Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?

[philips]

hi Jonno. Hope you will find this snippet of information useful. My great aunt died age 92 in July this year, she lived in the Cheetham Hill area for most of her life and had vivid memories of nights when the bombs fell on Manchester. During the war years as a young woman she regularly walked to her workplace taking a shortcut down Waterloo Rd. and then turning into Elisabeth St.  she told me with tears in her eyes, that the sight she came across brought her to a standstill.   
  Outside of the Jewish Hospital, on the pavements lay many of the dead in body bags, also badly injured people in their nightwear, including nurses in their uniforms. People and bodies were still being brought out of the hospital ruins on stretchers. How many people died that night, she thought must have been in the hundreds!           

[Clairedelune]

I used to live very close to Cheetham Hill road and used to go to the shops on the "village" all the time. Woolworths was one of my favourite shops and you could get all sort's of things from there and I ended working there in 1967.

Does anybody remember Cheetham swimming baths, I used to go there when I was at St Marks primary school, and when I was older, ended up working there as well! What was the pub called just further up from the baths, it is a fabric shop now.

[philips]

  Hello to this new reader. Its interesting to find a person who worked at the Woolworth's store in Cheetham Hill.
 You might have known a relation of mine worked full-time there for many years as a supervisor, her name was Olive Shaw. Olive gave up her job shortly before reaching retirement age to look after her ailing mother. Sadly Olive died just a few years later, while her mother went on to live a long life.
 I used to spend my pocket money in Woolworths, 3 pence a week (2.5p in today money) went a long way back then!  One Christmas around 1950 I must have thought myself very grownup and decided I would use my weeks spends to buy my granddad and 3 uncles presents from the store. I wrapped the gifts very carefully and couldn't understand what all the laughter was about when they were opened. What was wrong with a set of 3 pen nibs, a paint brush, a magic colouring  book and a box of matches.   
 

[sanderson]

I lived on Maple street for a while .

[philips]

 Two of the Forum members have asked questions to which I might be able to give the answers.
 The cinema which changed over to a bingo hall was called the Greenhill. The building is now  used as a grocery store. Next to the cinema there was a snooker hall. I don't know if it's still in use for that purpose.
 
 In the 1950's the dance hall in Seymour Road came under the heading of "The Sheldon School of Dancing" Mr & Mrs Sheldon who ran the business were professional ballroom dancers.
 I went dancing there on the occasional Saturday night, but being a teenager in the mid fifties found  ballroom dancing a bit of a bore! Rock & roll music just, at that time just on the horizon. It was good to hear that the dance hall moved with the times to become a disco.       

[JONNO]

Thanks for the information Philips - I hadn't realised that the Jewish had been hit. I know that bombs fell across Hightown and Marlborough Road (apparently one hit a public air raid shelter) and they even landed near Heaton Park and Whitefield.
 

[sanderson]

hi cheetham girl was the boy you new called terry stables.

[Cheetham Boy]

I don't remember the two brothers but i remember a lad called Martin Coffee. Martin ran across Cheetham Hill Road after coming out of school. He was killed  as he ran in front of a car.
Whilst at school we had to walk every day to the cateen which was up one of the back streets.
Do you remember the roller skating place which was at the 53bus terminus. I won the best knees contest. Also there was a house on Queens road where they taught ballroom dancing.

Amazing - I remember Martin Coffee. He lived in the next street up from where I lived in Wordsworth Avenue. Remember him riding around the streets on his pedal tractor much of the time. His death at such a young age was shocking and tragic.

I was also born in 1959 and will have attended St Chads at around the same time as you. I don't recall much about it although my sister might. I remember twins Peter and Paul Camp and the two catholic nuns - Sisters Theresa and Philomena. There was a teacher who I seem to remember as resembling Mr Drysdale from the Beverley Hillbillies. The dance school you mentioned on Queens Road was Finnegan's I believe.

A friend of mine doubted there had been a school called Notre Dame in Cheetham Hill so I googled it to confirm what I knew to be true and found this compelling thread which has had me engrossed the last few nights. I remember Notre Dame which was considered quite posh. I recall it being surrounded by a high wall flanked by trees and set in lovely grounds.

