Dear Have Your Say
I was delighted to hear about your local community project ‘Have Your Say Magazine’. This is an excellent initiative and will I’m sure help to build an even stronger sense of community in Manchester.
Christopher Patten, CH Member of the European Commission

Dear Have Your Say
I write in response to Alan Jay. Firstly people don’t write in saying how picturesque the inner city areas of Manchester were. They write in with their memories which we all like to read about. What he must bear in mind is that the condition of the housing was due to the mill owning landlords, who built as many houses as they could on the least area of land they could get away with, using the cheapest methods and materials.

The fact that people remember these houses as HOMES, says a great deal about the parents, who changed what they could for the better and accepted what couldn’t be changed with equanimity. We were pretty much all in the same boat, and made the best of things. You don’t have to wear rose coloured spectacles to appreciate family life, friendship and neighbour-liness. We might have had poor housing but there was much else to make life interesting and happy.

It is easy to press a switch for instant heat, but our central heating was a bowl of porridge for breakfast and the hot shelf from the kitchen range wrapped in a blanket to warm the bed on freezing nights. All this took effort on the part of our parents and along with many other readers my abiding memory is of the caring we received.
Marcia Fletcher

Hi. Everyone,
How dare Alan Jay sit there in his little Canadian haven and say what he did about his gran’s place, he used her hospitality for five years! I hope he took his gran with him when he went to pastures new.

I too was brought up in similar conditions. It was all we knew and everyone in the same position made the best of it.
Marian Ross
Just two of the letters in response to Alan Jay’s comments!

Dear Friends
Thank you very much for Have Your Say. An excellent read again, particularly the about entertainers and pubs. I worked at West Gas when Pat O’Hare worked there too. He was quite outstanding with the voice of an angel and the looks of a movie star. We girls were quite taken with him! I wonder if he is still singing? He should have been a huge star with his talent and looks.
Pat Duncan

Pat O’Hare is still singing, entertaining on cruise ships.

Dear Have Your Say
Just thought I’d let you know. Re issue No. 14, letter from Louis Hannett, about Caravans. There were two families living in the caravans and they were the “Harrison’s” and the “Nuttall’s”.
Phyllis Anderson nee Steel

Dear All,
I too remember the caravans. They were on Thomas Street croft, enclosed behind a high brick wall and tall wooden gates. My sister Ethel and her friend Margaret Thornley, babysat for a family who lived in one of the caravans and they used to take me with them. I remember the caravans being spotlessly clean and warm.

I also read with interest Horses in the Street by Harold Beresford. I went to St. Luke’s school, Mr. Roberts was the headmaster then. My aunt lived in Great George Street and she too would bring us hot cocoa and toast when it was cold. Another coincidence, I also lived on the street opposite the Calico Print Works Higher Duke Street but I am probably older than Harold.
Alice Sidwell, nee Ross

Dear Team
Re the little article entitled Caravans. Louis Hannett was asking could anyone verify the presence of caravans in a yard opposite “Tommy Croft” I can put Louis’ mind at rest. I used to play with Albert Harrison, who lived in one with his mother, brother and sister.
Peter Berry

Dear Have Your Say
Re-Louis Hannett’s Caravans;
The yard was known as Silverman’s yard, I knew a boy who lived there, he was called Anthony Nuttall, and he had a younger brother.

Regarding the name Hockenhall or similar: I remember a family called Huckenall who lived in Lime Street. Mr. Huckenall (Jim) was the local coal merchant. I believe his daughter Frances, married a school friend of mine, Joe Greenhalgh. I also understand Joe and Frances became Post Office proprietors.
Jim Larkin

Dear Have Your Say
Yes! I remember the caravans that Louis Hannett was referring to in Issue 14. As he said, they were in a big yard. It was a Rag & Bone Yard and he is correct in saying somebody lived in one of the caravans. It was a Mr. & Mrs Harris, they were the caretakers of the Yard. I was friendly with their son and I went in their caravan once, and I was surprised to see that it was lit by oil lamps. Our house was lit by gaslight.
Mrs. Mullany

Dear Have Your Say
Thank you for sending the copies of the community magazine. I will forward my magazine to my brother in Perth (the Aussie one) who is recovering from a major op’ and will be delighted to read ‘All about it!’

Thanks again, I will look forward to the next issue.
Pat O’Hare

Dear Team
Thank you to readers of Have Your Say who responded to my letter in issue 13 regarding the ‘Roll of Honour’ from St. Edmunds church. In reply to T Lowry yes I did contact Father Dennehey of Christ the King, but unfortunately the roll of honour wasn’t one of the items that were taken to his church.
Stephen Lowe, your explanation that the roll of honour was destroyed with St. Edmund’s church is a plausible one.

Les and Flo Kane, You are right about the Topping family from Lilley Street. My foster father Richard was one of the seven sons and two daughters of the family. The others were John (killed in action in the first world war), Bill, Edward, Tom, Joe and Henry. The two daughters were Mary and Frances.

No, I am not related to the Ball family who lived on Conran Street. I was born in Streatham, London and spent my early life in a children’s home in Kent. I was evacuated to Booth Hall Children’s Hospital in 1944 and was befriended by Alice Topping, Richard’s wife who worked in the laundry.

After the war I was returned to a children’s home in Essex. When Richard was demobbed from the army they applied to foster me. That was the best day of my life. I am proud to be a member of the Topping family even though I don’t bear their name. Yes you are correct again-Henry the youngest son played professional football for Manchester United and Barnsley in the thirties.
Neville Ball

Dear Have Your Say
Please find enclosed photograph of St. Mark’s School, Holland Street, Miles Platting which was taken about 1944/45, I am sat next to the Headmaster Mr. Jones. (On his left). I am seventy now so I would have been about twelve years old on the photo.
Yours Sincerely, Mavis Britner, nee Holmes

Dear Have Your Say
My sister Elsie Chamberlain sends me the magazine. I would like to thank you and readers who send in letters, how much I enjoy them.

I was nine when I left Manchester but have happy memories and seeing the names of some of the streets and roads is lovely. Number 46 Lowe Street was my Granddad Rimmer’s home, I was born there, sometimes he’d throw a handful of pennies down the street and we’d all go running for them. We lived in Ancoats and seeing the picture of the Mill in the background in Issue 13, Mam and Gran’ Holland worked there.

Saturday afternoon pictures! The ‘Cave Men’ stick in my mind, people coming out of the walls of the cave; no one seems to remember them. Whit walks was one day of the year we’d get a new dress and after the walks we went to show our aunts’ and they’d give us a penny, we felt happy to have a few pennies in our hand. So thank you once again it is lovely to read.
May Burrows, Nee Holland