Author Topic: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?  (Read 752807 times)

tony dixon

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #30 on: 13:00:48, 01/02/11 »
Hi Steven - here's the chemist shop courtesy of " The Mancchester Image Collection "

« Last Edit: 12:08:45, 08/01/13 by Chris »

tony dixon

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #31 on: 13:06:15, 01/02/11 »
................and here are the loos at Paisley Terrace from the same scource.

« Last Edit: 12:10:33, 08/01/13 by Chris »

cheethamgirl

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #32 on: 13:11:04, 01/02/11 »
Tee hee!  I remember them being very clean and disinfected.  They had a full time attendant.  I often used to do my homework in the library, nippign ou to use the loos and across the road to one of the bakers (Reubens?)  for a buttered bap or bagel to keep me going.  My friend who lived in St Mark's lane had no bathroom, so every Friday, her whole family went to theCheetham public baths for a hot (private) bath.
Author:  'Odd Man Out - A Motiveless Murder?' & 'The Cheetham Hill Murder'

CityLad

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #33 on: 23:37:54, 05/02/11 »
Hi cheethamgirl
 
You are quite right, the deli I was thinking about was on the corner of Kelvin Grove and I can’t remember the name of the ave   

cheethamgirl

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #34 on: 08:53:49, 06/02/11 »
I think it was Ruskin Avenue, and the deli was owned by a Mr Tarski (not sure of the correct spelling). Many of us kids didn't like going in there.   :o


I remember most of the local delis were run by Jewish people, and they used to sell pickled herrings and pickled cucumbers out of big jars.  Our nice friendly Jewish neighbour lady once asked my mother what was the delicious meal she cooked every Thursday, as the aroma of it could be enjoyed all down the back of the Huxley Avenue terraces.  My Mum told her it was the Irish speciality, a bacon joint, boiled in a big pan with cabbage and potatoes in their jackets, but it wasn't kosher.  The Jewish neighbour asked her for the recipe anyway!  In exchange, she told Mum how to make gefilte fish balls, rolled in matzo meal and deep fried, and we used to have these in our house on Fridays!   By the way, the avenues in that part of the neighbourhood were all named after prominent Victorians - Ruskin, Faraday, Huxley, Lytton, Wordsworth, Kelvin. 


By the way,Steven, there was indeed a Shakespeare Picture Palace on Halliwell Lane.  My Godfrey's 1931 map of Cheetham Hill records that Jack Reuben was the cinema proprietor then and he was at no 14.  Looking at this map, I am astonished to see how far I used to wander as a six year old.  I used to walk as far as The Cliff at Broughton.  I was entranced at the way the wind used to whistle up to that edge and at the views of the river Irwell.  I had no idea it was that far. Anyone remember the poor little River Irk?  I used to watch it change colour from indigo blue through green to bright yellow, owing to the (Smedley?) dyeworks ' discharge!
Author:  'Odd Man Out - A Motiveless Murder?' & 'The Cheetham Hill Murder'

Steven

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #35 on: 12:25:30, 08/02/11 »
Thanks for all those pictures. Streets were also named after trees, such as Oakfield Street, and Elm Street. I was fascinated to read in T. Swindell's book about the beautiful valley just behind Walnut Street. This was again many years before our time, but I have been pushed to remember the location of Walnut Street. Was it off Bignor Street? Someone must remember. Apparently, the first houses built in the area were so badly built they soon fell down!

I am also curious about the small group of semi-detached houses with tall trees in the gardens just before the corner of Heywood Road and Cheetham Hill Road - a petrol station also used to be on the opposite corner where I used to enjoy watching the car wash when I was a toddler. These semi-detached 1930's style housing always looked out of place - as an intrusion in an area of Victorian terraced houses. I thought they were built in the 1930's by the style, so it couldn't have been a bomb site.