Pity so much of Cheetham Hill has been redeveloped although my old house on Wordsworth Avenue remains.There are now security gates on most of the old back entrys so thieves can't get round the back. Sign of the times I suppose. The cobbles have also gone - just tarmac now.

Many thanks to cheethamgirl for starting this great thread.
 
 
 
 

[Cheetham Boy]

I lived around the corner from you, Silverfox, in Huxley Avenue, and I too used to buy the gherkins.  They also sold herrings in brine from a big barrel (or maybe the barrel wasn' that big, but I was small!) though I was never tempted by them.  I seem to recall oen of the shop assistants in one of the local Jewish delis was a lady with a grey moustache, and when I pestered my mum for a herring, she told me if I ate too many herrings I too would grow a moustache!  Did you buy 3d lucky bags in Miss Houldsworth's shop on Heywood St?  I would buy superman comics from Dalgetty's newsagents and oxo flavoured crisps from Radivans (later Boyco's?).

Dalgetty's that's it - I was trying to remember the owner of that newsagents! I frequented that shop many a time running there through the cobbled back entry of my home in Wordsworth Avenue. We lived with my granddad who would send me on errands and tell me to imagine I was Bomber Command on a mission. I remember at the other corner end was a deli run by Mr Stollberg and his brother I think? There was also a bag factory in between those two shops I seem to remember.

My sister and I would often be found in Dalgetty's buying our comics and sweets. She would buy Twinkle, Bunty and Mandy. She particularly loved the little cut out figures of models at the back of those comics and the various outfits you could attach to them. I would buy The Victor, The Hotspur, The Beano and The Dandy and various others. Loved Alf Tupper in The Victor and for some reason recall the colourful pictures of numerous famous footballers regularly found on the front of The Hotspur.

I recall one incident in which Mr Dalgetty's shop had been burgled. All of his newspapers and magazines were strewn around the back entry of his shop and I was the one that retrieved them and made sure they were returned  back to him. I must have only been around 7 years old! He sent round a large bag of plastic toy soldiers, cowboys and Indians for me by way of reward. He knew I liked these as I had been buying the odd figure or two from him for months. I remember my granddad saying " Mr Dalgetty has left those for you" - I was absolutely delighted.

Other items we would buy there included mojos, arrow bars, sherbett dips, fruit salad, lucky bags, lovehearts and football cards containing a piece of chewing gum. I remember buying 'caps' in plain little circular cardboard containers for my toy gun. The would make a loud crack as you pulled the trigger to fire the gun.

Do you remember High Town Trimming Stores? What a shop that was, they seemed to sell everything you could imagine housed in seemingly hundred's of little drawers. There was a very long counter I recall. My sister and I loved the little toy TV's with a viewfinder showing pictures of Hong Kong.

I also recall my mother taking us to a house down Cheetham Hill Road called Henshaw's I think for the odd used item. They were rag and bone merchants. You would enter the house which was crammed with all sorts of useful items along the walls and up the stirs - almost everywhere you looked was cluttered with shoes, clothing, bedding, furniture and many other things. Round the back they had a huge cobbled yard where the horse and carts were housed. I think my mother used to style her hair at  the salon she had in Wordsworth Avenue where we lived. I'll post more when I can.

[Cheetham Boy]

Weaving around all of the streets of my childhood using the magic of Google Earth was quite fascinating. Looks as if they may have retained part of the old brick walls of Notre Dame on Huxley Avenue to build the new housing complex there. Just goes to show how much of an area Notre Dame High School covered back in the day between Bignor Street and Huxley. The large two storey houses that used to be on Heywood Street directly opposite Wordsworth Avenue and Kelvin Grove have now been replaced with Bungalows. My old house is still there but all of the entries are blocked off with iron security gates.

I lived on Wordsworth Avenue, where my mother had her own hairdressing salon called Mavis's which was basically the front room converted into a salon. It had everything you would see in a normal hairdressing salon including a sterilising cabinet which seemed to fascinate me as a child. It was also kitted out with two or three plumbed in sinks and a row of four to six professional freestanding hair dryers and there was a professional looking hanging sign in the window. My granddad lived downstairs in the rest of the rooms and my father, mother, sister and I lived upstairs.

