Gasworks Gates

I was born in the early 1930’s in Broxton Street, Miles Platting, near the gasworks. Every day except Sunday, coke carts would arrive at 7.30am and wait for the gasworks gates to open at 8.00am. In the winter the drivers would tie paraffin lamps to the side of their carts. The reflection of the lamps would light up the front bedroom I shared with my twin sister Marjorie (photograph below). As the gates opened the carts would make their way down the cobbled street with their iron wheels banging and clanging. You could hear the horses’ hooves sliding about on the cobbles, especially in winter. When they had loaded up with coke, the noisy carts would come out and go off to the local coal yards to sell the coke.
There were also men, women and children queueing up to buy the coke. They would arrive with their old prams and home made carts, standing in the freezing cold. They could stand there for up to three hours waiting for their coke. But the Salvation Army would turn up with a van and a big tea urn. They would go along the queue with hot drinks.

by Elsie Almond (nee Wilson)