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Memory Lane Page 4- Memories form Manchester |
See Memories Page1 2 3 see also Cinema Stories
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Memories of Whithington
To say that I am disillusioned with football at the moment must be the biggest understatement since the day when the Mayor of Hiroshima, whilst sat on the throne in his smallest room reading the Hiroshima Times, uttered those immortal words; "what the **** was that?" I have loved my Club, and the game in particular, for well over half a century, so to witness what is happening in these difficult days, has left a wound that is going to be hard to heal.
I am a sentimental, and nostalgic old b****r at the best of times. But what I find now is that my mind keeps turning over so often, that it keeps returning me back to the cradle of that sentimentality, and nostalgia - my childhood.
I was born shortly before the end of the Second World War, and into a Manchester that was a very different place than what you witness today. The city centre in those dark days was literally a bomb site. The evidence of that was there for all to see well into the early 1960's, particularly along Portland Street and back Deansgate. But it wasn't only the city centre that suffered; large urban areas were devastated too. My own birthplace was less than a mile from Piccadilly Gardens, in the beautiful (sic) district named Chorlton-upon- Medlock. These were the days long before there was enough quality council housing to meet the City's needs. The inner city areas that surrounded the city centre were nothing more than out and out slums - Chorlton-upon-Medlock, Ardwick, Beswick, Ancoats, Collyhurst, Deansgate, Hulme, and Moss Side. Rows upon rows of uniformed, bleak, two up and two down decrepit terraced houses, most without electricity, only lit with gaslight; no running hot water, just a cold tap and pot sink; no inside toilet - it was outside in a yard and had no lighting of any note. A visit to this place during the middle of the night was most certainly not a prospect to look forward to, especially during the long winter months! These so called houses were heated by means of a small coal fire, normally in the room that used to pass for "the living room." All of them had a cellar, wherein lay the gas meter, and also the "coal shuttle" - coal was dropped through a metal grid in the pavement in the street above - that's if the family could afford coal! So as kids, depending on your age, your duties included going down that cellar in the dark, finding the gas meter, putting a penny into it, thus keeping the living room lit and the gas stove functioning, or fetching a shovel full of black coal to replenish the falling fire. In today's modern society, these houses would have certainly been classed as uninhabitable, and condemned without any question at all.
The families that lived in these abodes were mostly first, second, or even third generation immigrants. Irish, Scots, Poles, Ukrainian, Italian, just to name a few. Honest to goodness working class people who just wanted nothing more than to work for a living and dream of the chance to escape from these slums into a better life. They were God fearing people, who worked hard to keep their families together, and raised them on strict principles. Religion did play a big part in family life. It didn't matter that these people were often exploited by notorious landlords, and discriminated against by selfish employers; they never lost their sense of pride or their sense of values. These communities were always very close knit, and they were a family within families. They shared their lives together - the hardships, the joys, the sorrows, the failures, the triumphs - and there was a bond between them that even today, has lasted for generations.
Television was not a luxury that these families had back then. Entertainment in the home was normally through the means of the radio which was powered by an accumulator - a heavy, cumbersome thing, filled with acid and needed charging regularly. Music played a large part in family life and it wasn't unusual to find that several members of a family played several different instruments. I can recall balmy summer evenings as a very young child, sat on the front door steps with my Mother late into the night, listening to an impromptu street concert - Mother taking part by singing in her beautiful soprano voice. For us kids, a trip to the local "bug hut" (cinema) on a Saturday morning was a treat that we really looked forward to.
Families tended to be a lot larger than they are today, and again, it was not unusual to see families with five and six kids. There was always lots of activity and most of it was outdoors; sport being the main attraction. The girls would play netball, rounders etc, whilst the boys would play football and cricket, depending on which season it used to be. Swimming was a big attraction, for both sexes - the baths in the winter months, and anywhere where there was water outdoors during the hot summer months - Fog Lane in Didsbury, and Barney's Croft in Collyhurst, were two of the places I recall with affection where we swam in those summer months.
For the boys, football seemed to consume us all. Our families were divided in whom they supported. United or City - there was no in-between. Back in those days, I can't recall any of the local kids supporting the likes of Bury, Rochdale, Oldham or Stockport. It was only when I got to Grammar School that I found out that the kids with "funny voices" supported these teams - I could not come to terms with the fact that they did not support either City or United! We used to play football for hours on end, and if we were not playing the game, then we would read everything about the game that we could get our hands on. Our appetite for football was insatiable, and our dreams were of wearing the famous red or sky blue shirts of the main professional teams that graced our City.
Backstreet football in those dear days was the norm and we formed what we termed "Backstreet Leagues." Normally, the ball that would be used would be of the tennis variety. The surfaces we played upon only had the briefest nodding acquaintance with grass - they were either cobbled, or concrete! But it was upon these surfaces, and with that small ball, that we honed our skills.
I smile today watching the professional game and see people who are termed as "wingers" - very few of them excite me anymore, and the term winger has virtually disappeared. In those dear old days when footballers wore long shorts, and wore boots akin to diver's boots, the sight of a winger dancing along the touchline delighting or disappointing the watching people, was a commonplace sight on the football fields of Britain. Wingers back then were a little different to the rest - they were temperamental players whose performances were controlled by the state of the moon - or in reality, simply by the fact of whether or not they felt like playing well! I can remember watching my favourite pub team "The 'Ammer" back in the fifties. They had a winger named Herbert Dawson - eccentric he was, to say the least. He used to wear a flat cap and woolen gloves on days when there was inclement weather. Nobody would say a thing - neither team mates nor spectators - he was a winger! Had he been a centre half or a full back, he would have received some "gyp" from people and marked down as a nutter of some sort, and asked to mend his ways or retire from the game!
These "closet wingers" as we called them, grew up, and learned their business in the "Backstreet Leagues." My own team's successes or failures, depended on the quality of our wingers. We went unbeaten at home for two years, mainly due to the skills of Johnny Bambrick, a little Irish lad, and our right winger; and also a long row of outside toilets which graced one side of our "pitch." Johnny was the absolute master at charging down his wing, and then, when challenged by big brutish defenders, at the last moment he would flick the ball against a toilet door, nip around the defender and collect the rebound. The only times that I ever saw him fail was on the occasion when the toilet happened to be occupied, and the occupant of the said toilet would open the door just in time to take one of Johnny's passes in the proverbials!
Little Johnny's reputation as a closet winger grew and he became somewhat of a local personality. Of course, inevitably, our, and his success, could not go on for ever, and the slide downhill for both the team, and Johnny, came on the day we met a team called Melbourne Street Klond**e. The Klond**e bit was because the street where they came from put one in mind of a frontier town during the gold rush! To describe them as hard opponents would be doing them an injustice - utterly ferocious would be a more accurate description! They resembled a team of "Blockheads!" The reason being that most of their players had surprisingly large foreheads and close set eyes!
You also must remember that in these "Backstreet Leagues" there was no referee to penalize dirty play. The simple ethic used to be; "If you get kicked, say nowt, but wait your time and kick back!" Also in these games, there was never any of the game's niceties or formalities, like shaking hands and congratulating kids from the other team. Any team which happened to beat the feared Klond**e realised that when the game ended, the sensible thing was to *iss off home rapid, because any attempt at any kind of cordiality would undoubtedly mean a free trip to the local out-patients department!
So it was in this frame of mind that we began the game that began my team's fall from grace. All was going reasonably well, until young Johnny began his first run down his wing. In and out of the Klond**e defence he went, flicking the ball up and down against the toilet doors, the rebound magically appearing at his twinkling feet. With the Klond**e "blockheads" absolutely mesmerized, he walked the ball around their 'keeper, and through the space between the gaslamp post and the wall (which was the goal!) and scored our first goal.
The "blockheads" were never short on swift answers when faced with a problem of this nature. When Johnny next set off on one of his runs, was when we first became aware of the Klond**e genius for tactical improvisation! As Johnny showed his class and twinkle-toed his way along those toilet doors, a Klond**e half-back, built like one of those ****houses, began a diagonal run towards him. As he reached Johnny, he didn't stop to challenge, nor did he hesitate to decide which way Johnny was going, he just kept on running as if his target was somewhere on the horizon beyond Johnny's right shoulder. It was as though he was locked onto Johnny with radar! The collision was inevitable and the noise of the impact, bone on bone, was terrible, followed immediately by the sound of the crash and splintering of wood, as Johnny, the halfback, and the ball, crashed through one of the green toilet doors! The game stopped, and we dashed over to peer inside the toilet and survey the damage.
The scene was quite chaotic. Johnny and the c*ckeyed halfback lay at peace on the floor. They were surrounded by large fragments of wood and what can only be termed as jagged pieces of sanitary ware. Unfortunately, there was a third body inside. Poor old Mr. Rubin who had been sat in there with his brace and bit overalls around his ankles, a large pot mug of strong tea in one hand, his Daily Mirror in the other, and a tube of pile cream lying on the floor, bothering nobody at all; now lay in a twisted comatose state at the back of the toilet with his hairy *rse stuck up in the air pointing north. The wall at the back of the toilet looked as though it had been decorated in a sharp tone of sepia! A sight, as you can imagine, that I'll carry with me to my grave!
The game had to be abandoned and we had to beat a rather hasty retreat. It turned out that we were never to play on that "pitch" again, mainly because the law warned us off and not much later the council pulled those toilets down. After his recovery, Johnny was never the same winger without those toilets. Our "closet" winger suffered a drastic dip in his form, and eventually fell out of favour. His family moved away from our area and after a couple of months in his new environment, I did hear that he had been forced into premature retirement in a remand home for stealing lead from a church roof!
Yes, my memories and nostalgia give me a little comfort today. I think of all the great wingers I have been lucky enough to have watched through my lifetime; Finney, Mathews, Mullen, Hanc*cks, Mitchell, Clarke, Berry, Pegg, Douglas, Connelly, Pilkington, Holden, Blunstone, Paine, Callaghan, Thompson, Lee, Summerbee, Armstrong, Chamberlain - that's 20 without thinking too hard - and all Englishmen - what would I give to see them plying their trade today! Believe me folks, they would have you on the edge of your seats - and where did they begin? - why backstreet football of course!
It's amazing how little things trigger off the the picking the back pocket of our memories. Last night whilst doing some research, I came across the Manmates websites, and ended up trawling around it until well after midnight. All sorts of memories were triggered whilst looking at different photographs and reading the written stories.
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This is the story of my first day working at a job as a carter in 1952, when I was an eighteen-year-old with a head full of feathers instead of brains.
All of this is perfectly true. No embellishments.
Anyway, it was summer, and I was on holiday from my job on the coal-face at Bradford pit. A young friend of mine, Jimmy Smith, asked me if I would like to earn some extra money, cash in hand, driving a horse and cart for a couple of weeks. The job consisted of collecting rolls of cloth for Broadbents of Ardwick Green and delivering them to various warehouses around the city centre. Nothing to it. Or so Jimmy said.
When I explained that I had never actually done this type of work before, he reassured me.
“Just tell Mr. Broadbent that you have worked with horses. You’ll be O.K. If he asks if you can harness up, tell him ‘yes’. I’ll be there to help you out”.
The next morning, I arrived with Jimmy at the stables, situated in the aptly-named Paddock Street at the rear of the Green, and was introduced to old Mr. Broadbent. He asked the inevitable question: “Have you done this type of work, before?”
“Oh, yes”, I fibbed, “I worked a milk-round for Dobsons’ Dairies until recently”.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave……………
Once inside the stable, I was introduced to my charge, Tommy. He was an old boy of thirteen, tractable, friendly and fond of an easy time. He was also quite intelligent, as I was soon to discover.
My first job was to fit Tommy’s collar, something which I assumed would be no trouble at all. However, try as I might, I could not get the collar to go over the horse’s head. I found this puzzling, as I had seen dozens of horses wearing them, and knew that the wide bit went at the bottom. What I didn’t know, was that the collar is first fitted upside down, wide bit at the top, and then twisted once it is over the horse’s head.
While I was going through this pantomime, Mr. Broadbent, having heard the commotion, came into the stall and enquired what was happening. He then told me what I was doing wrong. I nodded, did as he said, and the offending collar went on effortlessly.
Mr. Broadbent didn’t say anything, but I knew my cover was blown.
Fortunately for me, Jimmy then came in, Mr. Broadbent tactfully left, and we finished the job together.
Finally ready to start the day’s work, I set off behind Jimmy on his cart for my first assignment. I decided that, never having driven a horse and cart before, it would be safer to lead Tommy out of the yard by the bridle, and get up on the cart when out of sight of Mr. Broadbent.
Just as I reached the gateway leading out into the street, I felt an almighty blow on my ankle. It was as if I had been struck with a 20lb. sledge-hammer. What had in fact happened, was that I had got too close to the horse and he had clipped my ankle.
I stifled a yell and hobbled the remaining few yards to where I would be out of sight of the stables. Thankfully, I got up onto the cart and started off behind Jimmy.
My instructions were to follow him to a place called the Bird Cage in the town centre in order to collect my first consignment of cloth. Great, but what Jimmy hadn’t told me, was that Tommy had a top speed of about four miles per hour, whereas his horse could travel half as fast again.
Inevitably, I quickly lost sight of Jimmy and realized that I would have to find my own way there.
It now occurred to me that Tommy, who had made this same journey every day, five days a week, for years, would be capable of finding his own way there if I gave him his head (a term I had come across many times in books).
With this in mind, I dispensed with using the reins for controlling him, and allowed him to carry on as he felt fit.
It was a beautiful sunny day, and Tommy seemed to perk up at being given this amount of freedom. His pace quickened, and within a short space of time I found myself half-way down Stretford Road. This, of course, was not part of my itinerary.
Stopping at a phone-box, I rang the Mr. Broadbent’s number in order to get precise directions. He wasn’t exactly delirious with joy when he heard where I was, but told me to turn the horse around and head for Oxford Street in the city centre.
Some time later, we reached the Grosvenor Street junction and turned into Oxford Street. This is where things began to go seriously wrong. When we reached the Gaumont cinema, it suddenly dawned on Tommy that his day of leisure was about to come to an abrupt end. He obviously recognized his surroundings, and stopped dead. No amount of cajoling or threatening would persuade him to move. Fortunately, a passer-by saw my predicament and asked what was wrong. When I told him, he took the reins from me and gave the horse a swift smack on his under-carriage. Tommy immediately began to move off, and grabbing the reins, I steered him in the direction of the Bird Cage, which was next door to the News Theatre cinema.
My problems were not yet over. As we turned left into the entrance, the rear wheel of the cart became hooked on the bumper of a car which had been parked on the corner. With the aid of several passing volunteers, the cart was eventually separated from the car, and I finally drove into the warehouse yard.
Once loaded, I was told to proceed to Granby Row, where I would unload at one of the premises there. I had brought some sweets with me as a treat for Tommy, and gave one to him before we left. Another mistake. After that, he wouldn’t move anywhere until he had had a toffee. He obviously thought his dreams had come true; he had a real sucker here.
We set off on the journey, and all went well until reached Sackville Street. As we drove along, I heard several clunking sounds and looked back to see that a projection on the cart had removed the door handles from four parked cars. In those days, the handles weren’t recessed as they are now, but stood proud of the bodywork.
Not wishing to become involved in any insurance claims, I hurriedly turned into Granby Row and from there into the warehouse yard to unload.
The first thing I had to do, was give Tommy the by now mandatory sweet. He thought he was entitled to one every time we arrived at or left premises.
I managed to get through the rest of the afternoon ( and a bag of sweets) without further event. Then it came to going-home time.
It seems that cart-horses have a built-in clock, which tells them when they have finished work and it’s time to return home. Tommy certainly had. He suddenly became imbued with energy, and began the journey back to the stables at speed I hadn’t believed him capable of.
On the way, I decided to stop at a little café for a cup of tea. I went inside, paid for my drink and sat down at one of the bare tables.
I hadn’t been there two or three minutes, when a chap dashed in through the door.
“Anybody here own a horse and cart?” he asked.
I stood up, proudly. “Yes, I do”, I said.
“Well, you had better go and get it. It’s straddled across the junction at the Charles Street traffic lights, causing chaos!”
I dashed out and ran up the road, to see a bewildered Tommy with his driverless cart slewed across the road, surrounded by a sea of angry motorists.
I rapidly climbed on board, turned Tommy around, and we set off once again in the direction of the stables.
When we arrived, I discovered that I was late, and the stable yard was locked. I gave Tommy another sweet, patted his muzzle, and and left him outside the gate while I went round to Mr. Broadbent’s house to tell him I had arrived.
Mr. Broadbent returned to the yard with me, but imagine my horror when we turned the corner and found that Tommy had gone. Complete with cart.
It seems that he had decided that he was hungry, and had wandered off in search of fodder. We found him ten minutes later, on a nearby patch of waste ground and oblivious of the cart, happily munching grass shoots.