We lived next door to Ukrainian family whose father regularly appeared on a popular programme of the time called Opportunity Knocks in a dance act with around 40 or fifty others. We were always so excited when they appeared on TV with the legendary Hughie Green. They had two boys around the same age as me and my sister. I remember the mother was a sewing machinist who seemed to work a lot from home. Unfortunately, she would often commence using the noisy sewing machine at somewhat inappropriate hours of the night. Their home was always so clean and tidy though and everything looked new as it was so well looked after.

My friends and I would often go playing on Smedley playing fields and watch the trains there go under the bridge. I recall there was a sand dune area there unless I'm very much mistaken. That was quite a place for us kids to go and have some fun. When you think back we were pretty well served with places we could go and play or explore in that area of Cheetham Hill.
The Temple cinema was also a favourite of mine and many others - sadly no longer standing. I remember the Saturday morning matinee and pouring out through the fire exits at the end of the show, eyes blinking as we adjusted to the day light after the prolonged darkness and contrasting brightness of the big screen.

Back to St Chads, the teacher I referred to in an earlier post as looking like Mr Drysdale from the Beverley Hillbillies was Mr Saunders I think going from another poster here. Also mentioned in that post was someone called Alberto Credentino on the football team which seemed to ring a bell with me. Christopher Heaney was another name that sprang to mind as is someone called Terence, but I can't bring to mind his surname. I have a picture of me walking along Cheetham Hill Road in the Whit Walks with both of these lads. I was born in 1959 so must have attended St Chads between 1964/65 to around 1968/9. We moved to Blackley around 1969/1970 where I attended Mount Carmel Junior School.

I referred to Martin Coffee in my earlier post who tragically died on Cheetham Hill Road having been hit by a car and have since remembered he lived in Kelvin Grove.

Interestingly, my grandmother was a singer and had appeared in various stage productions with the great Ivor Novello amongst others. I remember my grandfather had many78s records with her singing on them and numerous photos of her on stage. She died before I was born unfortunately. She once shared a dressing room with Violet Carson, otherwise known as Ena Sharples of Coronation Street fame. Apparently, my grandmother had been sent a box of very expensive chocolates and the story goes that Violet Carson scoffed the lot - but completely denied doing so when confronted!

When I get chance I'll have a word with my mother and particularly my sister who has an incredible memory of our childhood.

[Cheetham Boy]

Hi Mary 7 & St Chads, the only teachers I can remember are Mrs Turner and Genevieve Tunney.  Ms Tunney used to have little plastic dolls' teasets and a selections of dolls, teddies and gollies (!) and she would bring in tea and biscuits for us to hold a doll's tea party.  Mrs Turner would have us sing songs on days when it was too rainy to go out to play, and I tremember getting up and singing @Catch a Falling Star' and she told me I would be a professional singer one day!
 
But does anyone have memories of specific incidents involving the nuns?  I remember not wanting my mum to leave me on my first day with Sr Philomena, and Sr Phil dragged me, screaming, from my mum's skirts and, when she'd closed the door on my mum, she thrashed me with her wooden rosary beads and thumped me with her closed fist. She had powerful hands, men's hands.  Because of the all obscuring head dress they wore back then, I didn't think she was a woman, in fact I did not think nuns were human beings at all.   

Yes I do - now. My mother recounts a story to me that I strangely do not have any recollection of, although you would think I should have when you hear about it!

I mentioned to my mother about the brass bell incident with Sister Philomena fracturing the skull of a pupil you referred to earlier. This reminded my mother of the time she had occasion to go down to St Chads and confront Sister Philomena after I returned home one day from school with a swelling the size of an egg on my forehead!

Apparently I had been showing a lack of interest in some nonsense she was banging on about and was fooling around with another lad. It appears Philomena clobbered me with something, may have even been the ringing bell or her clenched fist but I ended up with the substantial lump/swelling I've mentioned above.