I also remember that some 50 plus years ago the rents of the standard terrace houses around Huxley Avenue were about a guinea a week in this area. How values have changed. I think the agent was called Stuart ?

cheethamgirl

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #36 on: 17:36:50, 08/02/11 »
I never heard of Walnut St.  Maybe it was demolished and built over?  Not sure exactly which semis you mean.  Heywood St meets Cheetham hill Rd both at its north end and at its south end, to make a D shape. At the top (north) end, there were quite a few newer semis.  There were mature trees in front of them but planted in the pavement, rather than in their gardens,  Could that be the ones?   If I knew how to upload a photo, I'd upload one of me as a toddler, with my dolly's pram, taken outside one of them in the 1950s. I remember a car wash being opened in the 1960s, halfway down Heywood St, the entrance being on Kelvin Grove.  I too was fascinated by it and used to hang around it with my pals, until being chased off by a carefully aimed damp sponge!  ;D  Perhaps there was another garage and car wash at the top end?  Don't remember this.   I didn't know any of the Huxley Ave houses were rented, as my parents bought theirs with a mortgage, tho the mortgage was arranged by agents Gerald Stuarts, I believe. I recall my next door neighbours, the elderly Elsie & Hubert Travers, telling me they'd bought their Huxley Avenue House from new in 1901, for £300.  In 1973, one in the block was sold for only £3,000 - not a huge return on a property over 70 years!
Author:  'Odd Man Out - A Motiveless Murder?' & 'The Cheetham Hill Murder'

Steven

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #37 on: 07:09:13, 09/02/11 »
I"ll give more specific directions. Turn out of Huxley Avenue to the right. Walk up Heywood St past the convent, and then past the synagogue. You come to a row of single story garages that sold car parts and after this was the petrol station I referred to - almost diagonal opposite to Northern Hospital. The semis were across the road from this garage on the other side of Heywood St. Hope this is clearer.

I think that Gerald Stuarts were the agents who rented out houses in the Huxley Street area. By 2011 standards, these houses were certainly below standard e.g., outside privy, no proper kitchen facilities - just a tiny scullery, and I cannot remember if there was an indoor bathroom. I also remember a house in Faraday Avenue that had a large stone-floor kitchen. There was also a hand-turned clothes mangle of the type you only see in museums today. In the hallway, just to the side of the stairs, I remember something that looked to me as a child like an African mask (face) carved in wood. Maybe it was a feature of this particular house but it frightened me a little. Other than that, I really do not remember people locking their doors or having burglar alarms, and who ever heard of someone getting mugged? Perhaps a stolen bicycle was the major crime of 50 plus years ago. I know the politicians say we are imagining the streets were safer and the statistics show otherwise, but I remember Cheetham as a safe place for a kid to wander around - or maybe I just didn't know what dangers lurked?

cheethamgirl

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #38 on: 09:03:08, 09/02/11 »
Hi Steven,


I think you mean the part of Heywood St just north of Brideoak St.  I do recall the 1930s semis.  They were built on both sides of the road, on what had been allotments to the west side, and a field on the east.  I don't remember those garages at all.  I also had a look at my 1931 map of Cheetham and the Northern Hospital does not appear at the top of Heywood Street.  It must be just off the map, further south down Cheetham Hill Rd, as it was built in 1856 and still operating in 1931. 


I remember the Huxley Ave houses as somewhat better than you recall them.  We lived at the extreme end of the last terrace and the houses got bigger as you neared our end.  This was mainly because the building line was out of true.  My Dad once tried to wallpaper our lounge with squared paper and, as he turned a corner, the lines veered up towards the ceiling.  He scratched his head for a bit and then realised the room angles were not square but acute.  We had 3 bedrooms, the master bedroom rant he full width of the house and had two windows, a bay and a small leaded casement, overlooking the mature trees and grounds of the convent; a tiled upstairs bathroom as well as an outside loo (our rabbit lived in there!); a front parlour with bay window with stained glass panes (tulip design) and an art nouveau cast iron fireplace (more tulips); a walk-through dining room with large window and similar fireplace; a kitchen with fitted cupboards and big black cooking range and then the lean to scullery for washing.  We had a sizeable L shaped back yard which was big enough for my Dad to park his Austin A30 in (once he'd added garage gates to the wall which opened out onto the end alley). We also had tiny front gardens and a sturdy wooden capped top fence between us and next door, which sloped down from the top of 3 large steps to the front gate, so I could slide down it.


They were certainly better quality than the Cheetham Hill Rd Houses, which is why they are still standing today while then rest were demolished, I suppose. We had plaster corbels in the hall way, but no gargoyles etc.  The style was definitely turn of the century.  Perhaps the terraces at the Cheetham Hill end were of a lesser standard tho?  I never went in one.  I id once visit some folks down in Larch St and these were awful houses. They were Georgian and had smelly dank cellars and ropey Georgian sash windows.  Next to our house in Huxley, across the alley, at the Heywood St end, was a small factory which, everyone said, manufactured shrouds!  They had a boiler house at the back and a croft (on Kelvin Grove).  The place had a glass roof and it got so hot in there in summer that they had to leave all the doors open.  Kids would peer in, in hopes of seeing a shroud with a body in it, but no luck, only hundreds of yards of coarse white cloth running around steel rollers.