Lodging him safely in the stable for the night finally brought to a close my first day as a carter. For the remainder of the fortnight, things went fairly smoothly.
Well, as smoothly as they can when you have a horse that is in control of the situation.
The above story is an extract from a forum posting on the 05/08/2010 by Ourkid
Memories of Manchester. The One Penny Crime.
I do not know exactly when the huge red lumbering clanging double decker trams with the spiral iron staircase twisting up the back stopped running in Clayton. I only know that sometime in 1942, the tram tracks were torn up and the decorative spear iron fence set into the low perimeter wall of the Seymour Road Elementary school was cut down by hooded acetylene torch wielding welders because the metal was needed for the war effort.
Splendid red double decker trolleybuses replaced the trams. The buses also had a spiral staircase in the back; however, it was inside of the bus. Each bus had the coat of arms of the municipality of Manchester Corporation with the proud unicorn and lion painted in gold on the side of the bus that moved closest to the kerb.
I do not know the exact time and date I committed the one penny crime. The milestones of childhood are not as clear as the markers of time experienced later in life. It must have been before Saint Willibrord’s primary school mandated the wearing of uniforms for all of its pupils for I was not wearing a school uniform on that day. I know I was wearing a white shirt and grey flannel short trousers.
It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon. I was taking the number 27X trolleybus to visit my paternal grandparents who lived about three miles away at number 10 Caruthers Street in Beswick. Although I was a child and my mother knew that I had to cross Ashton New Road to get to the bus stop, there was a lot less traffic on that thoroughfare at that time. Petrol was severely rationed, and the few people who owned motor cars drove them only when it was necessary.
It may have seemed to inattentive observers that when the trolleybus came to a stop, that I hopped onto the open platform at the rear of the bus, climbed the spiral staircase to the upper deck, eagerly paced to the front and sat down on the left side double seat. The navy-blue uniformed conductor followed me, his black leather moneybag slung over one shoulder and his stainless steel punch that was clipped to his belt jangling loudly.
After I told him what my destination was, the conductor gave me a small white ticket with the little hole that he had punched into the number 5 stage margin. I gave him a 1917 copper penny that had the head of King George V on one side, and the seated Britannia holding her trident and shield on the dated side.
I had not boarded a common bus. I had fearlessly climbed up the yardarm of the splendid pirate galleon The Shrieking Bones and I had taken my seat in the front of the poop deck for I was the captain and it was up to me to steer the vessel safely to the Spanish port of Beswiqua where all the gold was stored. My disguised trusted underling in return for the solid gold doubloon that I had given him had given me the tiny map showing the exact code where the fabulous treasure of Beswiqua was hidden.
Seated high up in the front seat of a double decker trolleybus looking through the large front and side windows was remarkably like being a passenger on a schooner. The bus swayed from side to side as it proceeded, and its slowing for the stops and humming acceleration was very reminiscent of giving a fair windy blow in the mainsails of a sailing ship effect.
I saw the clipboard carrying bus inspector get on the bus at the Grey Mare Lane stop. He was a tall man dressed in a Manchester Corporation transportation black uniform with the distinctive short black gabardine cape over his shoulders, and wearing a black stiff crown cap with a shiny black peak on his large head.
After a few moments pause, I heard the inspector climb the stairs and start asking the passengers riding behind me to show their tickets please. I did not have the white ticket that I had paid a penny for in either of my hands. I searched frantically in my trousers pockets. I jumped up and checked the seat. I dropped to my knees and looked under the seat. There was a box with a slit opening on the platform of each bus where you were supposed to discard your ticket as you alighted. Some people just dropped their tickets on the floor when they stood up to get off the bus.
Far back, almost under the seat behind me I saw a white ticket lying next to a blue four pence ticket. I quickly stood up, stepped back, bent down, and retrieved it. I resumed my front row seat. The white ticket was smudged as though it had been stepped on and the little hole had been punched for a stage 2 ride, but it was a penny ticket and it was undeniably white.
Instead of just looking at the ticket while it was in my hand, the inspector snatched it up and squinted at it as if it was the Koh-I-noor diamond.
“Where did you get this ticket lad?” he shouted.
“I bought it when I got on.” I answered as convincingly as I could.
The inspector strode away and ran down the staircase. He immediately came clumping back with the noisy coin jangling conductor right behind him.
“For the last time lad, where did you get this bloody ticket?”
“I got it when I got on.”
“From him?” The inspector pointed toward the conductor.
“Yes.”
All the blood drained out of the conductor’s face. He became whiter than any white ticket. He started gasping, then in a strangled voice he moaned,
“ Nay son, tha’s wrong.”
“I bought it when I got on.”
The inspector was writing with a stubby pencil furiously on a form on his clipboard. He started to turn around.
“Lad, I never sold you that ticket.” The conductor actually screamed.
The inspector stomped back downstairs. Slowly the conductor followed him, his shoulders sagging, his leather moneybag and stainless steel punch silent.
I got off the trolley bus at the Don Cinema stop in Beswick. I walked up the hill of Butler Street and made a left turn on Caruthers Street. For some reason, as I was passing Hanky Park, I reached into the breast pocket of my shirt and pulled out a pristine white ticket. Why I had not checked this pocket on the bus I will never know.
Over sixty-five years have passed since that incident took place. I have had my vicissitudes since then. Although they were not chargeable crimes, I did negligently maim an old man when I dropped a plywood box riveting machine on him. In addition, there have been much worse transgressions that I am guilty of. I forgave myself for those dismal acts for fate is fate and it is uncontrollable.
I am haunted by that trolley bus conductor’s ashen anguished face and his strangled croaking voice. What could the trolley bus authorities have done to him? Surely, they could not have sacked him over a penny ticket. Maybe he got a couple of day’s suspension. Why did the inspector not believe him? I pray that the Manchester transit authorities did not mete out the worst punishment possible, the dreaded letter of reprimand in the conductor’s personal file. That would have condemned the poor sod to a lifetime of only being a disgraced bus conductor. He would never have been able to get a promotion. He would not have been able to
quit and seek a more promising career. The damning letter would have followed him wherever he went.
Never was a truer word spoken than the adage, it is the little things in life that kill you.
I wrote to the Manchester Corporation counsel a few years ago, making a full confession of my wanton lying crime. I never received an answer.
Joe Fisher 05/08/09
Many thanks Joe
The 11 Plus Examination.
The first time I sat the 11 Plus Examination in 1946, I was attending Saint Willibrord’s Roman Catholic Primary School on Stanton Street, in Clayton. As far as Mancuniun Catholics were concerned, Saint Willibrord vied with Saint Malachy for being the most obscure saint ever thought of. Nobody knew who either of them were, or what they might have done to be beatified.
Saint Willibrord’s school gave every appearance of having been built just before the Battle of Hastings took place. It was a three story, blackened brick building with a blackened sloping slate roof. A six-foot high-blackened brick wall surrounded the black puddle filled dirt yard. You entered the yard through a narrow arched doorway on the Stanton Street side. There was another narrow wooden door on the Hackle Street side; however, it seemed always to be kept locked.
The 11 plus examination was a two-day battery of conventional curriculum tests, interspersed with Stanford Binet and Minneapolis, Minnesota Apperception intelligence tests. As the name suggests, it was given to all Manchester school children aged 11 to determine whether they would be suitable for attending high school. Each child had three opportunities up to the age of thirteen to take the test.
The test site was North Manchester High School for Boys, way out there in Moston. What a shock I had when I showed up there on the first morning. The place gleamed. The brick walls were a proper reddish colour. There were two football fields covered with real green coloured grass just outside the building.
Inside, there were big gleaming classrooms with new polished desks. The classroom I took the test in had this huge map of the world that practically covered the whole of the front wall. In Saint Willibrord’s, Miss Jordan’s geography class had this small poster sized map of South Africa with a picture of General Smuts inserted into it, thumb tacked to the blackboard.
Late in June, the results of the 11 Plus Examination were announced. Three pupils in my class had qualified to attend Xaverian College. John Egan, Leonard Cannon, and Joe Fisher had all passed. Only John Egan would actually go on to Xaverian College.
My parents had been notified by a letter that I was supposed to go to an interview at Xaverian College on a Saturday afternoon late in August. Well my mother tried her best. We took a 27X trolley bus down to Stevenson Square and my mother asked the conductor how to get to Xaverian College. He had never heard of it. My mother asked a group of drivers and conductors and inspectors in Stevenson Square how to get to the college. Nobody had ever heard of it. We walked to Piccadilly and she asked bus personnel, policemen, and passing people there. I think that one woman told my mother that she thought that Xaverian College was in East Didsbury or Wythenshaw she wasn’t sure. We gave up. We came home.
Leonard Cannon’s father took him to the interview and Leonard Cannon was signed in as a pupil.
On the September Friday afternoon preceding the Monday morning that he was supposed to go to Xaverian College for the first time, Leonard Cannon burst into a newsagent’s shop on Ashton New Road and pointed a webley air-pistol at the owner and demanded that the owner give him all the money out of the till. I do not know what happened to him after that. I think that he may have gotten probation seeing that he was only eleven years old. He may have had to go to Borstal though.
Joe Fisher 29/07/09 See Joe's Dargai St Club Photo...?
Many thanks Joe
Belle Vue Memories
Was reading a post about Belle View, main thing that interested me was that none of the people remember things that I remember, foolish' yes of course, I am forgetting the time gap between ages as 3/4/5/6 years is like another era. Sunday wrestling for us was the Ardwick Stadium where I saw the red devil, Husey, Lew Rosebey, Jack Pie, missed some I know, every session you would see a woman with her umbrella attacking anybody who came out of the ring, near to her, and of course they always did come out near to her as it was part of the act, did not get the message until I realised that no one ever got hurt unless it was by mistake. I ran professional boxing at Belle View but only in what was left of the place which was the old dance halls. Born in Hulme when all was happening around me, air raids, Sutcliffs flour mill was our air raid shelter and when any bombs dropped near the place dust and flour would fall from the ceiling, down Egerton Street which was part of Dawson Street was the abattoir and on the corner of the small road leading into the slaughter house stood a pub, one night when the raids were happening six of the regulars of the pub decided to stay put in the vault, direct hit killed all six. Further up Egerton Street stood St George’s (Hulme church) which has been saved from demolition and now has several expensive flats built inside, back in time the minister was Chavasey? Who would walk around holding his trousers up with his hands in his pockets, next to the pub nick named the mug shop was Clogger Hulme, a very small man, possibly a dwarf made great clogs, further down was Jenkins the cobbler who always had a mouth full of nails even when you spoke to him, two doctors were around this point, Dr Taylor and Dr Chamerette, walk down a little on the left brought you to Intons chip shop where sat night was special as you could queue for a portion of ribs but you had to buy a pile of chips, the daughter of Mrs Inton was one of the early people to swim the channel, Bowcocks was across the way, eachuses clothes shop then along further missing out naming some shops was the bike shop named Schoffields, unusual thing about Hulme was the three roads that ran through hulme, they were more or less parallel and came together near to Old Trafford, i am saying that you could have cut out the middle one which was city road and built houses on it (at another era), I went to Hulme Lad’s Club also known as Proctor’s gym, used to box there, Harold McGlynn, Fred Downey, Dick Pilling were the trainers, Harold, Aan Blades and another would do a sketch of Wilson Kepple and betty and it was very funny, done on the stage in the large hall, Proctors produced many sporting people and in one of the rooms on the ground floor was all the silver that had been won over the years, Mr Hough was the main man, very well respected, a real gentleman. Remember boxing a lad named Kenny Looks at Ringway, Kenny had just one hair coming from the middle of his head, I am not bald he would state if any one ribbed him, I have hair growing, look. Just around the corner was the Pryme Street Baths where you could go on a Saturday to have a bath. York street, silver St, Hargreaves St, Bantyre St, Ellesmere St, Moss Lane, Brooks Bar, Trafford Bar, Hullard Park, Seymore Park, Barracks Park used to have an open air baths and on some Sundays a team of Germans would be brought down to meet a teem made up from all the pubs that were around, people from all around would go carrying boxes to sit or stand on. Horse meat from Stretford Rd, shop painted red, some buildings still standing "hurrah", not the Luxor Club, York, Russel Street dance and snooker halls owned by Harold McGlynn, Pop, Pauldins, City Rd school building still stands, Woolworths on Stretford Rad gone, Zion still there, my church St Wilfs is a community place now, Mirkadies is like the war again, vandalised, Schinglers watch repairers moved to Liverpool Road but Leo died and now closed, some of Chorlton Road still there, Marlborough pub gone, Hulme Hip still stands, no idea what it is although the back end was BBC at one time. Hope this brings back memories to all and maybe you can add to this.
Thank you, be lucky
B. Robinson 24/07/08
Many thanks Mr Robinson
Dane Bank U
I know that strictly it's not in Manchester, but I was surprised to see the size of Dane Bank as shown on the map. We used to go up Windsor Rd.until it petered out into what I now realise were proposed building sites, all that having been stopped during the war. I can't remember how far we used to walk ater that, but right in the middle of nowhere, and at right angles to our path was a row of ten or twelve terraced houses. We would walk along the pavement in front of them and turn right into a short unadopted {unmetalled] road, with large black corrugated iron buildings on each side. That was Dane Bank. There was a little shop which was up some steps at one side.I assumed that the buildings were derelict, but as it was generally Sunday when we passed through maybe they weren't. Once we did see a couple of Italian POWs playing a form of bowls behind the fence.We watched them through the wire for a while but they ignored us Then there was a concrete road with serrations across the middle third, We would follow this for a bit then cross the railway by means of a couple of stiles, through a farmyard and into Denton Woods where we used to pick bluebells. If you climbed out of the woods on the Manchester side onto the higher ground by the railway you could look across the city which was a forest of
factory chimneys as far a you could see. Don.
Don Ratcliffe Third Email 12/02/08
Many thanks Don
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When I mentioned the Cosmo the other day I remembered that on the same side of Hyde Rd. but on the other side of Wellington St., the second building was a garage called 'Kirby's Cars'. My father vused to buy petrol ther for 1/11 a gallon. However more interestingly, if you crossed the street and went down the road opposite Wellington St. some
way down you could lean over the wall and see the field with the brook at the side which belonged to the church, and from which said church probably got its name.I expect it's all built over now, but in the thirties they used to hold an event called the Rose Queen. I was her page boy in 1935, and have a photograph somewhere.During the war sometime the 83rd Manchester Boys' Brigade enacted the 'Battle of Hasting 1066' to the accompaniment of Marriott Edgar's famous monologue, since performed by Stanley Holloway.Someone crawled under the bank of the brook with a sail to represent William's fleet, and when it came to 'Arry with 'is 'awk in 's 'and, the nearest we could get was a stuffed owl strapped to his wrist..Poor Harold later had half a tennis ball over his eye with the back end of an arrow protruding from it!.I'm sure it was a great success, although can't remember anything about that If this is of interest maybe I can scrape up some more
rubbish sometime. Regards, Don Ratcliffe First Email 26 January 2008 10:01
Many thanks Don
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Thanks, I don't know where to begin. It started when I looked at the site concerning the Aspinal evacuation to Poynton on Sept.2nd 1939. I find it difficult to get onto these websites as i am a distinct amateur at computers.There was a name there which rang a faint bell, Peter Heaton, did he go to our school, or did he live somewhere nearby when I lived in Ashfield Grove? I was interested to see the picture of the Cosmo as I went there quite often The Four Feathers, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Mr Deeds goes to town,Old mother Riley {awful}, Abbot and Costello, {nearly as bad} and the rest,were what was in vogue at the time. There's a whole lot more that I'd like to ask about but don't want to make this into too much of a saga. perhaps I should wait and see what I've stirred up. Regards,
Don. Second Email, 26 January 2008 15:43
Many thanks Don
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Hi everyone, looking at old maps(1848) on the internet I came across
Old Hall Lane which we know as Old Moat Lane. At the end around Doncaster
Ave and Mauldeth Rd. there is a Withington Hall and a Moat. I do not know
who owned it or when it was demolished. The White Lion Inn, St. Pauls church,
Burton Rd., and Wilmslow Rd., are there but not Palatine Rd., I was born in
Meltham Ave. in 1938. My family moved into Meltham when the houses were brand
new. My eldest Edna went to St. Pauls as old moat had yet to be opened. The
rest of my siblings Olga, Hilda, Alma and Alan all went to Old Moat, left
in 1953. As a child my friends and I played on Hough End fields, later to
be called Britains Fields. We walked up Yew Tree Road to Platt Fields, splashed
about in the paddling pool, sailed our home made boats on the boating pond
and fished in the lake. If you were lucky you could have a ride in a rowing
boat or go round the island on the big boat. I went swimming in the open air
baths but once was enough.We went to Withington Baths the boys were always
in the pool first as they did not wash their feet. On other days we went to
Fletcher Moss in Didsbury or on to the Galleon baths( we did not go in as
you had to pay) so further on to the River Bollin where we played for hours.