Naturally, my mother was absolutely furious and threatened to report her, but Sister Philomena said I'd been disruptive and disinterested and if my mother didn't like it she could send me to another school. For various reasons at the time, this was not feasible as my mother was trying to run her hairdressing salon and Chads was very convenient for her to take/pick up both my sister and l. My mother believes Sister Philomena took advantage of the fact that she was on her own at the time and had split from my father which Sister Philomena was fully aware of and so knew that my father was not around to back my mother up.

Nothing much came of it in the end, but it was quite near to the school holidays and after returning back to school, it was soon after that Sister Philomena moved on apparently.

[Cheetham Boy]

Cheetham Girl, do you remember hairdressing salons in Huxley Avenue? One was called Jessica's the other Rosita's? My mother had been instrumental in teaching Jessica before she set up her own salon in Huxley Avenue. They had both worked together at Rattutz on Bury New Road opposite Strangeways Prison. Rosita's had apparently been there in Huxley Avenue for some time as a hairdresser.

There was also a very good chippy near Dalgetty's called Smith's. The owner Elizabeth would often go to my mother to have her hair done at her salon in Wordsworth Avenue. I also have a vague recollection of Mr Tarskies shop on the corner of  Kelvin Grove.

Also, whilst I remember, quite a few years further back, my grandfather who lived with us in Wordsworth Avenue previously had a grocery and sweetshop in Heath Street if anyone recalls it called Mullaney's. BTW, my mother went to Crumpsall Lane School which I heard someone mention further back in the thread.

[philips]

Hello Cheetham boy. I went to St. Marks school in Heath St. until 1951. You mention your Granddad having a shop in that street. If my memory serves me well, there were five corner shops in that street. Turning in from Cheetham Hill road the first shop was a bakers ( opp. Cheetham Senior school) The next shop down, fell directly at the side of the St. Marks boy's playground, that was a grocery shop.  On the corner of Heath St. and St. Marks Lane was a shop that just sold sweets and chocolate and was always referred to as the toffee shop. Across the street was the newsagents, he made his own penny lollies from watered down vimto cordial, which he then poured into ice-cube trays. Finally on this side was another somewhat larger grocery/sweet shop, the door into this shop lay across the corner of another side street, it had a big window on each side of the door, one of which faced the boy's entrance into St. Marks. I could not even make a guess at the names of the people who ran the shops, just remember that they seemed to changed hands quite a lot!               

[Cheetham Boy]

Hello Cheetham boy. I went to St. Marks school in Heath St. until 1951. You mention your Granddad having a shop in that street. If my memory serves me well, there were five corner shops in that street. Turning in from Cheetham Hill road the first shop was a bakers ( opp. Cheetham Senior school) The next shop down, fell directly at the side of the St. Marks boy's playground, that was a grocery shop.  On the corner of Heath St. and St. Marks Lane was a shop that just sold sweets and chocolate and was always referred to as the toffee shop. Across the street was the newsagents, he made his own penny lollies from watered down vimto cordial, which he then poured into ice-cube trays. Finally on this side was another somewhat larger grocery/sweet shop, the door into this shop lay across the corner of another side street, it had a big window on each side of the door, one of which faced the boy's entrance into St. Marks. I could not even make a guess at the names of the people who ran the shops, just remember that they seemed to changed hands quite a lot!               

Hi Philips,

Many thanks for your reply. I'll have to speak to my mother and try to establish which shop was actually my granddad's from the information you've kindly provided. My mother said she had to make regular deliveries of groceries to various houses in that locality even though she was only a fairly young kid at the time. I believe my granddad owned the shop for many years before coming to live in Wordsworth Avenue just off Heywood Street.

My mother went to Crumpsall Lane School but I'll bet she might know other people that you might know or remember living around Heath Street. I'll have a word with her when I get chance and see if she can remember any names from her childhood living around that area.

This really is a fascinating thread though and has really got me thinking about old Cheetham Hill in the 50s and 60s and my childhood there.

[Cheetham Boy]

 
What a pair! Me and my sister in the entry behind Wordsworth Avenue, Cheetham Hill with the old cobbles still in evidence around 1964/65 I reckon.. That cowboy hat was never taken off - even went to bed with it I believe according to my mum!

I'll see if I can find some other photos that include background images of the old area. Would be nice to see other photos of people that might include old bits of Cheetham Hill to jog our memory.