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Flags of the World, a little bit of our history
Now you can be very stuffy about history. At least one of my history teachers dismissed everything that had happened after 1914 and more recently my use of online historical sources was ridiculed as...
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Back with the Red Cross nurses in Didsbury at Woodlawn
Now of all the Red Cross Hospitals I have written about I do seem to keep coming back to Woodlawn.It had been a private house which was donated to the Red Cross during the Great War and was later a...
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A little bit of Naples in Manchester ........... stories I like
Now what can be better than a pizza party?And when the pizzas are home made and cooked on a wood burning oven in the garden in front of you it just doesn’t get any better.Not that this was all fun, in...
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Snaps of Chorlton nu 14 .............. outside Mr England’s shop on St...
An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.Now I am a great fan of the family snap and in some ways they win out for me over the carefully arranged photograph of the...
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An Eltham story, Albert Bertie Annett , labourer, soldier and mystery
Albert's mark in 1911I don’t suppose I will ever really be able to bring Albert Bertie Annett fully out of the shadows.He was born in Eltham in 1880, worked as a farm labourer, served his country in...
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Naples in April
Now if you don't live in Naples the next best thing is that one of your sons is there and is happy to send back pictures of the place.I fell in love with the city the first time we went there and...
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Toys from the Great War
By all accounts this cloth doll from the Great War is a rare piece.It is of a French soldier and is in remarkably good condition for a toy which is over a century old.Given its age and the handling it...
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Lost and forgotten streets of Salford ........... nu 25 a busy day on Chapel...
I suppose it is pretty much the case that Chapel Street has always been a busy spot.I don’t have a date but there maybe a clue in the Union flag fluttering from the building and the crowds which seem...
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From Finland ........ with a story
Now, all too often old family photographs have lost the story that gives them a purpose.Usually it is simply that there are no names on the back, the date has been omitted and there is no reference to...
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Snaps of Chorlton ............ nu 13 the Horse and Jockey
An occasional series featuring private and personal photographs of Chorlton.Now along with churches pubs must be one of the most popular topics for the snapper. Sadly the exercise rarely extends to the...
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Off to the “flicks” in the winter of 1913 and a challenge for today
Now on a dismal Saturday afternoon in Eltham during the winter of 1913 I might well have decided to take myself off to the Picturedrome where I could have seen epics like the Battle of Waterloo,...
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Naples .... where the houses rise like cliffs and look down on narrow and...
Over a century and a bit ago a group of Neapolitan photographers set out to capture something of the vibrancy of their city.And because then as now much of that vibrancy was conducted on the streets...
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From the 98th Battalion to Miss Marion Dilnuth of Bermonsey
Now I know I will never find the identity of Rex.He sent this postcard to Miss Marion Dilnut of 280 Bermondsey Street, south east London and on a whim I went looking for the address.I grew up not far...
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Passing through what was to become Exchange Square
Now this is the Corn Exchange sometime in the 1980s.It was a building I took for granted at the time and never for one minute thought how it would change over the next thirty years.Or for that matter...
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Well Hall in the 1920s nu 1 ........... catching the train and watching out...
A short occasional series on Well Hall in the 1920s.Now I washed up in Eltham in the spring of 1964 and for two and half years made the daily train journey back to New Cross and Samuel Pepys School...
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Naples .... squeezing cars, people and lots more on to those narrow streets
Now you can never get enough of pictures of Naples and of these it is the ones showing the narrow streets where everything squeezes in every available space.Location; NaplesPicture; Naples in 2017 from...
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Salford Central the one you miss
It’s the one you miss. Salford Central Station is on New Bailey Street and is set back between two railway viaducts.So travelling out of Manchester into Salford even on foot it was not the most visible...
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Snaps of Chorlton nu 15 .............. outside Jean’s wool shop on Beech Road...
Yesterday I featured Paul England’s dad outside his shop on St Clements Road and today I am with his mum on Beech Road.Mrs England ran the wool shop just by the cut that led off to what is now...
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Ki-ora, a choc ice and Bambi ...... the lost picture houses of Plumstead no 1
Now yesterday I set down a challenge to find some of our lost cinemas, and quick as a flash Tricia came back with a first and the promise to find more.So here is what she said and what I know about the...
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“Dear Husband, we are just off to Aunties” .............. a postcard from...
In age of emails, facebook and the mobile the sending of a message on a picture postcard seems so anachronistic and yet I rather like the idea.Of course it helped that the frequent collections and...
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