At West Didsbury we played near the railway lines and put pennies on the lines,
how stupid we were. Down Burton Road, cross over Barlow Moor Road and you
could get on to the banks of the River Mersey.and on to Northenden and the
yearly fair.As we got older we had bikes, mine was a Coventry.Eagle We road
to Prestbury pushing our bikes up the hill. Does any one remember the stone
carving on the way down the valley. It was a face and the writing said "he
that drinketh from this well ????the wizards spell. Sometimes we went Fallowfield
cycle track watching Reg Harris and a race called the devil take the hind
most. Many times we were at ringway. I had better stop now or I will bore
you to death... Barbara
Many thanks Barbara
OLD MOAT LANE
whilst browsing tonight on the Memories page headed OLD MOAT LANE sent in from Barbara (See the Post Above)the area she called Doncaster Ave/ Mauldeth Rd and in particular Withington Hall YES there was a moat surrounding it and the part of the original path round the moat that was recently taken away to be replaced by a cul-de-sac of new houses called Oakham Ave an Avenue by the way Billy Longden (contributor) lived in on the old pre-fabs next to Hough End fields an area I have covered myself, Ironically Bills family moved to a house 165 Mauldeth Rd West in the early sixties where his back garden overlooked the other back croft(we had two) where it was situated between Mauldeth/Eddisbury/and Bosley Avenues which I imagine the path ran round the moat in the Tudor times.Withington Hall actually covered a large area where in fact our old 'BACK CROFT' from my football days in Withington was part of the Withington Hall site.The path that was destroyed ran between the end of a passage from Mauldeth Rd/Eddisbury Ave took you through to Gostrey/Hassall Ave,s but sadly a neighbourhood petition to try and save this piece of history failed HENCE Oakham Ave was reborn at a big price and that being a lost piece of historic pathway...thank you to Barbara for her great story it brought back memories for me..
Ted Knott 11/09/08
The times they are a changing
The times they are a changing was a phrase that was used constantly
in my younger days. Some years ago I was in Manchester and found that things
had changed and changed for the better. I live now in rural Ireland and when
I came over to this country I was unable to settle down for quite a while.
However, people have to adjust to their surroundings and conditions and I
have done this quite well, even for a Mancunian.
However, in recent times I have had a hankering for the old days - maybe the
years are telling on me, I don't know. I went searching for my school's. I
had thought that I had attended two schools, apparently they were different
ones. However, I have sorted them out now and am hoping to return to Manchester
sometime during this year, if I can at all.
I wonder are there any people out there who remember St Joseph's School, Clarence
Street, Moss Side. I had thought that I was attended the Loretto Convent,
however I have since learnt that St. Joseph's School was built in the grounds
of the Loretto convent. I also attended what I once thought was Bishop Billsborrough/Billsborrow
Secondary Modern School, only to find that they were a Primary School. It
turns out that the school I attended was situated in a prefabricated building
at the rear of the B.B. School and was attached to the English Martyrs, although
at the time I had thought that the English Martyrs had a Grammar School only,
on Alexandra Road South. I have since been informed that this was the start
of the Comprehensive School momentum and that I was part of that, although
I was unaware of it at the time. Parent's at that time were very uncommunicative
about those type of things. I am still trying to put the pieces together slowly
but surely they are making an almost complete jigsaw, the one piece that is
missing is a friend of mine - we used to walk to school together, down Claremont
Road. My name at that time was Pat Daly, if there is anyone who remembers
a small fair-mousy haired girl with her hair in plaits, please get in touch
with me. I am sure that there were a great number of that description, but
there is a possibility that someone might remember the name. I lived at 40
Heywood, later to become Harpenden Street, the house was situated between
Bold Street and Raby Street, it was the house beside the bomb site.
Well as I said at the beginning times have changed and so have the people,
myself included, and hopefully for the better. If anyone out there want's
to get in touch with me they can contact me at patriciaodriscoll1@gmail.com.
Happy New Year to everyone.
Regards
Patricia O'Driscoll
Many thanks Particia
I lived the first 12 years of my life in Manchester before emigrating
with my family to Australia . My name is Brenda Smith and we lived in Woodhouse
Park .
I attended Newall Green Primary School and then West Wythenshawe Technical
High School For Girls .
My Mother was Edith Hoyes and she grew up in the Hulme and Burnage areas .
My Dad was William John Smith and grew up in Lady barn and Withington . We
moved to Australia in 1963 .
Many memories of my childhood in the '50's and early '60's came flooding back
when I stumbled on your very entertaining site .
Does anyone else remember going to Lewis's to have a haircut , and sitting
on those animal statues instead of normal hairdresser seats .
I remember one Christmas being taken into town to see Father Christmas and
a very bad fog emerged during the afternoon . We had to queue for hours for
a bus home , the fog worsened so much that eventually the bus conductor had
to walk in front of the bus with a torch to guide the driver . This added
to the excitement for us children especially as we did not arrive home until
midnight !
Unlike today's children we were never indoors unless forced by illness , bad
weather or punishment . We played hide and seek , hopscotch ( empty shoe polish
tins were highly sought after ) , skipping , film stars names , football (
using the grids as goals ) . The boys were always on the look out for old
prams or anything they could use the wheels off for Billy - carts . Does any
one remember playing two - ball , I have never seen this art form since I
was a child . Making " slides " when the weather was icy was a favourite
pastime and we would spend hours perfecting our "slide " , only
to come out the next morning to find someone's Mam had put salt on it !!
Bonfire night was huge and many weeks were spent building a bonfire and making
a guy . The guy was taken around the neighbourhood on the best Billy cart
we could muster to be admired . The neighbours would then reward our efforts
with a few coppers , which we used to buy our fireworks .
I do not think we would have had time to play with X - Boxes or Playstations
.
I hope to add more memories in the near future .
Brenda
Many Thanks Brenda
• Where should I start my journey back in time? I think we
should go back to Chadderton near Oldham Lancashire U K, (I lived in Prince
St Ardwick before I got married). We lived in a mid/terraced house that is
Sue My wife Stuart my eldest son and later on, my youngest son Kevin. I was
working for my father in-law as a coal-man due to the fact that I had relocated
after marrying, had moved from Manchester to Oldham. This did not however
work out, so I took another Job in a rubber factory as a stop gap until something
Turned up, and boy did it turn up? While I was walking around town one day,
I came Across a sign outside a bus station advertising for staff, so I went
inside to apply for a position.
As you walk through the double glass doors There were a few steps down onto
a loading bay, and to the left were bays where the buses came in loaded up
with passengers for towns and city’s all over the country, and to the
right up a few steps wasthe inspectors office were I had to apply for the
job.
The inspector gave me some papers to fill in, then took me to the
conductor’s room, which was just behind the office, so I could fill
them in and return them straight away. After I returned them he told me I
would have to travel to Stockport where the head office is for a medical and
if I passed it I would have a job as a condcuctor, well I PASSED, I handed
in my Notice to the Rubber factory and started my new job one week Later.
With my new uniform on and moneybag and ticket machine I started work, my
teacher was a conductor called rent a tent, I will tell you how he got this
nickname later on, his real name was Frank he taught me all about being a
conductor.
He of course was a big man and as he went down the isle of the bus, he Would
take up all the room, in fact if he was collecting a fare on one side of the
isle his backside would be in someone else’s face on the other side.
I of course asked him if this was a requirement of the company to do this,
he said you can buy your own bleeding cup of tea at the terminace for that.
And so started a friendship of many years. I should start
to tell you more about the depot and its staff The bus company Was called
the North Western Bus Company, which was in Cleg St Oldham Lancashire England.
The depot had approx 150 staff this was made up of mechanics, office staff,
Three inspectors, the rest was made up of one-man drivers and two man drivers
And of course conductors, as you signed to say you would become a conductor,
you also signed to say you would become a driver and then a one-man driver.
Our bus runs where as I said Inter city and routes that the council buses
did not Go, this made our runs very interesting in deed, as most of these
where in the Pennines Saddleworth to be exact, with towns like Uppermill,
Diggle, Delph, Denshaw, Mossely. Other runs where Shaw to Rochdale, Middleton
to Woodhouse, these runs all had there own hidden dangers where it be bad
bends or having to not only go on the Wrong side of the road but on the pavement
as well.
So now you have the picture we can get on with the story, as I told you I
had to start as a conductor and my mate or driver was called Carl who lived
in Uppermill and use to drive all the way across town to Chaderton in order
to give me a lift to work in a morning, he did this in order to get me to
work, so he would not have to work with anyone else, Carl was funny like this,
he did not like change in any way shape or form, he was so straight that as
a driver he would not bend the rules for anything. He would run to time all
the time, this would make my job very hard because in peak periods if the
driver did not speed up we would finish up so late we would be running on
the time table of a bus three or four behind us.
This of course meant that I was picking up passengers who where supposed to
be on them, needless to say my machine was white hot and I was not a happy
at all. So, one day I decided to teach him a lesson. I did this one morning,
we had just arrived in Manchester and did not have time for a drink because
as usual we where running late, this next trip was our morning tea run and
did not want only five minutes for my break so I told Carl to take his finger
out and get back to Oldham on time or he would have to get his own egg and
bacon sandwich, well the bus went up the road like a bloody rocket, we got
into Oldham on time, Carl dropped me of at the local shop while he took the
bus back to the garage and parked it up, I took our sandwich’s back
to the canteen which is located above the offices, all the other drivers and
conductors could not believe we where back on time as this was a first for
Carl but not the last, I HAD THE SECRET WEAPON.
While we where in the canteen, about twenty of us, one of the one male drivers
was telling us about his latest purchase which was a green house, he said
it was the best thing he had ever bought as he had tomatoes that big and ripe
and juicy he did not know what to do with them all, with it being winter this
was a fantastic feat on its own.
Well he kept on going on about these big juicy tomatoes, that where so huge,
until in the end one driver said I will buy a pound off you, to which the
reply came back, if you think for one minute that I am going to cut one in
half for you, you have to be stupid.
As part of our roster system we would take our turn at being spare driver
and conductor, which entails doing nothing once all the buses had gone out
fully staffed and on time, so I usually read a book in the conductors room
for the first hour or so then I would have some breakfast, Carl would do his
own thing.
So there I was sitting on one of the benches in the conductors room having
a quite read, when there was a bang on the glass window right next to me,
it was Harry one of the inspectors waving his hands in a motion of come here,
I looked at my watch I thought to myself what the hell does he want all buses
are out, anyway I went into his office and Harry says to me (Harry speaks
with a hair lip, you know like someone talking down there nose) tell this
gentleman what time the next Bradford bus is, I said you tell him it is your
job to do that, with this, Harry let both barrels go, YOU TELL HIM RIGHT NOW!
So I said, excuse me sir the next Bradford bus is at 8.30. Thank you says
the man (with a hair lip accent ), I was not going to tell him said Harry
he would think I was taking the piss, he then burst out laughing because he
saw the funny side of it. With that I left my book and went upstairs into
the social clubrooms, which is was next to the canteen and had a game of snooker
with the one-man driver who is also on spare duty, we found it very hard to
concentrate on our game.
A few weeks later Carl and I made our way up to the top of the town after
our morning break and as we approached the bus stop we saw all this black
smoke coming out of the cab of the bus we were about to take over, the next
thing we saw is the driver bailing out coughing his heart out, we raced up
to see what was wrong and he spurted out that he had tried to stop the engine
by stalling the bus in gear instead of using the stop button, this in turn
made the engine go in reverse, which means that the air now comes in through
the exhaust and the exhaust goes out through the air filter, besides not being
able to see the bus, it now had one forward gear and four reverse gears. We
of course had to wait for a change-over bus which the mechanic brought up
for us, that poor bugger had to drive the bus back to the depot with all the
windows open and only one gear to use,(I must point out that this was one
of the old type of buses where the driver was on his own at the front of the
bus and the doors at the rear), this of course was one of those sites you
never forget.
A lot of our bus runs where great because we went from a big city (Manchester)
to the country-side (Uppermill) via Oldham, this is where we changed crews
over of course, well one nice sunny day Carl and I walked up to the main street
to relieve the Uppermill bus, as we stood there around the corner it came,
‘OH SHIT” says Carl it’s an old Denis he hated them as he
would be on his own all the trip, well he climbs into the cab and I stand
on the footpath talking to him, when this lady comes up to me and ask me,
is this the Uppermill bus, so I being very clever stood back and looked at
the destination board on the front of the bus and say “YES MAAM’
she gave me a filthy look and got on board with a older Lady, I got on board
and rang the bell, and we departed. At our bus company we had bell signals
which are as follows, one ring for stop, two for go and three for emergency
stop and the conductor was in control at all times, even though a lot of our
drivers did not agree. Getting back to our journey to Uppermill, my Lady friend
wanted to get of at the next stop so I rang the bell, what did my mate Carl
do, he looked over his left shoulder at the door, nobody there so he carried
on leaving me with one very irate passenger who says to me again, stop this
bus now so I say to her look and rang the bell again, but guess what, Carl
still did not stop again she shouts my mother has just come out of hospital,
she can not walk to well, I again show her that I am ringing the bell three
times, by now we are passed the stop and still not stopping, we are also on
a 1 in 4 hill and she will have to walk back up the hill, she is not amused
at all, she now screams out loud ,stop this bus, what do you want me to do,
jump out of the window and get under the wheels I retorted just then Carl
finally stops the bus the two women get of throughing me dirty looks, I in
turn get of and give Carl a royal serve which I can not put in print. Our
two women report me to the bus company as the most ignorant conductor they
had ever met, so Carl and myself had to report to the inspector and put in
a report of our own, Carl got a warning and I got the same, and Carl got his
own egg and bacon sandwiches for the next couple of weeks.
Carl and I soon got over this set back and carried on as usual, one
day we were on the Greenfield run, which is a beautiful town near Uppermill,
with a double-decker it was one of the hardest towns to get too, the reason
being, as we approached the turn off the main road to the right, we would
have to stop and look down to the right, this hill is so steep and half way
down there is a tight bend, there is a small stone wall with a massive drop
down to a railway line on the other-side of it. We would have to make sure
nothing was coming up the hill before we set off, the reason being that the
right turn is like a u-turn and at the bend in the middle, we would have to
go on the pavement on the wrong side of the road in order to get around, anything
coming up would have to back down the hill, and in winter no snow-plough no
bus service, well we got down the hill and along the main street to the terminus
which is next to the pub, I told Carl I was going to the toilets across the
street, I must point out we had Carls most hated bus, a Denis (on his own
again), I had a leak and came out of the toilets to find out I had no bus
it was gone, “oh shit’, I had to phone the depot and tell the
inspector so he could stop the bus if it got to Oldham before me, I then had
to try and thumb a lift from a passer-by, I got a lift and passed the bus,
I arrived at the same bus-stop as Harry the inspector, you should have seen
Carls face when he saw the two of us stood at the stop, what the hell is going
on says Harry, how can you get all this way without a conductor? Carl says
someone has been ringing the bell at every stop so I thought Keith was on
board, when we checked it out we found out it was a bunch of school-kids,
so I took some fares and we carried on to Manchester. When we arrived at Manchester
we went for a cup of tea and Carl nearly choked on his because he could not
stop laughing about it all, at least something made Carl laugh.
On another occasion, we were on the late shit, we had just left Manchester
and making our way up Oldham Rd, we had one of the newer types of buses, (a
Leyland), with this type of bus I could stand at the front and talk to Carl,
the stairs are just behind the driver, being the last bus we of course had
a few people on board who had a drink or two, so I collected the fares downstairs
first I then went upstairs to collect theirs, the atmosphere was a bit tense
so I started to whistle the tune, its been a hard days night, by the Beatles,
and of course they all started to sing it too. This of course meant that there
would not be any fighting, as people very rarely sing while they fight, pleased
with the outcome I went downstairs but as I got to the bottom, this old man
sat on the front seat says to me, can you go and tell them to stop singing,
to which I replied you go and tell them while I order you a ambulance, he
of course did not even try, and we just carried on as normal with a 60’s
swinging bus.
While we are on the subject of singing, I got the idea to get the passengers
singing from a time when my brother (Jim) and myself went out one night, we
had a few pints and caught a bus home, we sat upstairs at the back of the
bus and started to sing all the old favourite songs, (Knees-up mother brown,
Show me the way to go home, etc,) there was this older man singing along with
us all, he soon took over as the instigator of what song to sing next, so
when he stood up to get off the bus with his fish and chips in his hands,
we (Jim and myself) looked at each other and the devilment took over. Just
give us one more we shouted, and so he did and soon all the rest of the passengers
soon realised what we were up too, they too shouted give us another one, we
managed to get him about five stops pasted where he wanted to get off, but
he got off very happy as every-one stood up and cheered him off the bus, this
of course taught me the power of music.
