home...
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The Girl Annual and a take on the optimism of the 1950s
Annual number 7Now I am fully aware that I might be accused of nostalgia but I am back with those comic annual books which were published in the 1950s.They were a by product of the popular comics like...
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Chorlton farmers ............. Mr and Mrs Bancroft farming at Park Brow from...
Now I don’t have a picture of James Bancroft, but given that he was born in 1802 and spent his life at the plough I doubt he would have had the time or the inclination “to sit and be done in oils.”The...
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One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 74 ...... the last Christmas...
The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*Christmas greetings, 1911Now I have no idea how many Christmas cards Joe...
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Pictures from an Eltham bus ........ nu 8....... goodbye the Co-op ........
The top deck of a London bus has to be a pretty neat way of seeing the world below.And when it is the same bus at about the same time every day then you have got yourself a project.All you need is a...
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Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 12 .......... Barn Street
Barn Street is so totally lost and forgotten that I have yet to find it on any street directory.Nu 38-42 Greengate circa 1895Now I know it existed because Val’s mother was born at number 14 Barn Street...
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Of artificial Christmas trees and memories of Well Hall in December
I don’t have a picture of our old Christmas tree.It was bought in the late 1950s and served us well both in Lausanne Road and then at 294 in Well Hall, and was still in use till Dad died in 1991.Mother...
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Hardy, lonely outpost on the edge of the township
Hardy is that bit of Chorlton-cum-Hardy that most people are vague about. It stretches east from the village and follows the river up past Hardy Lane and was a lonely outpost on the edge of the...
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On King Street, dodging the cars
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...
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Christmas Day 1959 with the Swift Annual Nu 4
This is the third of those comic annuals produced by the Hulton Press in the 1950s.Swift like its companions, Eagle, Girl and Robin aimed to provide a mix of adventure stories, practical activities and...
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On Christmas Day with presents from the 1950s
Dinky toy, circa 1955Now I doubt that any one will be beating their way to a computer today and the readership of the blog will take a dip.Nevertheless as you are sitting back amongst the discarded...
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A little bit of gentle humour in 1903
Now I thought about digging out a Victorian Christmas card given the date, but I have done those already in the past and anyway Christmas is pretty much covered where ever you look, so instead here is...
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At Victoria Station ............... on the morning of December 23 1940
This is platform 16 in Victoria Station on the morning of December 23 1940 just hours after the all clear had sounded on what had been the first night of the Manchester Blitz.Now the story is pretty...
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A day in December on our High Street ................. nu 1 the Library
Now if you still live where you grew up the chances are that you take it all for granted.For those of us who long ago moved away from Eltham that is something we can’t do.So here for the next few days...
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Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 13 ............ the one they...
Now I am back with Barn Street which for a long time I couldn’t find which is not surprising given that it was one of those tiny streets north of St Stephen’s church hemmed in by Rosamond Street to...
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New pubs for old and a disappointed confectioner
I rather think there must have been something in the air in the early months of 1907.In the February there were two applications in front of the annual licensing meeting for the city of Manchester for...
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A day in December on our High Street ................. nu 3 the Park Tavern
Now if you still live where you grew up the chances are that you take it all for granted.For those of us who long ago moved away from Eltham that is something we can’t do.So here for the next few days...
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Lost and forgotten streets of Salford nu 14 ...... back with Mallett’s Court,...
Now I have to say that this bit of Mallet’s Court is all I have in the picture collection.Mallet's Court & the pub, circa 1900And will probably be the only photograph to record its existence.It was...
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