There were some old lock up garages on Heywood Street but half way down, going south on that block between Kelvin Grove and Wordsworth Ave (they're shown as stables on my map!) and that's where we had our first (and only, to my recollection) car wash.  I remember the day (1960s) they took away the lovely old 1930s hand operated elegant petrol pumps and installed short squat electric ones.   Watching the automated car wash was all a bit of a five minute wonder for us kids, then we'd head home for Saturday tea (it was always cottage pie on a Saturday at our house) and watch 'Dr Who & the Daleks' on our black & white set.   ::)



Author:  'Odd Man Out - A Motiveless Murder?' & 'The Cheetham Hill Murder'

tony dixon

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #39 on: 15:54:38, 09/02/11 »
Could this be the garage ? - courtesy Manchester Image Collection.

Tony.


« Last Edit: 12:13:37, 08/01/13 by Chris »

tony dixon

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #40 on: 15:58:58, 09/02/11 »
.......and I was never aware of this place - Heywood Street 1971

« Last Edit: 12:33:33, 08/01/13 by Chris »

cheethamgirl

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #41 on: 17:25:08, 09/02/11 »
Neither the pub or the garage looks familiar to me Tony.  Maybe my memory is faulty tho.   :D
Author:  'Odd Man Out - A Motiveless Murder?' & 'The Cheetham Hill Murder'

Lisa R

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #42 on: 16:51:56, 05/03/11 »
I Used to work in Cheetham Hill from 1960 to 1963 at a company called Aqua-Mer Weatherwear at the corner of Derby Street and Cheetham Hill Road. I worked as a secretary in the offices and used to go every week ice-skating to the Ice Palace in Derby Street. There was a lovely bakery on Cheetham Hill Road called Sieffs where I bought the mosrt delicious Cheese cakes. The owners of then company I worked for were called the Berkeleys. There was Nat, the boss, Leslie his son, and Carl who occasionally popped in to see everyone. Carl used to visit the Manchester Sports Guild in New Millgate, Manchester, near Victoria Station. I wonder what happened to them all?

cheethamgirl

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #43 on: 18:02:28, 05/03/11 »
Hello Lisa,


Have you read the 'Almonds & Raisins' trilogy of books by Maisie Moscow (Moscoe?)?  She writes about her family who were Jewish raincoat manufacturers in Cheetham and she covers several generations of the family and others who were connected.  They sound just like the Berkley family of Aqua Mer.  Maisie's people got the government contract to supply rainproof macs for the soldiers in the war (can't recall if it was WW1 or WW2 or both).  I enjoyed reading the books (esp the first two) as my Mother worked for one of those families (d/k which).  I also remember when I started school at age 4 in 1957 and we walked down Cheetham Hill rd past these establishments and I could hear the whirr of the sewing machines, the hiss of the Hoffman presses and the girls singing over their machines.  memories   :smitten:
Author:  'Odd Man Out - A Motiveless Murder?' & 'The Cheetham Hill Murder'

Lisa R

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Re: Cheetham/Hill 1950s/60s?
« Reply #44 on: 20:00:33, 05/03/11 »
Hi Cheethamgirl, Thanks for your reply. I havent read the books but it might be worth a look next time in the library.  Cheetham Hill Road was a hive of activity when I started working there in 1960. I had a long journey there from Clayton and walked most of the way down Cheetham Hill road after getting off the famous 53 bus. The girls in the factory upstairs from the office where I worked were great and yes you could hear their singing from the road.  The Hoffman presses were always busy. I used to sneak upstairs to see the factory to break the monotony of the office work and loved the buzz of the place. There was the supervisor Maurice keeping an eye on everyone. I often sat on the steps of the office during my lunch break just to watch the people go by. The factory was next to the Shuul and I did venture in there once and was fascinated. Years later when I moved back to Manchester, I did the tour of the area with The Jewish Museum and it was well worth it. As I was looking through all the photos in the gallery at the museum, there was a photo of my boss, Nat Berkeley - imagine my surprise. They were a lovely family and I enjoyed my time working for them for over 3 years until I moved to work in the centre of Manchester. I always missed the buzz of Cheetham Hill.  It had its own magic.