You know sometimes people tell you things and you think to yourself, what
a load of cods-wallop, well my brother (Jim) told me a story of when he worked
on the buses years before in Manchester, I of course put it down to a nine-pint
wonder, and here we are years later I am working on the buses and I have a
simular situation and what he told me saved the day for Carl and myself, what
happened was this, we are travelling along Oldham Rd. towards Manchester,
two very big Irish-men get on they are as they say “as drunk as a skunk”
and they refused to pay, so I go back and tell Carl to just do what I say,
I then go back to the two men and tell them I am going to stop the bus and
call the police at the next phone box we come too, I then take off my money-bag
and machine and put them behind Carl in the cab, ”just in case I have
to run”, I then tell Carl to stop the bus about 100 feet from the phone,
I then tell the two men I am going to phone the police, they say they will
kill me if I do, I say “that’s if you two fat-lumps can catch
me”, with this I get off and they git up and follow me off the bus,
as soon as I see they are off I wave to Carl to pick me up which he did and
we carry-on down the road, leaving the two men scratching there heads, stood
on the footpath, so it does pay to listen now and again.
As a conductor we had a lot to put up with, not only your partners moods,
but eighty-seven passengers coming and going over a twenty-six mile run, not
only did you have to know how where every-one got on and how much the payed,
but where they are due to get off. Our inspectors would get on and say to
you, the passenger sitting upstairs next to the window two seats from the
back on the right, where did they get on and where are they going too, if
you could not tell him he would report you, but it is surprising how when
a passenger payed there fare, you automatically say to yourself were they
are due to get off, and if they did not you would challenge them.
School-kids where the worst, some of them had passes and some did not, this
of course meant that they would try to cheat, when you have eighty to ninety
screaming kids on board this is not easy, so I would tell Carl to set off
slowly then tell the kids to hold there passes in the air, then quickly get
the fares of the rest,
I really enjoyed being a conductor, but one day Fred the senior inspector
sent for me, he told me I was the next on the list to go to the driving school,
for this I would have to go to head office in Stockport, for the next three
weeks I was in heaven, two weeks learning to drive a bus, and the third week
would be for learning all the different types of vehicles, if I passed the
diving test.
Northwestern bus Company had depots all over Lancashire, so of course they
had lots of different types of buses which had different types of gear boxes,
thirty-eight in all, a lot to learn but it was a lot of fun, one depot had
a specially built bus so it could fit under a bridge, the roof was curved
so it could fit under it, this was in Altringham,
So as you see I passed my test with flying colours, I did so well the chief
driving instructor, asked me to do the test again with the hole driving school
on board, so that the other learners would know what they are in for, I of
course said I would. The next morning my instructor said that as a thank-you
to me, the chief had said that I and another driver would be taking a letter
to Wales in a new luxury coach. We of course enjoyed our trip to Wales, we
then went on to learn about all the other types of buses in all the other
depots, having done this we returned to our own depots to start a new job
as a two-man driver. My first conductress was a sixty year old lady called
Margaret, we got along very well, using Margaret’s words I was a very
smooth driver, I did not throw people around or brake hard.
Just to build the story line better as we got to the bottom of Oldham Rd we
did a left then a right into Lower Mosley St, well on this day we were on
time until a car cut me up at the lights at the bottom of Oldham Rd, well
I put my hand on the horn and gave him a blast, I then tuned left then right
into Lower Mosley St there two cars had had a prang but left the cars in the
middle of the road (I could not get round them and my tea was waiting)so I
gave them a blast on the horn as well and told them to move their cars.
By this time 87 passengers where stood up ready to get off, Margaret was at
the back of the bus changing the destination boards and in a very loud voice
she shouts out, I have had more horn today than I have had in the past fifty
years, I of course just went beetruit-red.
Keith Wright, Adelaide, Austalia. 08/10/06
Many Thanks Keith
Childhood Memories Of Blackpool (Extract from guestbook two)
REGARDS MEMORY LANE PAGES
To: David Edge 02.07.04 (See Memories Page 3)
Read your input tonight and could have cried - lost my father last May and
your childhood memories of Blackpool with your Dad could have been taken from
my memoires (apart from the knitted swimwear and gaslights in your street)
I'm 50 years young! I do, however, remember the car journey to Blackpool (without
a motorway) - of playing I-spy - of constantly asking "are we nearly
there yet?" - of having to stop at layby's if anyone's urge for a pee
got really desperate! - and, finally, of being the first (or last) to spot
Blackpool Tower. I remember the Laughing clown with a smaller version on its
knee (or should that be "King" 'cos didn't he have a crown? ) It
used to make me laugh anyway. My Dad did a great impression of it by the way
- just like the real thing - it always set us kids off laughing! There were
six of us kids - four girls and two boys and, along with our mum and dad,
must've made quite a spectacle - not least because all the girls were dressed
identically and thus were the boys! Ages didn't matter. If we were wearing
"dust" coats though they were all a different pastel colour (made
from very thin material as I recall) - anyone out there know WHY they were
called "dust" coats?????????? If it wasn't a dustcoat it was a hand-knitted
cardigan - again, all the girls wore the same design and colour and the boys
would sport the same hand-knitted pullover. I once overhead someone remark
to dad what a large family he had and he said "yes, and I'm proud of
everyone of them" - I loved it when he said things like that. As we walked
along the sea front us kids would shiver and put our coats or cardigans back
on - Dad would say "it's a lovely fresh breeze - you lot are nesh!"
Anyone out there know where the word NESH originated from? Mum and Dad used
to take bread and butter with them so it cut down on the price of "dinner"
(around noon) - they'd buy so many "lots" of chips and we'd make
our own "butties". I often wondered if the word "sand"wich
originated from the sand that got in our butties (I've since learnt it was
a Lord Sandwich who gave it it's name????). I got sunburnt badly once and
my Dad told me to sit with my feet and legs in a bucket of ice-cold water.
He said that, as my blood circulated round my body it would cool me down.
I sat there for at least an hour before realising he was messing with me!!
Luckily Mum put calamine lotion on (big mistake) - it does cool the skin down
but then it dries it out! Anyway, thanks to David for reminding me of Happy
Blackpool Days!
Maureen Wardley (nee McNamee) 18/09/06
Many thanks Maureen
Penny Down
Hello again Al, I see that there are a couple of messages from two
people ex west Gorton, Ged Murphy and Marie Frenandes. (see
Manchester Stories) ) Both recount the 'penny down' game we all played,
usually on Saturday as I recall. The trains used to pull up at the extreme
end of the Gore brook about a couple of hundred yards or so from Gorton Lane.
Theere was a big brick building that cut across the end of the waste land.
The patch was sort of wedge shaped the point being at the Gorton lane end
of the brook. For the life of me I cannot frecall where the brook went to,
or should I say came from before it opened up at the point just mentioned.
It then flowed down towards the Openshaw brewery but when it paasssed between
some buildings to the rear of Brook House flats on the north side of Textile
Street, it met a side flume which was known to one and all as the Blue Dye.
I mentioned this in one of my other pages.
I swear I must have known Ged and Marie at the times mentioned, but cannot
recall either, Of course I may have known Marie under a different surname.
After all she was like me and Ged only a kid at the time, and has probably
changed her name by marriage.
I clutch at straws really as I cannot remember either of them as it stands.
On the other hand, I rarely did the penny down thing as I felt it was demeaning
even at the age of ten. I did go there onec or twice, usually with other kids,
but never got any money or stuff as I used to stand to one side and watch
the scramble for the coins and such.
I had no need to do it anyway, as my step father used to drive a lorry and
was in and out of American bases, Mellands, and the one over by Warrington,
can't recall it's name at the moment. I used to be king dick at school with
all the chewy( chewing gum), choco Hershey bars , American comics etc., that
he used to get for us kids. Pity he wasn't as forthcoming in other ways. Well,
my brother and I were only his step kids so I suppose in those days it was
all one could expect.
The Blackie Brook was in three/four parts, one where the trains pulled up,
then the part where the land opened out a bit from behind the Monastry down
to the factory buildings in Textile street, then the Blue Dye bit, then it
disappeareed underground behind Arrowsmiths shop to come to light again at
the top of Bennet Street just past the Forge Hammer (not a pub)and Vaughan
Cranes.
I mentioned some of my old pals in another page of memeories, Maybe Marie
and Ged knew some of those mentioned.
Regards
John Morgan 24/07/06
Many Thanks John
(Extract from the Guest Book by Jim (James Stephen) Smith)
I have just found the site - what a great surprise - " Oh boy,
what joy, we had in barefoot days". Sorry, couldn't resist that. Viewing
this site has brought so many memories flooding back I was looking for info
to help me with a book I am writing, I say book but realy it isn't intended
to be for publication, it's for my children - I'm just recording my memories
and stories. I have reached that time when you realise time is running out.
Don't miss-understand, I'm not going to pop my cloggs just yet but I have
had Parkinson's Disease for between 7 - 10 years - so it's now or never.
I don't suppose I am unique, but my path to education would just not happen
nowadays and would, I'm sure surprise youngsters of today. I went to Old Moat
Nursury School from just 3yrs of age, then moved up to Old Moat Infants,(getting
the picture?), followed By Old Moat Junior School and then on to Old Moat
Secondary Modern school until I was 16, after which I fancied a change, spread
my wings, and went to what was then Hollins College - better known as "The
Toast Rack" and "The Poached Egg" because of the then ultra
modern architecture of the buildings, in the style of Frank Loyd - Wright.I
Studied Bakery & Confectionery there for 3yrs. and then really spread
my wings - within a week of leaving College I was boarding "S.A. Vaal"
in Southampton, bound for Las Palmas, Cape Town, East London(S.A.)Port Elizabeth,
Durban, and back - via the same route plus a stop in Madiera, to S'ton. A
5 week round trip, the traditional Mail ship run done by the Union Castle
Line. Until then, the furthest I had been from home was one week in Ramsey,
Isle of Man, and thats was just the begining of my adventures. I have many
memories and Photos I will be delighted to share with you. In return It would
be briliant if I could make contact with some old friends, I have lost contact
with everyone I new back then. In particular I would be eternaly greatful
if through this I could find my great friend from college days - David Dougherty
from Wythenshawe, near Minsterley Parade. Dave emigrated to N.Z. - Auckland
in the late sixties, I was meant to join him a year later but was prevented
due to family illnes and eventually lost touch with him. I went to N. Z. 3yrs
ago for 2wks to ty to to trace him but without any success. It would be a
dream come true just to speak to him again and be able to set the record straight
with him. Sorry if iIm getting a bit maudlin. I'm still feeling happy to have
found this site. I'll be back soon with some pics and stories. Meanwhile -
anyone rememder the Supermarket group - ADSEGA. How about Duncan and Fosters
Cake shops, the Youth Club at St. Christophers on Princess Parkway, "Dummy"
Hill, next to the railway line and the T.A.base near Hough-End fields, the
Saturday morning Matinees at the Cresta Cinema opposite the Princess Hotel
and after the show, charging down the grassed central reservation, jumping
the knee high, green painted fencing with your dark blue, almost black Gaberdine
mack draped over your shoulders with just the top button fastened making it
into a Cape - we were all Flash Gordons then! Or galloping on your imaginary
white horse, slapping your backside with one hand to create the rythm and
sound of horses hooves whilst fireing your imaginary gun(two pointing fingers
and your cocked thumb)at any strangers or Injuns (Native Americans) who got
in the way of Hoppalong Cassidy or was it Tonto and the Lone Ranger on the
way home. Home for me then was 5, Pennant Avenue, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, the
Prefabs, built as tempory accomodation during the war and still giveing great
service 10 years aftter the war ended, I've had to work dammed hard to be
able to afford to live in a detached Bungalow again. Yes indeed, they were
hard times but I Kids these days have missed so much fun - no need for imagination
these days, everything is all to real. Must stop or I'll finish up writing
another book.
Thanks for the memories,
Jim 18/01/06
Many Thanks Jim
Great reminiscences of the Manchester clubs, I think from 1966 -71?,
All the talk of underage drinking and only losing half a DD if you were rumbled,
ahh they were the days. I can't let the opportunity pass of mentioning the
Luxor Club in the Old Trafford area. I can't remember the name of the street
but I can visualise to this day the outside of a converted cinema which may
well have been the Luxor. Saturday nights were a treat with acts like "The
Great Zargov" and in his day the unpredictable "Chukka Wheel"
a brilliant drunken act on roller skates, who could forget the juggling brilliance
of Joe Ruggles? The resident band "The Burns Brothers" If I remember
correctly the Club owner was Ginger Chilton (Chiltern?) A thing that stands
out in my mind is that there were no problems, I think the worst thing I remember
was someone objecting to a drunken guest making a pass at his wife, Y'know
the noise I mean when I say that the chairs scrapped back? The waiters were
on the scene like out of a genies lamp and the trouble quelled, apologies
proffered and pride restored.
Yes they were the days.
Tony Tunstall 25/11/05
Many thanks Tony
THE MONKEY HOUSE
During the fifties and very early sixties me and mates used to go
to Withington baths on Whitchurch rd in
Withington and during the school summer holidays it was almost every day,of
course it didn't cost me because I had passed the FREE PASS test which included
a life saving procedure as well as swimming tasks like two lengths of the
baths of breath/back stroke and crawl (freestyle)during the hols it was full
every day that much so the attendants had to open a spare dressing room for
the lads which we called THE MONKEY HOUSE only because we used to swing on
the steel supports underneath the glass apex roof,today that same room is
a sauna and shower room. The very first time I went to the grand old place
was back in 1954/55 when a neieghbour of ours who lived at 2 Eddisbury ave
(Mr Drummond) CRICKEY he must of been in his sixties then! he escorted a group
of us every Sunday morning and the session usually ran from 8am till 12 noon.Almost
everytime we came out our eyes were stinging from the chloride in the water,the
skin on our fingers were all crinkly and bopy weren't we
hungry. Our first port of call on the way home was at Robinsons the bakers
shop on Whitchurch road where we bought crusty warm loaves to satisfy our
appetites occasionally we bought custard vanilla cakes or ginger cakes.Next
door was a grocers shop called Pegrams,the shops continued round the corner
on to Burton rd and round that corner was Forsyths sweet shop where we also
obtained goodies from before that there was Palins butchers and Morans fish
shop, I wonder if any of the readers recognise these long gone names? I will
shortly email you some snaps of that particular area showing the shops as
they are today. cheers.
Ted Knott. 22/10/05
Many thanks Ted, we shall look forward to seeing the photos.
I am wondering what is happening in and around the Irish Community
in Manchester are keeping. I have heard nothing from anyone regarding St.
Brendan's Irish Centre on Northumberland Road. It seems like no one remembers
it at all. I have very fond memories of the nights spent there. I used to
also go to the Irish Association Club (now known as the Ardri) in High Lane,
Chorlton-cum-Hardy and it was great fun on Saturday/Sunday nights, and all
for 50p admission in the 1960's. Times have changed as we all have but the
memories linger on and they were all good ones. I wonder does anyone remember
Patricia and Michael Dwyer who used to live in a flat at 5 Dartmouth Road,
Chorlton-cum-Hardy? We used to go there often.
I have just seen a notice in the In Touch column of the MEN Online Website
that there is to be a Reunion of pupils of Bishop Billsborough Secondary Modern
School on the 19th November in St. Alphonsus Social Centre, Ayres Road, Old
Trafford. How I would love to be there, however, work and other committments
will not allow. Hope everyone has a good time.
Kind Regards, Patricia O'Driscoll (nee Daly, nee Dwyer) 19/10/05
Email: tricia_od@yahoo.com
Many thanks Patricia
Congo scouts, Middlewood Street
When I was about 12 I began mixing more and more with Tot Harrison
and his Middlewood Street mates. One very good reason for this was the Congo
scouts. Nothing to do with African special forces I hasten to add, but the
boy scout troop established at the Congregational Church in Church Lane, at
the top of our street. Most of
the Middlewood Street gang joined up, although I doubt any of us ever attended
a church service. The scout troop was the 2/143rd Manchester,
run by Skipper and Bosun, whose names were I think Ken Ward and Alan Edwards,
(I hope I got their names right, but my remember ain't what it used to was).
While scoutmasters occasionally get a bad press, these two were very good
and likeable leaders. It was great, we had the run of the place once a week,
and there wouldn't have been a staircase, cupboard, room or passageway that
we didn't know intimately. One year we found a "secret" room under
the stage in the church hall, coinciding with a concert under rehearsal, which
included a large number of girls. There was a lot of extracurricular activity,
including if I remember
rightly, a change of meeting night to coincide with the girl's rehearsals.
