Cinemas The Osborne, Empress, and Playhouse cinemas. I used to go to the first two all by myself when I was nine or ten and still recall Goodbye Mr.Chips, Colonel Blimp, How Green is my Valley and many more. One of my Aunts was the cashier at the Playhouse but I don’t recall it getting me free admission.
The Blitz I remember gathering shrapnel afterwards; a dog fight in the sky between a stranded German bomber and fighter aircraft in broad daylight; ack ack guns in Fielden Street; a young boy who could only speak French, having just been evacuated from France; our own evacuation on the train, equipped with gas masks and haversacks packed with ear plugs, chocolate and rubber mouth piece to bite on in case of bombing raids. We were lost, on arrival, for a few days until our mother, who had been billeted in another house, found us in the local park. She packed us all up and returned to Manchester inside of a couple of weeks, the prospect of being bombed obviously preferable to being billeted. One day a barrage balloon deflated, came down, and draped itself over the Nottingham Castle pub. My father was in the RAF at the time and actually worked on putting up barrage balloons. Not that particular one because he wasn’t stationed in the area.
Neighbours We lived in Hibberts Place so were really close, literally, to most of the neighbours. Next door lived the Connors. Daughters Nora, Maureen, and Pat, with their mother their father was away overseas in the army. On the other side of us were newly married Gilda and Tony Bertoloni, members of the ice cream vending family. Across the street were the Spurs.
Errands I ran errands to the shops on Oldham Road for many of the neighbours, yeast for Mrs. Bertoloni, from the bakery was always intriguing because it smelled so good, but I never saw what it looked like because it was always tightly wrapped in greaseproof paper. Mrs. Taylor, an elderly, bent-over lady, would ask me to go for half an ounce of snuff at the herbalists. They dispensed a number of varieties and weighed it out on a small set of scales. On the same block there was Clegg’s the greengrocers, a butchers shop, and the battery shop where I would take the wireless accumulator to be charged.
Queuing Waiting outside the washhouse for mother to finish the weekly wash and trundle it home in a pram was not much fun. Queuing up for coal and, later on, standing in line once again to buy fireworks. At least in the last case there was a real reward at the end if you were lucky!
Parents My mother worked at a parachute factory, and there were many, it was rumoured, who snitched quantities of the parachute silk for wedding dresses and the like. I was told they used to wrap it around their bodies underneath their clothes to get it out of the factory! After all, it was a time of short supply and rationing.
My father attended Abbott Street School and was quite a swimmer, as were many of the other kids at that time. I recall before the War being taken to the Osborne Street Baths and sitting in the hot tub while he swam one and half lengths underwater in the big pool. I believe bathing suits were prohibited in public baths at that time for hygienic reasons, but that early exposure to public nudity hasn’t led to any psychic scarring.
I was still living in Miles Platting when VE Day was declared. Does anyone else remember the illuminated bus that was hauled out to celebrate the occasion?
Peter Cavanagh
