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The Eltham Hutments ............ the book of the story and a thank you to Tricia
Now until very recently I had no idea that a small community of 1500 families lived close to where I grew up on Well Hall Road.But then why should I? They were erected in 1916 and had gone by 1937.The...
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One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 59 ............ looking out...
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.*I wished I knew more about Joe and Mary Ann, after all they were here...
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Today over Chorlton .............. 75 years ago
Now today is the anniversary of the day the first bombs of the Second World War fell on Chorlton.I say the first but that is not strictly accurate. There were a series of them that fell on September...
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It's the detail that draws you in, another Belleville picture from 1945
I keep coming back to this picture and like all good pictures it raises questions which as yet I do not have answers.On the surface it is easy enough to see what is going on. We are at Belleville...
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The story of one house in Peckham number 43 ............ who went before us
The story of one house in Peckham over a century and a half, and of one family who lived there in the 1950s.*Lausanne Road, circa 1955Now I was surprised just how little I knew of our house in Lausanne...
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Painting Italy .......... goodbye to Ciao
The first time I ate at Ciao’s I was hooked.We were in the main railway station in Rome and against my better judgement Tina suggested we go there to eat.Now fast food in a railway station even the...
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Living in a two roomed cottage in a Manchester court in 1851
You won’t find Spam Court I know I tried. But I do know where it was and where it had been when it was home to hundreds of families from about 1780 till sometime after 1965.It was one of those bits of...
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Painting Well Hall and Eltham ....... nu 1 the Library
An occasional series featuring buildings and places I like and painted by Peter Topping.Like many in Eltham I continue to remember the library with great fondness. It was a place I used a lot,...
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Back with Derrick A. Lea in the Chorlton of 1955
It’s one of those odd things that we have few pictures of Chorlton in the 1950s. Now there are a few fine collections in the Local History archive* but nothing compared with the huge range and number...
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Homecomings, 1945
I think these will be the last of the pictures from Belleville for a while.Now I do have more from the collection of Mike Dufresne but these two perfectly tell the story of the return of the Hastings...
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Tracing the story of the people of Strangeways and Redbank ...........the...
Now after a space of nearly forty years I am rereading The Making of Manchester Jewry, 1740-1875 by Bill Williams.It came out in 1976 and it will have been around then that I read it. That said it...
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Time for another tram
It’s another tram picture.I had no idea just how popular the last picture of a tram would be so here we are back by popular acclaim is another. Now the caption says, “Double-deck, single-truck in’bay’...
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Painting Well Hall and Eltham ....... nu 2 the Greyhound
An occasional series featuring buildings and places I like and painted by Peter Topping.I was always remember this as the Greyhound and it will have been one of the first pubs I went into when I was...
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This Is London ........ a unique guide to the London of 1959
Now I have no idea why I never got a copy of This Is London.*Cover of this is LondonI guess that there are only so many books that you can get for Christmas, and with the Eagle Annual and the odd...
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On Chorlton Green with Derrick A Lea in 1957
We are on the green sometime between 1955 and ’58 outside the Horse and Jockey.Now I know this because the artist who drew the scene completed a series of pictures of Chorlton during this period. He...
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When we sent children across the Atlantic to escape the bombs*
I am of that generation which was born directly after the end of the last world war and so I missed the mass evacuation of children from our cities by less than a decade.Don't Do it Mother, 1940But...
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Rediscovering Cheetham .............. nu 1 the Manchester Ice Palace
Now I will leave the story of Cheetham, Strangeways and Redbank to those who are far more qualified to write about its history.*Instead I shall feature some of Andy Robertson’s pictures from his...
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Before the National Health Service ..... paying the doctor
Bolton in 1938Now every so often I am drawn back to a time before the National Health Service.More recently it was in a story about Bolton in the 1930s when most working families found the cost of a...
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Painting Nunhead ........ Nu 1 a pub and a shedful of memories of walking to...
Now when you are just 11 and on the way to school pubs don’t feature very heavily and the Old Nuns’s Head was no exception.It is on Nunhead Green and I will have passed it pretty much every day on my...
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Painting Well Hall and Eltham ....... nu 3 Well Hall Cottages
An occasional series featuring buildings and places I like and painted by Peter Topping.I have always been fascinated by Well Hall Cottages which were demolished in 1923 and date from at least the mid...
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