In among the rooms we investigated was a billiards room,
and its whitewashed ceiling soon took on a speckled appearance, as we 'chalked"
the cues by pushing the tips against the ceiling. The scout troop prospered
for a while, and I eventually reached the dizzy heights of patrol leader.
This gave us the clout to change our patrol name from "Stag" to
"Wolf" and I bet
there's more than a few who'll know the reason why. I don't remember what
the Stag call was, but we had a
great time wandering the streets in the evening giving out loud wolf howls.
We were just good scouts practising our patrol call, that's all. I
think I stayed with the scouts for a couple of years, the main interest being
an annual camp at Sandiway, a wooded scout camp in Cheshire. I don't recall
any facilities, although there must have been a water supply somewhere. We
found a camp site, erected the tents, dug a couple of bog holes and then got
down to collecting firewood and building a fire. I can't remember what we
ate, but it would have to have been basic and I'm guessing bread and potatoes
played a large part. None of us had a sleeping bag, but we all had two blankets,
folded in the approved manner to make a sleeping bag. Don't remember feeling
cold or uncomfortable either. Maybe it pays to have a not very retentive memory.
Cass Cassidy 27/10/05
Many thanks Cass
Most of the streets had football teams, and we usually had a kick-about on Saturday morningson Gorton Desert during the season. This was Gorton Park to give it its official name, which lay behind the baths (two plunge pools, first class and second class, what was the differencecan anyone remember? Upstairs was the bath house where, in later years, I had a hot bath on Saturday mornings). There were no facilities on the park of course, so it was coats down to make goals, and play until we were too knackered to continue. Most had football boots, the rest wore school shoes or boots. The first pair of soccer boots I ever owned were handed down by Keith Massey, a neighbour who lived a couple of doors away. He'd outgrown them, but I looked after them like they were gold. If dubbin was as effectual as it was reputed to be, those boots would have been the most waterproof pair in the north west. time we got carried away and held a cup competition among the local streets. Jud and Nobby Lucas had a number of trophies won by their father, and one of these was "borrowed" for the occasion. There was no danger of losing, we had the best team and eventually the series finished up Gloucester Street versus Newton Street for t'cup ... you've guessed it, Newton Street won.I forget what the rules were, but I know we kept that game going for ages, 5 goals up, 10 goals up, 20 goals up ... all to no avail. I can't remember if there were any repercussions, but the victorious captain had the cup on display in their front window for what seemed like ages. After every game the routine was the same, we all headed for the terraced houses running alongside the park. We'd line up along the street, probably two of us per house, knock knock, "Hello missus, please can I have a drink of water?" We always got one. I forgot to mention that on our way to the park we often called into a corner shop. We rarely had any money, so I'd guess we'd be cashing in empty drink bottles that we'd previously purloined from the shop's backyard. The object of the exercise was to keep the shopkeeper busy while busy fingers tried to lift anything that wasn't nailed down. Of course, with hindsight, it's fairly obvious the shopkeepers knew what the story was, and there was very little that wasn't nailed down. But wesometimes finished up with a liberated bottle of mineral. Dandelion and Burdock was the favourite. (Shortly after arriving in New Zealand in 1960, I found a corner shop or "dairy" in New Zealand speak, asked for a bottle of mineral, and got a look of totalbewilderment in return. I quickly learnt tocall it "lolly water" ... but I don't think I've ever seen Dandelion and Burdock over here).
Cass Cassidy 02/10/05
Many thanks Cass
Gorton a slum district of Manchester
I lived at 53 Gloucester Street, off Cross Street, Gorton until 1960 when I came to New Zealand, and have been here ever since. Like most of the terraced houses in the area, it was two-up and two-down with direct access into the front room from the street. No hot water, an outside toilet in the back yard with the bomb shelter doubling as the coal hole. If this sounds as if I'm taking part in a Monty Python sketch, bragging about living in a shoe box beside the main road ... I'm not. Most of us were in the same boat, we didn't feel hard done by, it was simply the way things were.
As an aside, after I'd been in New Zealand a few years there was a brief article in a provincial paper, about a by-election in Gorton "a slum district of Manchester" being contested by one of the Churchills. I saw red and wrote about it to my sister, Vera wrote back telling me to take the rose-tinted glasses off and think about what it was really like. I guess she was right.
Like another correspondent a lot of the stories are so similar to my own experiences that I could swear that they were! However of all the names mentioned, the only one I recognised was Billy Redfern, wonder if it's the same little Billy that I knew?
What did we get up to? "Logging in" was a hardy annual, when we wandered the area acquiring wood for bonfire night. The most common place to store it was either in, or on top of, the bomb shelter that most of us had in the back yard. As most of the shelters were used to store coal, the roof was usually it, and the stockpile had to be guarded. Half the fun was raiding other street's stocks, and we were pretty good at it. We kept most of our timber on top of Tot Harrison's shelter, on the corner of Newton and Middlewood streets. One time we had quietly removed a back gate from a few streets away, and added it to our collection. Tot's dad spotted it, decided it was in far better condition than their own and, not asking too many questions, swapped 'em. It made no difference to the bonfire.
Every street had at least one bonfire, usually in the street occasionally in a "big" back entry where there was one. All our side of Cross Street was cobbled, and the sets never seemed to be affected by the heat. Across the other side in Lord Street, which was paved with concrete, it was a different story, and despite warnings from the Fire Brigade the bonfire got lit every year and, I'm pretty sure, the concrete cracked every year.
Cass Cassidy 28/09/05
Many thanks Cass
Cass Continues below
A lot of the names from round about
1945 -50 escape me now, but in Gloucester Street we had
Barney and Fred Moses, Dennis and Cyril Hand, Jack Graham and the aforementioned
Nobby and Jud Lucas. In Middlewood Street were Harold "Brad" Bradford,
Orman "Cunnie" Cunningham, Ginger Lee, Ken Fish, Tot Harrison, with
Eddie Clutterbuck who lived down towards the Suburban pub on the Cross Street
corner. The bloke who was to become my best mate, Derek Francis, lived in
Bury Street. Elsewhere in the general area were Geoff Gittings, Jud Peake,
Tommy Mulhall, Albert Ritson, Bernard Cadman, Jack Cooper, Walter Smith, Jack
(Beswick) Woolfenden, Art (Bainbridge) Moore, Art Lewis, Bob Montgomery, Pete
McGuinness, Terry Walsh and Bugsy Unsworth while across Hyde Road in Oakfield
Grove lived Harry and John Welsby. We certainly wouldn't all have been "mates"
at the same time, but over the years we'd have crossed and re-crossed each
others tracks on a fairly regular basis.We occasionally
played football on the red wreck between Casson and Peacock Streets, although
the surface of what looked like red brick dust wasn't conducive to slide tackling.
I spelt it "red wreck" because that's the way I thought of it as
a lad, it's only in recent years I've realised it should probably be red rec,
as an abbreviation for recreation ground ... I think the original concept's
more appropriate.
For some odd reason we played a lot of cricket on the red rec. Looking
back it was probably
because although there wasn't a blade of grass in sight, the surface was reasonably
level in
comparison to Gorton or Debdale Parks. Speaking of which, we also played football
at Debdale,
mainly because there were permanent goalposts in place. I'm trying to remember
how many
pitches there were, but it's long gone, more than ten(?) However, I can still
recall Jud Peake showing his accuracy by placing the ball on the penalty spot,
and hitting the cross bar time after time.
It might seem a pointless exercise, but he was deadly accurate.
I doubt that any of us ever saw football shirts or shorts, for most
it was a pair of boots and comics stuffed down our school socks for pads.
As for the football boots ... they were boots. Thick leather
uppers laced up around your ankles, massive toecaps that a steamroller couldn't
dent, and leather
studs nailed on with long tacks that invariably finished up sticking into
your foot. While I'm on the
subject, do you remember using bars instead of studs? They were three strips
of leather nailed
across the sole and heel of the boots, probably more comfortable to wear that
studs, but they didn't supply the same traction on a muddy ground. I'm not
sure whether bars were a genuine alternative
to studs, or whether they were a post-war stopgap. Anybody know?
Cass Cassidy. 20/10/05
Many thanks Cass
Gorton Jazz 1950's
In August 2005 Walter Houser posted a wee item regarding the "jazz scene", it rang a bell with me and although what I have to say is probably not what he was looking for, here goes.
In the early 50's the jazz scene, in Gorton at least, was at the Conservative Club on Church Lane. (Don't know what a Conservative Club was doing in Gorton, they must have been optimists). Some young entrepreneur must have hired the hall each week, charged a small admittance, and we bopped and jived to records. I remember very little else about it, and if our intention was to pick up girls I don't think we were very successful.
I'd like to think that between the jazz club, and AFNs Munich and Stuttgart, I got a small grounding in music other than the Donald Peers type recordings on BBC radio. From 1950 to 1953 I worked at Walkers Showcards Ltd, in Faraday St behind Stevenson Square, and used to haunt record counters of a lunchtime. I never bought a record, mainly because we didn't have a gramophone, but my workmate Ken Murphy did and he occasionally splashed out, usually on a Stan Kenton 78.
Most of the record departments I can remember had some kind of cubicle in which the prospective customer could sit or stand, while the assistant played the chosen record. One place, maybe it was Kendal Milnes, had large rooms with comfortable settees and armchairs in which you could lounge while listening to the music. We must have heard every Kenton record available during our lunchtime sojourns.
We weren't too popular back at work though. Ken brought his record player in, and he'd put on a Kenton selection for the edification of our older workmates. Played at top volume of course, and considering that Stan the Man wasn't known for quiet brass, it got pretty hectic. Looking back now, I can't blame Bill Allen, Harry Owen, the German girls Gisela and Christa or the rest of the staff for their demands to "turn it OFF!"
After work there was a weekly visit to Chick Hibberts on Ashton Old
Road. I'm useless at this nostalgia business because I can't recall the name
of the band, or even what kind of music they played. I do remember smooching
in the centre of the crowded dance floor, and if we weren't smooching we were
jiving. I never did learn to "dance" and to this day, 50-odd years
later, I can't waltz or foxtrot or perform any other ballroom stuff. Reckon
I can still
smooch though, although it's been a few years since I've been lucky enough
to have the chance.
This recall was supposed to on the subject of jazz, but it's meandered
away, so I'll close by mentioning that I joined the Ronnie Scott Jazz Club
at Chick Hibberts. This would have been in about 1953, and they were probably
giving away memberships to establish the club. I have a vague recollection
that Ronnie was persona non grata in
London, and had turned to the provinces to make a few bob. Sad to say I never
attended his jazz club, can't even remember where it was located, but maybe
Wally Houser has got some input to the mystery?
Regards,
Cass Cassidy 26/09/05
Many thanks Cass
Manchester Jazz Scene
Has anybody mentioned anything about the jazz scene in Manchester? In the fifties and sixties there were a number of good jazz venues. The best was the Club43 at the Clarendon pub on Oxford Road near All Saints. I played there for years. Some of my old colleagues are still in Manchester and still playing (as I am)
Also what about theatres? Apart from the Palace, the Ardwick Hippodrome and the Opera House (where I saw the first night in England of Oklahoma before it opened in London) there were many others. These included the Salford Palace and the Salford Hippodrome, the Manchester Hippodrome that was bombed ( and never re-opened) the Hulme Hippodrome and the Playhouse behind it (both wonderful theatres). Before my time The Gaiety cinema had been a theatre and obviously the Theatre Royal which was a cinema but which was one of the oldest theatres in the country
Walter Houser 04/08/05
See Walter's Cineam Stories..??
Many thanks Walter
Hi Al its me again,Trev Thomas.
Just had another memory surge.There was something that I am sure people would
not know about in Hulme, unless they lived in the immediate vicinity. There
was a working farm in a street that ran parallel to Stretford Rd close to
its junction with Chorlton Rd and Russell St. On the Russell St side one street
along was Percy St down this street was a farm known as Sam Mather`s, it had
mainly horses or ponies that Sam used to use to pull various carts, I think
perhaps he did a bit of haulage and rag collecting. I am pretty sure he had
at least one cow and the obvious chickens.On occasion he would take some of
us kids on a cart up to Chorlton meadows to collect new cut grass and hay
for fodder for the animals we would all come back hiding under the load and
emerge when we got back covered in fleas and ticks etc, much to the displeasure
of our parents, as bathing was not as simple then, it was usually a clip round
the ear and stripped of in the scullery and a carbolic soap wash under a cold
water tap, no hot water those days unless it was heated in a kettle if you
had one or a pan like we did.There were a couple of times I remember I went
without telling my parents for fear they would say NO then getting a scolding
at least after the posse of parents caught up with me usually on our way back
home.Things like this can`t happen any more as todays kid can not enjoy the
freedom us urchins did in the forties. I think Sam also did a bit of trotting
as he used to be seen sometimes on a sulky I think they were called that were
raced at Droylsden. So that's a little more of the character of Hulme before
they pulled it down the first time.
Regards till the next time Trev 28/07/05
Many Thanks Trev.
Some time ago I wrote to you to ask about St. Finbarr's Irish Centre
in Northumberland Road. I made a big mistake - it was St. Brendan's Irish
Centre. I wonder do any of your readers remember it? There used to be all
the big bands there, of that time, and it was always packed to capacity almost
every night. If any of your readers/browsers remember it they can get in touch
with me by email - tricia_od@yahoo.com.
Thanks for a wonderful site Alan, the memories it evokes make me homesick,
even though I don't have a home there any more.
Goodbye and take care
Patricia O'Driscoll 28/07/05
Many thanks Patricia.
Pickmere Lake
Have any readers got any old stories or photos of Pickmere lake near little Budworth in Cheshire? during the fifties I used to go there with our family and sometimes with auntie Shelia, and uncle Fred and my cousins Janet & Fred. We all used to jump in my Uncles Norton 500cc combination (side car) and end up at Pickmere lake. In those days there was a small funfair on the edge of the water, ice cream vans and lots of other families enjoying a day out in Cheshire, they even had a boat trip round the lake where the more prosporous families had their own boats. All the animals were there to be enjoyed, from cows and sheep in the fields surrounding the dear old place to Geese, ducks, Swans and signets etc. There were small areas for fishing as well and it all added up to a great day out. However, only today, 30 or so years since I visited the lake, my wife and eldest grandson (13yrs) visited the area, but nowadays the access road has been privatised and everything it appears has gone. Only the animals and birds have been left. Outsiders are not welcome judging by the signs of motorists parking on this road will be prosecuted etc. All a deterent to keep the visitors away, which is a stark contast to the 50s - 60s and early 70s. Perhaps the natives became fed up of the constant hordes of families making their weekend pilgramage to the lake from the working class areas of Manchester? Happy memories and they always seemed to be days of hot sunshine just like today has been, and I found it very sad looking from afar, at a lake no longer welcoming happy families just wanting a good picnic. They should rename it SNOOTY lake now !
Ted Knott 14/07/05
Many thanks Ted.
I have previously written about memories of war time - and post war
Hulme. but another memory
that stays with me is one visit to my Grandmother's home in West Hartlepool
- I was taken to the docks
to see HITLER'S YACHT which had been captured and brought into the docks.
She was placed under the coal drops to get really dirty as an insult I suppose
and I waited in a long line of people to get a close look and was lifted on
board to stand on her deck. What a moment that was. For years I had a snap
shot which sadly went astray when I left home to get married. She was called
the Grille. Painted in an off white colour with orange masts and funnel approx
similar size to the Royal Yacht Britannia. The coal drops were where they
used to drop coal into the bunkers of the old coal burning boats. and obviously
the dirtiest place in the dockyard.
My Grandad worked in the shipyards and obviously - I was very fortunate to
be lifted on deck.
During the first world war he was sent to Devonport to work on the first ever
submarine built there and HMS Warspite. the then Prince of Wales who later
abdicated - did a ship yard inspection and spoke to Grandad asking had he
gone out to sea on the submarine during her trials.He said - no lad I only
build the buggar!!!!!!!
Just a few more memories - bit different to previous ones but mine all the
same.
Yours Trevor Thomas 06/07/05
Many thanks Trevor.
Hi” This is just a few memories of the war years “or 1940” To be precise.
