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Down on Thomas Street in the Northern Quarter
Thomas Street, still waiting to happenNow Thomas Street in the Northern Quarter is changing.In the space of thirty minutes or so I saw a number of smart suited men with earnest faces and various...
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One of those days in town
Now I am usually preoccupied with the past but occasionally I say just occasionally I set off to record the present.This I have to say had a lot to do with a Tuesday in town on a shopping expedition...
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What you find when you go looking down Wilbraham Road
Merlewood on Wilbraham Road, 1949Now against my better judgement I got drawn in by a lock up garage, a very big house on the corner of Maidstone and Wilbraham and a line of workaday cottages which I...
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Walking down Passey Place in 1911 and asking for a pint at the Park Tavern
Now I have been a wee bit harsh about Passey Place in the past.You turn off into it from the High Street and once you have passed the old post office you are flanked by drab modern buildings with the...
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After the Raid .............. preparing for the Blitz
I suppose for most people the sound of an air raid siren is one of those historic curiosities which feature as a backdrop to fictional accounts of the last war or accompany a TV documentary on the...
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Sending our children to Canada ..........Miss Maria Rye, Avenue House on...
It never ceases to amaze me how the past twists and turns and confronts you with a little bit of your own personal history in a way you least expect.Avenue House 1872When I was growing up in Lausanne...
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Down on Hartington Street thinking of the the past, present and future
Now if you are of a certain age you will remember those black and white photographs of urban roof tops covered in TV aerials.Often they were accompanied by those condescending comments about the...
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A little bit of the history of our cottage hospital
Now it’s one of those odd little bits of personal history but I can’t ever remember going to the Eltham Cottage Hospital and nor did any of my sisters.But during the time the building was being...
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The Kickety Brook, Stretford, once a vital part of our flood defences
I first walked the Kickety Brook with my old botanist friend, David Bishop.It doesn’t look much but it was vital in its day for protecting the Duke’s Canal at Stretford.The Canal dates from the 1760s...
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Down on Manchester Road with a an espresso at that deli
Now this is another one of those sets of pictures from Andy Robertson which makes you realize just how quickly bits of Chorlton change.And often it is so complete that you are hard pressed to remember...
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The story of one house in Peckham number 16 ........ Saturday Morning...
Thestory of one house in Peckham over a century and a half, and of one family who lived there in the 1950s.*Saturday Morning Badge You never quite forget that mix of noise and anticipation which was...
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Down at Rybeank Fields off Longford Road, with a belt of mature woodland some...
Ryebank Fields is one of those places I have rather just taken for granted.It’s that bit of open land at the bottom of Longford Road which for a big chunk of the 20th century was the site of our old...
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A little bit of Didsbury's cinema history
Now there will be many with fond memories of the Capitol Cinema, which in 1956 became ABC’s television studios, before finally being demolished in 1999 to be replaced by a block of flats.And there will...
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Peck's meat and fish pastes ............ a meal on its own
Peck's meat and fish pastes were something I grew up with.They came in small glass jars and offered up a variety of tastes, from fish, salmon, beef and chicken and were spread on bread.I had all but...
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One hundred and 45 years of one shop on High Lane
Sometime in the 1990sNow this is 38 High Lane and it will be a shop many will remember.For a long time it was a cycle shop and then had various attempts at being a grocers but never quite managed it...
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Lost Woolwich .......... no 1 dinner time 1915
Now of all the places I knew in my youth I have to say Woolwich is one of those that has been has undergone dome of the most radical change.So much so that big chunks of it I have difficulty...
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The church I just missed on Peckham Road, opened in 1797 .......... closed 1952
Cambden Church, 1904Now I missed the Camden Church on Peckham Road by less than a decade, although it is just possible that I might have visited what was left of this 18th century building because...
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Thomas Richens ............... a British Home Child and the story which began...
I am looking at a British War Medal.Now on one level there is nothing extraordinary about such a medal. Over six and half million were issued at the end of the Great War along with another 110,000 made...
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Down on Princess Road ......... sixteen months on
February 2014Now it’s been a year and a bit since Andy wandered along Princess Road.Back then he captured that block of shops just before it went for ever.And it set me off on a whole set of stories...
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My Manchester, pictures without the words ............nu 1 St Ann’s Church,...
Yes some of the pictures have featured before but I like them.St Ann's Church, June 2014And yes there is a total absence of a storyPicture; St Ann’s Church June 2014, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
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