My father died in 1939. The Doc said it was pneumonia My family said it was because “he had been learning how to deal with Mustard gas. In a room down at old Willet st police station in Collyhurst that had been sealed off, so gas mask could be tried out. The truth of it we will never know. Any way I was 6 years old and no dad. That meant my Mother had to work, so during the day she worked at Yates wine warehouse down Cheetham hill. Then of a night she worked in Yates wine lodge Oldham St. at the bottom of Oldham Rd. Every one knows the war started in 1939. Well in 1940. , Hitler’s Luftwaffe paid Manchester a visit. My Mother was working in the wine lodge. I was on my own in the house, in Ollerton St number 22. I could hear the Bombs dropping on the centre of Manchester and the sky was bright red. We had a metal table in the front room that had been supplied by The council. To be of use in bomb blast. I don’t think it would have been any good with a direct hit. As the night wore on and the sky got More red My Mother came home early it seemed the town was on fire And she had, had to walk up Oldham Rd “to our house, she told me the railway yard down Oldham Rd was on fire.( It meant nothing to me as a kid. )My Mother had not been in long when she grabbed Me and took me into the back kitchen “there we spent some time under the stairs,”Then we heard this whistling sound” my Mother grabbed me and ran me back into the front room were she threw me under the metal table, Then there was one almighty crash, all the window in the house got blow in. I can remember my ears were ringing “We stayed huddled together under the table” Mother holding me very tightly in her arms. After a while there was a shout from were the front door had been, Agnes are you in there “My mother and I got out from under the Table “The man that stood were our door had been was Mister Boardman, One of the air raid wardens” You alright lass” said Mr Boardman. “Come on I will get you and the lad up to your Mothers All your family are there”. We went out onto the street “The sky was still bright red. Mr Boardman told us to get on our hands and knees We did and crawled up the St, to number 22 my Grandmothers house.
Mr Boardman. Left us at my Grandmothers. When we got inside, I could hear my Grandmother calling Hitler All the names under the sun. She wanted to know why Hitler had picked on her. (Granny was getting on quite a bit and didn’t realize she was not the only one to have had her house hit by blast). My Aunt Winnie and her Husband Tom lived with Granny and Uncle Tom did like a drink “Chester’s or Wilson’s beer, it was all the same to him.” But now he was at the top of the stairs “shouting “Winnie The bloody stairs have gone” Aunt Winnie “Come down you bloody fool it’s only because of the Drink and the dust you can’t see the stairs”. He eventually came down. Next morning “My Mother and Grandmother went out to look round and then they found out what had happened in the night raid Of Hitler’s Bombers. Highburton St- Pearson St had been bombed, and quite a few of the houses destroyed, and there were dead and injured some of the Dead and injured well known to My Mother and Grandmother. These memories came flooding back, when I looked on Manmates And saw the picture of the corner of Monsall St. And took a trip down memory lane. Up past the pubs I new so well The Globe – The Monsall – and other pubs in the area. Especially the old Big Queens. That stood on Queens Rd. Many a happy night I had in them pubs. Thanks again for the Manmates site it is very good and a good way for mancunians to keep in touch God Bless you all
Eddie Morris. Mancunian in exile. 04/07/05
Many Thanks Eddie
Going To Woolworths
I was just about to log off from the Manmates site, when I read David
Abbott's message. (See David's story below) How
well I remember Alexandra Road, going to Woolworths, and the cake shops and
the butchers and bacon shops. I also remember the P.S.M. Camera Shop. Although
cameras were scarce enough in those days, I did have a box brownie, it would
make some money now, had it been kept.
I used to live at 40 Heywood Street, later to become Harpenden Street. There
was a bomb site beside our house when we lived there, which was used as a
play area for football games and rounders. I spent 16 years in Moss Side,
and you are right David they should have done up those houses and not knocked
them down. They would almost be classed as listed buildings by now. I remember
there was the sitting room, the middle room or dining room as it would be
called nowadays, a kitchen and a little pantry with a sink - what they call
a Belfast sink nowadays. There was a large cellar area, with a shute for the
coal to go down. On the second floor was the bathroom and the small bedroom,
which became mine. Up the stairs (5) I think and there were two bedrooms one
to the side of the house, and the other to the front, which was my parent's
bedroom. There was another flight of stairs up to the two attic bedrooms.
Just think of the money that could be made out of a house like that nowadays,
if it was modernised and let off into flats. It would make a mint.
If I remember rightly at the top of Alexandra Road at the junction with Claremont
Road there was a greengrocers. I used to, and still do love, garden peas,
and it was in Moss Side that I got the 'taste' for them. I used to eat them
raw, I hated them cooked and still do. It is hard to get them in Ireland,
where I live now.
How well I remember the Denmark Road market. There was everything and anything
to be purchased there for a few pennies. I used to go there with my parents,
a good few years earlier than yourself David. David thanks for the memories
revived. I can be contacted at tricia_od@yahoo.com. The email address can
be included Alan.
Patricia O'Driscoll 16/06/05
Many Thanks Patricia.
Any one remember the shops on Alexandra Road, Moss Side there was
woolworths, Paul Marsdon records P.S.M Camera.s The egg man who use to sell
eggs and had them stacked in wicker baskets. When you bought them he would
put them in egg boxes. No shops on Alexandra Road now, council knocked them
down about 1970-71 replaced by houses and the hulme flats. To replace the
shops the council built the Moss Side shopping centre a with leisure centre.
That has now been replaced by the Asda Store and indoor market.
do you remember the open air market on Denark Road, Moss Side? It
was held on the site were Trinity Church of England school is. I use to go
on saturdays with my parents 1970-73. There use to be back to back houses
where the flats were built. Now we are back to houses in Hulme(1990 onwards.)
They should of updated the houses instead of knocking then down. Any pictures
of area? When they were clearing the slum houses in manchester they knocked
them down then set fire to the supplies of wood, I think 1969-71 seen from
Cambrian School Manchester.
Yours sincerely, David Abbot 14/05/05
Many Thanks David
MY TELEGRAM BOY DAYS AUGUST 1961 - 1965 by Ted Knott
On Monday August 8th 1961 I started work as a Telegram boy (junior Postman) I was 15 years and three months old. I was instructed to report to the main GPO building at No 2 Spring Gardens in Manchester at 9 am which was located off Market street. On arrival I was led to Mr Hayes office he was known as 'GABBY' to all the lads who gave us an induction on how the job was carried out and introduced us to our superiors known as PHGs (postman higher grade) they included Bill (cakey) Ellis,Tommy (sarge) Foster, Percy Tasker, Andy Duxbury, Arnold Whalley, Tom Buckley(Major) from Brookside gardens in Benchill and Mr Cummings from Grosvenor road in Whalley Range.The messengers I knew all those years ago were Terry Broderick who lived just round the corner from me in Gostrey Ave Withington, John Collinson from Wythenshawe who we called Irum Holliday because he was a 'dead Ringer', for him, Paul Davis, Harry Dunlop, Bernard Selby from 147 Clinton Ave Fallowfield, Steve Clapworthy from 20 Alderney walk in Miles Platting who's elder brother worked at 117 Stockport road as a messenger, Sammy Jepson from Gorton, Tony Walker from Moston, Terry Meehan from Sutton Estate Gorton, Barry Moulton from Sutton Estate Gorton, Derek Grimshaw from Salford, Pete Rothwell from Clayton, Keith Robinson from 247 Broom Lane Levenshulme, Peter Ashworth, from Russell street Ancoats/Beswick, Dave Mcgovern, From Northern Moor Tony Russell, From Wythenshawe Dave Broadbent from Northenden Dave Worthington and Pete Cotterill ( Roscoe) there were others of course.
Me and my BSA Bantam GPO Bike, in 1963 at our house. GPO 125cc Bantam
We delivered telegrams in and around the town centre and also to the old streets of Hulme remembering it was before redevelopment of the area Renshaw Street, City Rd, Stretford Rd, Radnor Street, upper Jackson Street, Clopton Street, Duke Street, Greenheys Lane, Piggott Street, Webster Street, Hebden Street and Caton Street were just a few of hundreds I can remember. In the TOWN as we called it we delivered to companies, banks, hotels and shops such as The Midland, The Queens, The Waldorf,The Grand and the Deansgate Hotels as well as The Midland Bank on King Street, Martins Bank on Spring gardens and of course the famous Lewis's on the corner of Mosely Street and Market Street. I can recall having to deliver and collect important documents from the M/c weather centre situated inside the Royal Exchange buildings on Cross Street. There were many others business’s where our jobs took us.
Not forgetting the memorable trips to the old CENTRAL station which is now the GMEX, where until 1965, the legendary steam trains whistled their way to the Peak district. During that period where electrification was being installed on the M/c Piccadilly to Euston line the 'PULLMAN' diesel or whatever train it was whilst sat in our mess room waiting for our next job we felt the ground shuddering along with the sound of a train on its way to Marple or perhaps St Pancras in London. There was also the Corn Exchange buildings just off Corporation street, not forgetting Victoria and Exchange stations and of course M/c Piccadilly station they were known then as Great Midland Railways (GMR) and the London Midland Scottish (LMS)the joke in later years was "THE LMS? AND YES IT WAS IN A MESS" it was because during these years Doctor Beeching axed many lines around the country which ultimately saw the closure of Central Station in hindsight Mr Beeching carried out a criminal act where if those branch lines were still in operation our traffic congestion in and around Manchester would have been considerably eased fortunately some of the old cuttings have been converted into walkways but many have been neglected and left overgrown with trees and bushes, the old cutting from Firswood down through Chorlton past Hough end fields on to Didsbury clearly show the neglect which by the way are more evident on the line branching off at Mauldeth road West in Chorlton, which used to take the trains to Guide Bridge via Fallowfield, Levenshulme south and Gorton.
Before beginning our shifts our pouches were searched our uniforms inspected and we then awaited instructions, we all took our turn on delivery advice which did induce a bit of 'SCIVING' on our return like hiding behind corners waiting for your mates to go in first then you would be out after them unfortunately sometimes it worked against you because you would end up with the worst job. The deliveries to Hulme for example would mean a push bike was needed they were big, red with white metal mudguards. There were other duties that were internal such as the returned letter branch (RLB) where you affectively were a brew boy and a 'GOAFER' (ERRAND BOY) there was also an office on Mosely street called CABLE & WIRELESS where they had a workforce of about six lads plus of course the PHG and telegraphists to be honest I never knew the actual difference between the working schedule I assume the cable & wireless 'GRAMS' were from overseas, messengers were also evident at places in town such as 55 Portland street, 25 Church street and Blackfriars house in Chapel street in Salford 3 near the bus station, where in those days all you seen was green buses in that vicinity. We had a rota system such as 6 am-2p 8.45 am-4.30pm 12.30 noon 8pm. On finishing duty your pouches were inspected and off you went for home!
Our uniforms were black with a red stripe running down the outside of your legs you had to display a metal badge on your right lapel showing your Number, mine was 2648. At break times we used a canteen on the top floor where a lift from the basement took us up three floors to it. There were hot meals and a good selection too of pie pudding chips, peas gravy, if you wished, fish chips & peas, chicken, Pepsi cola, lemonade orange or, if you wanted as well, coffee or tea. Them days were boring but then again as employees under the age of 18 the GPO gave us vouchers to obtain free meals. Some lads never bothered having a meal they brought 'butties' and sold their allocation of vouchers to some of the other lads at a price, obviously cheaper than the than the actual price. They were commonly known as 'CHEAPSKATES' to the rest of us!
After a meal we had a games room where you could either have a game of snooker or a game of table tennis. Occasionally I was sent out to other offices known as Sub or district such as Newton Heath, Ardwick (known as 117 Stockport Rd) Didsbury and Wythenshawe. They were hard because the three latter ones were large areas and were offices that had red 125cc BSA Bantams making the deliveries, of which I later was part of myself. Until then it was a hard slog on a push bike and it caused a lot of saddle sore I can tell you. As time passed on lads such as Harry Waterhouse from 275 Parrswood road Didsbury, Ken Dodd (not the famous one) Ray Westmorland from Benchill, Mike Hickey from Miles platting, Graham Barnes from Gorton, Pete Midgely from Salford entered the service replacing the senior ones graduating to full postman status.
Eventually I applied for motor cycle duties and spent two weeks training from Dantzic street in Collyhurst and on Friday August 22nd 1962 I passed the bike riding test. For a week or two I worked at 117 Stockport rd and Wythenshawe filling in for sickness or holidays where at 117 I befriended lads such as Geoff Edge and Alan Winterbottom, before commencing duties at 95 Lapwing Lane in West Didsbury, known as Didsbury B.O. (branch office). There were workmates such as Ernie Mcgarva from Levenshulme, Ray Taylor from 47 Barlow Road Levenshulme, Alan Booth from Longsight, Paul Seipen from Rusholme, Pete Walker from Parrswood Ave Didsbury, Vic Kite from Brunt street in Rusholme. Later Geoff Lancelott from Aston Ave Fallowfield , Bob Hunter from 324 Parrswood Road Didsbury, Bernard Selby, Keith Robinson, Graham Barnes, Roy Bamford from Brompton road Moss-Side, Pete Harris from Wythenshawe who, the last I saw of him, was he was working as a counter clerk at a post office on Wellington street Gorton just before Xmas in 1972. Then there was Harry Waterhouse, Terry Broderick and Ray Westmorland who also worked at the Lapwing Lane office. The counter/telegraphists I can remember were Dave Aston, Jean and Janice Mcdonald from Edgeley in Stockport, Margaret Nugent from Wythenshawe, Cyril Beswick from Woodhouse Park, Mr Tyrell the overseer, Tom Maloney (PHG) from 439 Chester Road Old Trafford, Mike Berry and a lady called Jean who's surname I cant remember and who was the senior telegraphist. My apologies to people I haven't mentioned.
A few of us were big Belle - Vue speedway fans and we even had our own track just off Nell Lane where a new estate now lies adjacent to the cemetery. We all met on the field and had races and consequently when we got back to the office the little bantams were full of mud sometimes we had to bend back the leg shields back in shape. Our 'GAFFER' Tom Maloney used to go mad at us, honestly we got away with murder, but it was part of the fun and certainly the process of growing up, we were so fearless it is so frightening looking back, but still fun and what great days as well. Coincidentally the lads at 117 used to scramble their bikes in Denton woods which was located between Haughton Green and Woodley. In fact they practiced a more daring act than we did, they rode over a wooden plank bridged over the river below NOW THAT WAS BEING CRAZY! After each shift we parked our bikes up in a lock up garage in the yard ready for the daily inspection next morning. Each bike had a number which I can vaguely remember T4902 (mine) T5313 -T5314 - T5326 T 5695 there was another but I cant remember the number, what frustrated me in particular the most you could get out of the bikes were 35-40 mph and so to make them faster we used to take the 'head' off and decoke the piston, decoke the 'baffles' in the exhaust and lower the carburettor needle after breaking its seal of course. All this was carried out at home during or after you had finished delivering, or in the yard after Mr Maloney went home. But it put an extra 5mph on the speed even then it was sheer frustration especially if you had a bike yourself that could do 60mph. His job almost every morning was to check each bike top up the battery and general safety checks he was very conciencious but thats how people worked in those days. However he did sometimes give me the worst jobs, where sometimes particularly on a Saturday which was the busiest day, with weddings up to 20 deliveries.
At the start of every shift we had to check our bikes and fill in a log book giving the mileage and verifying it was ok, and to fuel up we had to call in at Granville Road D.O. in Fallowfield, and mix the oil with the petrol by means of filling the cap on the bike with two parts of oil to say 1 gallon of petrol because they were two stroke engines. The bikes were serviced or repaired at a GPO workshop in Fletcher street Stockport where mechanic Charlie Gray carried out the work. He was a cockney and I referred him as 'A FEW BALL BEARINGS SHORT OF A CLUTCH PLATE,' the reason being I was once nominated as our representative for entry into the 1964 motor cyclist of the year held in and around the Preston area, and Charlie was responsible for the pre-maintenence of the machine before the event. It was a bit bizarre really because the bike I rode T4902 regularly was allocated as the reserve bike and T5695 the newest model was the one I had to compete with. However during the road task which you had a map and certain instructions to follow, it broke down with clutch failure and I had to finish off the competition with my regular bike, of course it cost me points, but I felt much more comfortable. But of as a consequence I finished well down the field. I found out later from a Preston based GPO mechanic, the clutch had some bearings missing from the clutch assembly, which caused the clutc to fail - HENCE the nickname I gave Charlie the cheeky cockney!!!!
Our messroom was located from outside and when we were required,
Tom or whoever was on the desk pressed a button which activated a bell in
the messroom and the next one out went to the desk where he signed a docket
for the 'grams' he was given to deliver, then it was jacket and reefer on,
leggings if it was raining, helmet on and off we roared, down the little entry
dividing our office with Williams supermarket next door, outside the office.
There wasn't traffic lights at the Lapwing Lane/Palatine junction or at the
Fog Lane /Lapwing /Wimslow road junction like there are nowadays. It was just
an Halt sign. Sometimes I was called to 117 to cover sickness and at the Sharston
office on Altrincham Road. Nowadays only 117 and the Sharston offices are
still post offices mainly because they are District offices that provide every
day mail deliveries, 95 Lapwing Lane is I believe a Pizza Restraunt and the
Newton Heath office on Oldham Road I think is now a house. At the rear once
stood the old Newton Heath Loco football ground in Ceylon street. At Didsbury
our telegram deliveries covered areas within Rusholme, Levenshulme, Chorlton,
Old Trafford ,Withington, Fallowfield, Whalley Range, Old Trafford, Firswood,
Burnage and East Didsbury. A few of us had our our own machines as well. I
had a Triumph Tiger sports cub T20sl model, Ray Taylor a 350cc Matchless,
Pete Walker an Vellocette shaft driven 350cc, Graham Barnes a BSA 500cc. At
meal times we used a cake shop at the end of parade next to our office where
we bought large apple pies with a rich coating of sugar on top tasty custard
vanilla's coated in icing, meat and potato pies straight from the oven and
sometimes it was crisps on a buttered barmcake. On the same parade of shops
was Inman's who dealt with stationary items and to this day the Inmman family
still keep the buisness going. The post office nowadays is at 99 Lapwing lane
which is next door to the Supermarket. If we were on the 9am - 4-30pm shift
it was Dawson's fish and chip shop on Burton Road. Just before Burton road
on the right, heading towards Barlow moor road, where we got meal vouchers
off our bosses. Then it was pudding- chips-peas and gravy on the late shift
1230pm - 8pm shift we used the cake shop. Eventually we all left, some of
us transferred to senior postman duties at Newton street in town and some
left the service altogether, we lost touch altogether. Sadly Terry Broderick
passed away in 2004 but I still see Mike Hickey from Miles Platting who I
have a few drinks with at the Grove & Derby pubs in Clayton, how good
it would be to get in contact again with some of the other GPO workmates after
all these years. Finally, after doing 2 years of senior postman duties I left
in September 1967 but the memories go on and on.
Ted Knott 09/11/07
Many thanks Ted
My Postman career
It is July 1965 and Iam working as a Postman at Newton street in Manchester City centre but firstly along with several other new recruits from my Telegram boy days I have to carry out a two week course at a building on Oldham street called 'DOBBINS' there we learnt all the procedures,code of conducts, and job descriptions etc. Graham Barnes and Keith Robinson are the only two names I can remember however we all completed the course and off we went to our chosen offices. With living in the Withington area I opted for South District office (D.O.) which was located on Granville road in Fallowfield.It was a massive culture shock for me in as much we all had to start work at 5-30am and I was never good at getting out of bed at the best of times consequently on numerous occasions I was late which eventually led to warnings mostly verbal but one I can recall being written and that went against your record.The Inspector was a chap named Arthur Robinson who was a taskmaster, very disciplined, wanted the job carried out to perfection but respected initiative postmen, to be honest I was only 18 years old at the time and thought I knew it all, I was outspoken and to all the other postmen there I was a rebel without a cause and Mr Robinson didn't appear to like me for that.Whilst at Granville Road I befriended a few workers at the office where Arthur's assistant inspector Nobby Clark seemed to have a slight hint of sympathy towards me compounding my theory of Mr Robinson 'having it in for me' whenever he was asking anything off me as regards my duties he referred to me as 'MR KNOTT' to most of Posties it usually was their first name so then I knew exactly where I stood but I never held a grudge over it or lost sleep over it either.
We used to do our rounds but with not having a regular 'walk' as they called it I filled in covering holidays and sickness my favourite round was Cotton Lane opposite Christie's Hospital in Withington where my deliveries took me to Francis Road,Heyscroft Rd,Stephens Rd,Heathside Rd, Henwood Street, and the Pytha Fold Road area just to name a few.Next to me and a colleague I respected so much as time went by was a Johnny Grant,what a lovely man he was he helped me through the early days sorting my round out,always cheerful never a bad word to say about anyone and when I was late say for example arriving at 6am as opposed to 5-30am he would have sorted my job out as well as his own what a great person he was good old Johnny Grant! Others I can remember were Sid Lampard,Bill Harper,John O'Toole,and Graham Winstanley. Our shift used to finish around 1-45pm after a few parcel deliveries or post box collections, sometimes after going home having a bite to eat and a wash and change I used to meet up with Graham,John, and a chap called George in the Orion pub on Burton Road in Withington I drank Whitbread Tankard then at a princely sum of 2 /4d but do remember it was 1965? Working behind the bar was a dear old lady called Ethel who never missed a trick always eavesdropping on our conversations blimey she must have thought we were 'POTTY' sometimes.Eventually Mr Robinson had me sent back to Newton Street I just accepted it putting it all down to experience.During this period I was music mad,football daft playing every Saturday and Sunday and when we didn't have a game I took myself off to Maine Road to watch CITY!
I was a nuiscance sometimes to authority without by the way breaking the law or being a total villain just a young lad growing up I suppose. In the charts those days were the Beatles of course,The Byrds, Barry Mcguire, Bob Dylan,Fontella Bass,Unit four plus two,the Rolling Stones,Wayne Fontana and many many more,when I got home in the afternoon my first task was to switch the old Bush radio on and tune in to the pirate station Radio Caroline where DJs included the likes of Johnny Walker and Mike Hollis.
By September 65' I was working at Newton street doing lates,earlies,and nights where I befriended a few more workmates such as Billy Horrocks,Eric Fry, George Baker and Ken Healey who I bought my first ever car off for something like £15 in 1966 it was a 1954 Ford Popular, Ken lived off Ashton Old Road in Beswick there was also Ben Mawdsley,George Baker,Frank Hayes,and Frank Lewis and there were several others who I just cant remember but our union man was a Cyril Platt who looking back seemed to be a good representative. My rota was Earlies 5-30 - 1-30pm Lates 2-20 -10pm and nights something like 9-30pm - 4-45am. During my late shift I had to go with Postman driver Frank Lewis on a Parcel Track around Salford collecting from post offices that was great and after we had finished our collections off Frank would go to Morton street parcel depot near to Victoria Station to unload the parcels.The offices were places such as Regent Road, Cross Lane,Pendleton Broad Street,Liverpool Street Weaste,and Langworthy Road it was then I got a strong desire to start driving in fact Frank once let me take the wheel and drive back from Salford to Morton Street in 15 CWT Morris van if the 'GAFFERS' would have found out we both would have lost our jobs! The bosses in those days were Tommy Hunt,Billy Quantrill, Dougie Webb, Jock Watson,Jack Broomhead (bonehead) and Mr Worrall who I last saw in the Lantern Pub in Wythenshawe back in September 1967 a few weeks later I left the GPO having become fed up of missing out on my social life due to shift work it did however for some time after create a lot of self regret for making such a decision but gladly that didn't last I got over it
Ted Knott 05/09/07
Posted On Site 21/09/08
Many thanks Ted
LIFE AFTER THE GPO
On Monday 30th September 1967 I started a new job at Crown Wallpapers in Ward Street in Blackley village as a process worker I was in affect trying to spread my wings but in reallity I wanted decent social working hours. It was a 8 to 5 job and Saturday mornings of 8 till 12noon was available if you wanted. On the first day I was up at 6am because I had to catch a 72 bus on Princess Road which took me across town and into Blackley Village near to the ICI works. It was the day Radio one was launched and Tony Blackburn was the first ever DJ heard on the station, his slot was 'THE BREAKFAST SHOW' and the very first record was FLOWERS IN THE RAIN by the MOVE It always reminds me of that place when I hear the record especially the sound of the barking dog! The factory in the 'VILLAGE' was known to the local people as HOWARTHS wallpaper Mill. I can only remember John Hardy but there were several others but YES it was 40 years ago! I only lasted 3 months at Howarths the main reason being the job Factory manager (Mr Glenthorn) gave me was not the one I was interviewed for and I left by mutual consent it was a bit of a risk because Xmas and new year were only weeks away but in retrospect there was no future for me there at all and I left however the day I left I had to wait an hour for my week in hand payment to be made because their wages department forgot to include it in my wage packet so I popped into the 'Bookies' across the Road in the village had £5 on a horse called Rustling Waters which won at 5/2 what a farewell gift that was.
After my untimely depature from Howarths Xmas 67'was only weeks away and although it wasn't a desperate situation it was nevertheless concerning. I took up a job as an assistant cellar/porter at the Southern Hotel in Chorlton on the 12th of December which kept me in pocket over the festive season. It was hard work stocking up and assembling dinner tables in the upstairs rooms for receptions and functions. It was hard work but my workmate Frank Shelmerdine was a great help, our perks were free meals off the Chef and of course free drinks also. On Xmas eve I finished work around 4pm and never returned fortunately the Manageress forwarded my P45 by post the week after.
My next port of call was English Abrasives on Hulme Hall Road in Hulme on Monday 5th January 1968 the locals knew the building as Goldsworthy's named I think from a chap from the Victorian times who invented sand stone, the old Victorian mill still stands today and has been converted to luxury appartments. Mr Leighton the factory manager was a nice person,so easy going and a pleasure to work for, it was process work where they produced emery and sand paper plus emery wheels and belts etc workmates I can remember were Dick Thomas, Terry Duggan,Jack Skinner,Alex Robertson and Alastair Martin who I knew from playing for the North Withington Football club ran from the Princess Hotel, played at Hough End competing in the Lancs & Cheshire league that season was very successful having won the league we also won the Lancs Amateur Cup
beating Hathershaw old boys 3-1 at Maine Road at that time I hadn't quite established a first team place but ALASTAIR was our club's leading goalscorer in the first team, by coincidence I was the reserve team top scorer ! After 3 months at Goldworthy's I left and started work at British Arkady Flour mills on Skerton Road in Old Trafford on 25/07/68 loading wagons which started heading me in the direction of haulage work.My workmates were Lenny Houldsworth,Eric Adderly,Pete Kersey, Joe Overy,Frank Scott and Brian Stretton,drivers included were Hughie Morris,Len Millward, Billy Walkden, Ernie Gibbons,Stan Moores,Tommy Jordan,George Harris and Teddy Taffe who drove the bulk tanker, the lads in the factory and Plant were Joe Barlow,Steve Walker, Roy and Alan Jennings,Cliff Morris, Des Fountain, John Connor,Jack Hamer,Danny Mahoney,Barry McCall,Jack Redfern,Jack Ogara,Keith Lathom, Joe Clark,Harry Fletcher,Billy Taylor,Ernie EntwistleTommy Picken who was the factory Boiler man, Norman Madden the wages clerk,Harold McCann, Harry Pickerill plus a few more who's names I cant remember, Teddy Thorpe was our supervisor, George Phillips and Lawrence (Lol) Lawson the Factory managers Out of the blue a driving opportunity came up, my Father in Law who worked for National Carriers Ltd put me on to a job delivering parcels I thought that was the moment I was waiting for, applied for the job and after an interview was accepted.
Monday 13th Septeber 1971 was my first day at NCL where I reported to Mr Ernie Etchells the depot inspector on Fairfield Street in Manchester City centre. Other inspectors/Supervisors were Clarry Freeman,Bill Parkinson,Harold Carroll and Micky White,our wage clerk was Malcolm Jones. The job was C/D parcel work where we drove 2 ton Commer vans and 4 ton Bedfords eventualy I passed my HGV driving test on May 25th 1972 and began trunking between depots around the Norh West such as Stockport,Macclesfield,Oldham,Bolton and Wavertree in Liverpool we drove about in 5 Ton Ford articulated units as well as the antiquainted three wheeled TOWNSMAN which originally replaced the SCARAB also there was a Karrier Bantam and the engine compartment was inside the cab,1st gear was 'CRASH' and a trailer release lever could be found on your left side,of course the 5 Tonner was more modern the heater actually worked and the gearbox was pure synchromesh,apart from the parcel rounds which by the way I had one delivering and collecting in Bredbury,Romiley, Compstall,and Woodley firms such as Davis & Metcalfe in Romiley, Bredbury Steel Works on Redhouse Lane, Renolds Chains, Leggetts Transport in Bredbury, Murray Crafts in Waterloo street in Stockport,Hayfield Products off Whit Lane in Pendleton,Colgate Palmolive,Carburundum,Schriebers in Tenax Road and a few other companies in Trafford Park,also on our collections was Knightsbridge cakes on Ayres Road in Old Trafford.NCL Parcels dealt mainly with Mail Order items but quite a lot of Groupage loads also. after finishing our duties some nights we used to have a few drinks in the 'Star and Garter' on Fairfield Street Maurice Stent was the Landlord at the time and it was a great learning curve as well as a great experience.My workmates were Jack Barlow, Roger Cronshaw, Mike Morrison,Derek Steele, Frank Birchenhall,Robin Kitteringham,Tony Edwards,Mike Pollitt,Alan Cooper, John Grundy,John Rooney (van lad) Keith Walsh,Keith Heard,Albert Box,Albert Shaw,Steve Donohue,Barrie Evans,Ernie Brennan,Mike Morrison,Billy(Wishy) Arnold, Warren Leach,Joe Bernie,Joe Ryan,Bob Hoey,John Turner,Miles Doyle,John Marley,Dave Hammond,Mike Smith & Keith Rawcliffe all four being van lads in 1972/73,there was Jimmy Smith who's Dad was the Landlord of the New Inn Pub in Beswick (Holt Town) Cambrian Street to be exact!
On December 31st 1973 I was transferred to Longsight Freightliner depot on New Bank Street in Longsight which was part of the NCL company and affectively it was a promotion step driving 16 to 32 ton articulated vehicles. It was container/flat bed work where we also had to do rope and sheet loads which was a great experience easy work two jobs a day and getting more money for it than the Parcel days.At last I was settled in a job little did I know 30 Years were to follow! My Longsight workmates which included crane
operators and Supervisors were the likes of Ernie Edwards,Billy Barton, Walt Harrobin,Harry Lord,Sid Dixon, Tommy Wright, Eric Cartlidge,Ken Lyons,Dick Wilson, Arthur Bibby,Freddy Hobday, George Robertson,Harry Taylor,Tommy Rigby,Jack Harrison,Jack Connor, Noel Smith, Ray Giles,Johnny Burke,Jimmy Toole,John Bebbington,Jimmy Green,Harry Kelshaw (Union Representative) Byron Ward & Johnny Fell (Terminal Attendants) Jack Lally & Len Singleton (Both Crane Operators), Alf Harty & Colin Hustler (both Crane Operators),George Slavin,Arthur Hill,John Pardoe,Jimmy Rogers,Dennis Smith,Eric Arnfield,Roy (BULL) Davis,Jimmy Edge & Charlie Warner (Road Service Inspectors),Ned Hurst(Supervisor) Jimmy Shotton,Tony Rigg & Tom Barton (Overseers) Norman Tarry,Larry Bryson (Crane Operators) Norman Stringer,and Harry Tickle ..... the office staff were the likes of Walter Slater,Tommy Mannion (Cyril's Brother) Jimmy Adshead,Bill Bradbury,Kevin Stone who nowadays is the Landlord of The Moss Tavern in Droylsden and for a long period Billy Green was our Terminal Manager.
Ted Knott 05/09/07
Posted On Site 21/09/08
Many thanks Ted
CHAPTER 3 MY HAULAGE CAREER
On February 13th 1976 I was transferred to the Trafford Park depot on Westinghouse Road where within two months I was working regular nights our schedule took us to Bass Charrington Brewery at Runcorn, Metal Box at Westhoughton,Heinz foods at Kitt Green in Wigan, Salford docks before it closed,Seaforth Docks in Liverpool, Frederick Smith's Wire works in Tenax Road Trafford Park, Kelloggs,Holyhead Docks,Shotton Steel many many more.Our Terminal Manager was Bill Maynard (not Greengrass) Road Service Inspector (RSI) Billy Davis and later it was Johnny Hales and Charlie Warner, my workmates were Mike Sullivan,Ray Turner, Alan Hough,John Atkins,Eric Aspinall,Bob Hope,Frank Burns, Brian Stewart,Mike Pollitt,Joe Born,John Brough,Joe Heenan,Jimmy Rodgers, Eddie Hiden, Len Hodgkinson,Frank Evans,Derek Ashton,Cyril Mannion (Supervisor) Frank Fitzbailey,Ivor Jones & Cliff Marsden (Both Crane Operators) Owen Ward & Norman Colingwood both Terminal Attendants,Brian Bowman & Ben Mottley both Crane Operators, Jack Moores, Jimmy Martin, Ernie Beswick, Ken Waterfall,George Smith,Ray Smith,Mike Smith,Wes Brown,(supervisor) Walter Birtles (Overseer) John Needham (Supervisor) Jimmy Duckett (Supervisor) Ken Coombes (Overseer) Jim Ferguson (Overseer) Gerry Gaskell,Dougie Gaskell,Ron Jeffries,Ted Disley,Barry Wilson,Chris Supple,Brian Hawkins,Mike Bent, Barry O'connor,Barry Wilson,Frank Smith,Tony Simpson,Eddie Hollingsworth & Steve Gaskell(Son of Dougie) (Both Terminal Attendants) Jimmy Greenhalgh,Jimmy O'neil,Harry,John Kershaw,Jack and Frank Turley,Albert Box,John Lloyd,Frank Armstrong, Gordon & Chris Thompson (Father & Son) and others I cant remember my apologies to them. our vehicles were 32 Ton Seddon Atkinsons, ERFs,32 Ton Volvo's and 32 Ton Leyland Marathons and later 44 Ton units arrived. In 1978 I passed out for operating overhead Arrol cranes plus 40 Ton Kalmar & Fantuzz Reach Stackers as well as Empty lifting mobile machines it was all experience for me which did provide me with a greater earnings potential. The crane operators from 1976 onwards were Ben Mottlely,Johnny Smirk, Dave Keetley,Cliff Dixon,
Warren Leech,Dick Moran,Neil Colingwood,Arthur Barnes, Maurice Green,Ivor Jones,Cliff Marsden,Pat Hunt,Brian Bowman,Alan Robinson,Jimmy Burns, Ken Rigby, Joe & Terry Bown(Father & Son) George Farrow and Jimmy Glyndon,Ted Disley,Barry Wilson,Geoff Dunn,Joe Gateley,Colin Hustler,Frank Fitzbailey,Harry Chesters with myself covering as an Emergency Crane Operator from 1978 until 1997, however my job description was Motor Driver HGV Class One! The office staff in the early days were Eddie Waddell, Bill Bradley,John Knott,John Spencer,Peter Thompson, Billy Bird,Brian Thomas,Bob Wade, Graham Lyons(wage Clerk) Carol Boden (wage clerk) Alec Crombie (Overseer) Ken Aston (Supervisor & later Operations manager ) Dianne Budsworth,Martin Ainsley,Jeff Clapworthy (Sales) Grenville Smith and Harold Lloyd.
As the years flown by Freightliners were taken over by a Management consortium in 1996 and it lost all it characters new staff came in and old mates disappeared some to a new European terminal just nearby where in 1992/94 I worked there, eventually English- Scottish & Welsh Railways (EWS) moved in and the private sector ownership now firmly in place. After 32 years service to NCL/ Freightliners I took early retirement at the age of 57 and left on 12th September 2003.
Ted Knott 05/09/07
Posted On Site 21/09/08
Many thanks Ted
Pete Johnson 10/04/08
The above photo is Pete as a Telegram Boy - Telegraphist, taken about 1960 in Piccadilly Gardens on his way to work.
Many thanks Pete
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My formative years in Miles Platting
(Eric Brennan)
We lived in a two up, two down, gas lit, and cold-water house in Miles Platting, at 125 Thomas Street. This was in a really old shabby part of the inner city area. The houses were terraced, with an outside toilet, a cellar for coal; washing was hung in the backyard where it got spotted with soot due to the coal fires in every house. There was a foundry across the street from our home and there was an incessant thumping hammering noise emanating from it. There were several chemical plants in the vicinity, heavy industry abounded. There was virtually no colour at all in the landscape; it was all grey or black. This then was my environment, I knew nothing different, and this was normalcy. My mother worked in the pay box at a local cinema in Collyhurst Street, where my dad was the projectionist. When she was available my grandmother baby-sat my brother and I while my mother worked. When granny was not available we accompanied my mother to the pictures. I had a favourite seat on the balcony at the side of the auditorium. Most of the time I fell asleep before the show ended and had to be roused for the walk home. I had lots of pals who wanted to come to the pictures with us, but we were only allowed to take one. I was seven or eight when “The Wizard of Oz.” Was shown. As the witches feet withdrew under the house that had fell on her, I crawled under the seat and would not come out frightened out of my wits. My brother, Harry who was eighteen months older than I was kept telling me not to come out, as it was getting more and more horrifying. He was like that, sadistic. The war had started and my dad joined the Auxiliary Fire Service. We were then informed that we were to be evacuated. We were assembled with our meagre possessions at Nelson Street School and boarded buses for the station at London Road. Some old ladies gave us sandwiches for the journey. I ate mine before we even got on the platform. We ended up in a village called Kniveton in Derbyshire. A young farmer and his wife who had no children took my brother and me. This was a complete change of life for me. We all had jobs; mine was to collect the eggs from the hencoop. The hens terrorised me, I was scared witless when they came pecking and cackling around my feet. There were too many kids to fit into the village school so we had classes mornings one week and afternoons the week after. After a while a lot of the children drifted back to Manchester, we were quite happy there. Then we were all to attend classes all day and the local yokels had many a laugh at our expense. One day I was playing with modelling clay and formed a man with a handcart, as they used to have in Smithfield market. The boys were laughing at a man pulling a cart and informed me that men did not pull carts, “osses did.” One night we were treated to a film of the sinking of a German battleship, this made an impression upon me, as I could not forget the images of the men running around on the keel before it sank. I asked what had happened to them, and then was informed that they were all dead, probably drowned. This really saddened me as several of my pals had dads who were in the Navy. I think we stayed there for about six months or so, then we went back home as there had not been any bombing. This soon changed; I thought that Hitler had waited to lull us into a false sense of security. The bombing started and dad was away for days on end when the blitz was on. We enjoyed the excitement of the air raids. The grown ups used to have sing-a-longs in the communal air raid shelter at the bottom of the street, cocoa and sandwiches were served also, it was a real party atmosphere. We used to listen for the shriek of the bombs followed by their bangs as they exploded. The older men would listen, then pronounce where they thought they had fallen. The next morning we would scour the streets looking for shrapnel, which were actually anti-aircraft shells fragments. We thought they were bits of bombs. Most of the boys had hoards of shrapnel in their secret hiding places. One of my classmates was killed in the war, the air raid shelter that the neighbours had made on some spare ground collapsed due to the weight of soil on the roof, he was trapped with several others and did not come out alive. The hearse passed the school very slowly and most of the kids were in tears as our teacher had told us that he was in a far better place than down here on earth. I really wanted to join him there. Then we were evacuated again, this time only about half of the students went away. We were shipped to Macclesfield, in the care of an elderly couple with a fifteen year old, fat, daughter. She delighted in twisting my ear until I yelped. Then she would say that she never touched me. She also was the recipient of my weekly egg ration, also my brothers. She had three bloody eggs a week! The dad showed me his coin collection the first night; I was not impressed but said ‘BLIMEY’ as a show of astonishment and appreciation. The next think I knew was that I had received a resounding smack around my ear hole. He then informed me that I was blaspheming, that word was a contraction of God Blind Me. We never saw eye to eye after that. After two weeks of this purgatory my brother and I ran away. Got on a train to Manchester and without tickets sneaked past the ticket collector by telling him that our mother was following on. We walked back home to surprise mam and she surprised us by telling us that she was having a baby. The couple from Macclesfield never got in touch with us, although my mother must have made some arrangements for us to get ration books etc. My younger sister was born in Monsall Hospital in Harpurhey and the living arrangements got a bit more cramped. Salvation was at hand, for us, as my Mother’s Aunt’s Husband died in Gorton where they lived in a much more modern house. An old carthorse pulling a coal cart moved us there. I had a great time waving to the spectators at the side of the road from my perch in my Dad’s armchair on the back of the cart. I could not believe it when we neared our destination the horse dropped a steaming mess of manure on the road, then some avid gardeners ran out with shovels and pails to save it for their rose gardens. We did not relate to this, as we had never had a garden, in fact one was not allowed to walk on the grass in Phillips Park. Two things stick in my mind about the war years, and rationing; all we seemed to have to spread on bread was plum jam! It was not a dark red, but a dirty brown colour, I got heartily sick of eating the stuff, in fact I have never had it since and do not intend to. Utility everything was the order of the day. We got force-fed cod liver oil courtesy of the ministry of health, my mother used to mix malt with it to make it more palatable. Orange juice was also supplied to infants; my sister got a basinful of that stuff, not bad but unsweetened. My mother used to stir a little into a glass of milk where it curdled; it was an early form of yoghurt. I never got a taste for that either. Gas masks were also an encumbrance, encased in a cube made from cardboard which had to be available and on ones person at all times. Some enterprising souls manufactured fancy cases, with straps, that the more fashionable people bought. These were used to transport various items of personal comfort and toiletry around, as well as the ubiquitous gasmasks. There were shortages of almost everything in those days and queues were common. In some instances people joined a queue not knowing what it was they were queuing for. Fresh baked bread was a luxury and the local bakeries only opened for business when their products were fresh out of the oven; there was always a queue outside on those days. The butter ration was 2 oz per person per week, on one occasion I heard an old lady say to the server, “I think I’ll just have a crusty bun and put my whole bloody ration on it!” I had to traipse about a mile to the greengrocer who used to sell two oranges without marking ones ration book if you bought five lb of spuds. Black marketeering was rife; people would know other people who could get almost anything, but at a price. Some families used to trade their sugar ration for eggs, or other provender. We never really went hungry, apart from when we were playing out and lost track of the time, mothers used to concoct feasts out of scraps. One joke at the time was, “a kid went into the butchers shop; his mother had sent him for a sheep head, then he asked the butcher to leave the feet on it.”
I did not like going to school at all, in fact on several occasions I returned home complaining about a nail in my shoe, Mother hauled out the last and pounded the soles and heels of both shoes then pronounced the job done! Back to school I went, in high dudgeon. I liked reading though while there and was a regular customer in the local library, also comic books were in vogue then and I used to devour them every week. We had an ancient dictionary in the house and it used to get dragged out when I came across a word I did not know the meaning of. I once bought a model aeroplane kit of a Hawker Hurricane, this consisted of four or five pieces of wood that had the rough shape of the fuselage, two main wings and the tail section in some other pieces, I was busy sanding these down to shape when I took ill with chickenpox and was banished to bed for several days. As I was getting better my Dad came into the room with the fuselage roughly carved to a point and the wings stuck on as they were, all my efforts of sanding were useless. I thanked him as I did not have to courage to tell him he had ruined it. Life went on; I was never bored as I always look for something new or different in every experience. I guess I am still that way inclined, but in the past it has caused me some difficulties from time to time. I was a typical urchin of that period. I was born with what they called a “lazy eye” this caused my left eye to wander into a position off centre towards my nose. Off to the Royal Eye Hospital I went where they decided to put a patch over the right eye, thus strengthening the left one. This I did not like as it greatly cut down on my time reading, until I found a way to unfasten a side of the patch and read through this hole, with the reading material at the side of my face. I used to be called “Skenny eye” My Mother told me to ignore it as they were only jealous. Jealous I thought, what were they jealous of, did they want a patch? After a few months of this they took off the patch and prescribed lenses to straighten my eyes, but I still cannot focus my left eye on its own. This affected my distance perception and I still find catching an object a hit or miss proposition. Posted on the 04/04/2010
Many Thanks Eric
2. My youth in Gorton & Openshaw
(Eric Brennan)
When my Mam’s Uncle died we went to live at my Great-Aunt’s house in Goring Avenue in Gorton. There were five in the family, Mam and Dad, my newborn sister, my older brother Harry and me, Eric. I was just under ten at the time and was transferred to St. Jimmies School on Gorton Lane. This was tiny compared to the school I used to attend in Nelson Street, which had two stories. They had a separate gymnasium at St. Jimmies. The headmaster was a Mr. Panter, he was supposed to be a really nice man and was noted for his interest in the youth clubs in the slums downtown. As I came from this type of environment, I felt sure he would look kindly on me. Little did I know, as I was in the playground at recess, a lout, who poked me in the chest and proceeded to question me regarding who I was and where I came from? After I gave him this information he then challenged me to a fight, I politely declined, as he was bigger than I was. Then he placed me in a headlock and started yelling, “You think you are tough eh?” Then out of nowhere a small, grubby youth came to my assistance and punched my assailant in the ear telling him to leave me alone as I lived in his street. Then there were tears from the bully and an ear-piercing whistle from the principal who asked me who I was and where I came from. I told him my history also. Then he hauled me to his office and after shouting into my face, spitting as he did so, he told me that I was going to get caned for bringing that kind of hooligan slum behaviour to his school. Welcome to that garden suburb Gorton.
The urchin who came to my rescue was Charlie. This happened over sixty years ago and he is still my best pal. He lived further up Goring Avenue, where we had moved. That afternoon he asked me if I wanted to join his gang. I readily accepted, as his was the only friendly face I had seen since we had moved there. I then asked him how many were in the gang. He responded by telling me that I was the second member. Then we started planning the gang activities, tests for admittance, rules and regulations. All of which were very scanty. The activities were to create as much fun as was possible to cram into the day. The tests for admittance were rather athletic. At the rear of our houses was a wooden fence, six feet tall, there was a cross piece of wood about one foot below the top. The, “going along the boards,” was the first test. The initiate had to traverse, after dark, along the boards between my Aunt’s house and his, a distance of five houses, or twenty yards. Charlie accomplished this first, and then I wobbled my way along the boards. The second trial was to drop off the top of a twenty-five foot hoarding on the croft on Railway Street. Charlie also did this first swiftly followed by me. As my feet hit the pavement the shock travelled up my body and almost shook my head off. Then Charlie suggested leaping across the canal, near the aqueduct at Gorton & Openshaw station. As this could only be accomplished with a run up of ten or fifteen feet, I was very sure that I could not make the jump. Charlie assured me that he had done it several times before. He marked out the approximate dimensions on the dirt, for a trial attempt and then launched himself over the space marked out. He missed! He would have cracked his shins on the towpath on the opposite bank. Then he said that he was actually going to do it, he did, much to my amazement. I went home in high dudgeon and practised jumping for hours. Then the moment of truth came and I launched myself over the black, evil water. I made it also, but it was a heart stopping moment. Then Charlie said that he had never done the boards or dropping from the hoarding, or leaping across t’cut before. As you have realised by now Charlie was, and is a supreme joker, or con artist. The new rules for admission to our gang were to do the boards, the hoarding had to be jumped off, not dropped, and the canal leap was included. Charlie had to demonstrate these, as I did also. The first nominee came from further down our street, he was called Keith, and he was a walking disaster area. He fell off the boards halfway along right into a cucumber frame to the sound of shattering glass, he scrambled across the boards to the spare ground behind and we silently stole away. Charlie and I had to demonstrate the leap from the hoarding and my ankles have never been the same since. Keith refused to do the leap but we settled for him to drop off. He hung there, pleading for us to get him down for about fifteen minutes before he lost his grip and plummeted down screaming as he fell, he survived. Then the canal leap was shown to him. He turned pale and then said that he really did not want to join our gang anyway, I think he was very wise. Charlie told me that he had a submarine base, I asked him where it was and he told me that it was over the boards. There was some spare ground with allotments on it. Further up the boards was a hole that a dog had made, it was full of water and this was the celebrated submarine base. Charlie used to lie down in the damp grass and play with dinky toys in the stagnant water. His dinky toy cars had no tyres, nor did mine or any other we saw in those days.
The estate we lived on was really opulent by the standards that I was used to in Miles Platting the houses had gardens! There was plenty of grass around to play on, we were used to cinder pitches to play on with the resultant skinned knees and healed up areas with the dirt still trapped under the skin. This was like paradise. The canal was a magnet of a place, there were tiddlers and frogs to be captured, and we always tried to catch newts, but never did. Then my grandmother was hit by a lorry on Grey Mare Lane market she suffered a broken femur. I remember being taken to see her laid out in her bed, downstairs at her house in Tripe Colony. She looked really old, yellow and lined. I suppose she did not have her false teeth in and she had pneumonia and died shortly afterwards. We moved from my Aunt’s into my grandmother’s house in Falmouth Street. This was a three up and three down house with electric light, and a bath. There was a croft, with some grass at the rear of the house, which was the local area for sports. During my time at St. Jimmies I found to my surprise that I had passed the first part of the eleven plus examination. Then came another move, to Tripe Colony, without the carthorse as the house was furnished.
It was summer and school was out. I knew nobody in the area so it was quite lonely there. I used to sit on the back doorstep and watch the kids playing on the croft at the back. There were about thirty air raid shelters there half buried, each with a concrete entrance at one end. This led to a staircase down to the shelter proper. It was slanted where the stairs went down, on the outside and was a magnet for kids to run up and down. I tried it, slipped and bashed my front teeth at the top. They did not break, although I think the nerve was severed as I had problems with them in later life.
After a while I was asked to join in a game or make up a team so started to fit in with them. Some of their games I had never heard of before, but I soon learned and gradually became accustomed to the area and all that it could offer. I started back at my old school, Nelson Street which was about a mile away, but at least I knew all the kids there. At weekends I used to go, by bus and tram, to Gorton to see Charlie, ostensibly to visit my Aunt Eliza and keep her company. I used to take a packet of provisions with me as food was rationed. I used to sleep there and play out with Charlie most of the day.
To Continue with Eric's Story Click Here
Many Thanks Eric Posted on the 09/04/2010
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