MEMORIES OF HYDE 1958 – 1962 Part 10

BY ROGER CHADWICK

The end of June 1958  saw Mum, Gran and I make the annual pilgrimage from Glen Wood to Godley Station.  We were on our way to the annual fortnight in Bournemouth. 

But that summer saw me staying in Bournemouth working on a market garden – for at that time Hyde had absolutely no work for temporary or unskilled workers. 

The pay at the market garden was low, the work boring and at times dangerous as I was shinning up ladders rolling “sylglass” between the greenhouse panes or taking new growth from the axils of tomato plants and for variety, feeding each and every cucumber plant in a vast greenhouse with one barrel-load of horse muck per day.  The summer did have its bonuses – I found very good “digs”, a smashing girlfriend whose father worked for De Havilland and I came home brown as a berry, ready for third year at Durham University.

This was the time when I realised I could not be in Hyde for much longer and still needed to work for the family income.  An enquiry at the Office of the North Western Road Car Company informed me that there was work for “temps” in the summer months.  I jumped at the chance! 

Mottram Road

I spent a fortnight in Conductor School and was then assigned to Glossop Garage and placed under the watchful eye of a senior conductor and an Inspector.  Very soon I was in charge of a vehicle and when on early shift, learnt to wake up at 0300 hrs, brew up, dress smartly in full uniform and stand under the lamp on Mottram Road(A 57) waving my billy can and hitching a lift so as to take a bus out for 0500.  Most days I got a potato lorry bound for West Yorkshire but then meant a long walk from The Gun Inn,  Hollingworth to Charles Street in Glossop.  Sometimes a newspaper van would oblige.  Occasionally one of the drivers would pick me up – sometimes in a car, sometimes on a motor bike.  Yet I never missed a shift in three years on the buses.  Thankfully most of the shifts started later and I could travel to work on the 0530 or 0600 service 125 to Glossop.  Coming home at night was sometimes difficult, The Company put on a “ghost” bus for late workers as far as Mottram Junction but you never got lifts from motorists so it was “shanks pony” for 2.5 miles home!  The shift that saw me work the Glossop Saturday Midnight Circular 190 taking all the boozers home was no fun when it was half past one in the morning before I got in!

Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley & Dukinfield Joint Transport and Electricity Board Crest

It was a funny feeling to work on a bus route that passed my door and which I knew so well and to sit in the crew room at Glossop with North Western and SHMD guards that knew me from boyhood.  I often worked the 125 Limited Stop to Denton, Hyde and Old Glossop. It was an 8hr 31min “turn” and you worked hard with full loads to Hyde, full loads to Manchester and the same at night on return workings.  On one such trip we came into Chorlton Street, and went out immediately, fully loaded..  Late running was frowned upon.  Traffic jams were frequent around the city and you didn’t get a clear road until beyond Ardwick. 

 Belle Vue circa 1963

By Belle Vue I was dying to use the Public Conveniences. 

Going down Broomstair Brow I was desperate but I knew that there were facilities in Hyde Bus Station.  Never was I so glad to arrive at Hyde Bus Station and find relief – but then – it suddenly dawned upon me that I was in a cubicle!   There had been no urinal and I was too desperate to notice. I did now – I was in THE LADIES!!!  I really do remember breaking into a cold sweat.  Was I going to be arrested?   Someone might have already called the police for our bus was fully loaded and waiting immediately outside.  What if a lady came in?  Here goes – with head held high walked out pretending that nothing untoward had occurred, I emerged into the sunlight.  Suddenly there was a roar of laughter and cheering from the passengers and driver!   They had all seen what had happened and were going to make the most of it. It took me weeks to live that episode down.   Nowadays, such an incident would be world news!

Hyde Bus Station - The toilets were to the left behind the bus shelters.

I learn a lot about the British Public whilst on the buses and I will come to that in the next chapter.  My first driver warned me when I started that I would learn things about people’s behaviour that no college course could teach.   Bye – he was right – but they were good years with eight to ten weeks on buses, enjoying the travel, the “crack” with mates and the fun with passengers.  Of course, there was the bonus of good wages, plenty of overtime, Sunday double time, rest day working, spread-over penalty payments for split shifts.  I was to get married in 1963 with this “bus money” behind me!  My mother, instead of taking my wages for board and lodge took the money and then secretly saved it all up for when I needed it.

In some ways, these were the happiest years of my life!!

Thanks to Roger for his continuing memories of Hyde.
They are much welcomed and enjoyed ! :)

 

MEMORIES OF GROWING UP IN HYDE Part 6

1939 – 1955 by Roger Chadwick

Between 1945 and 1948, the bus fare from Glen Wood to Hyde Market was 1d both for adults and children. It was regarded as a good value ticket but when your pocket money was between 3d and 6d, it was wiser to walk the three stops and save the money for pies! 

Readers will gather that food has and always will be important to me. I am fortunate to bear the same weight at 74 that I had at 18! Walking about makes you observant and I knew every part and parcel of that 10 minute amble!

   

 Mottram Road

Mottram Road was quite “elegant” even in those post war years with Victorian terraces, huge houses and rows of cottage style dwellings. John Oldham’s, Grocers, was just down the road and between the shop and the Bankfield Hotel were what we called “the dolls houses” as they looked so small and neat. Past Grange Road you came to Sober Row, so remembered because of the stone plaque in the middle terrace house bearing the words “Be sober, be industrious, be economical”. Then I might cross the road to avoid the temptations of Proctors Chip Shop, buy stamps at the sub post office and then hurry past the Co-op at the corner of Lumn Road with its crepe paper window decorations and ginger cat! After a passing the tram shed on Lewis Street and Smith’s The Butchers I would eye all the cars and take in the whiff of unburnt petrol at the garage before Ridling Lane and Clarendon Street.

Co-op on Lumn Road corner

There was a lovely fruit pie outlet just below the road that led to the Hyde Lads Club and The Ritz!

When I was about 7 or 8, Mum took me to meet Mrs Young at the National Savings Shop and to buy Savings Stamps. These bore the portrait of Prince Charles with blonde hair aged about 3! It was the start of saving money for the future. Round the corner was Lever’s, the Gents’ Hairdresser where I would deliberately attend for the short back and sides at the busiest time of the week so as to study the Dandy and Beano comics in detail. In those days, Mr Lever, chain smoking and coughing, would sterilise the shaving heads and briefly use the cut throat razor above the ears and below the hairline. That implement frightened me to death especially when being “stropped” for shaving the older gentlemen 

The Reform Club Building reminded me, like many more lads of my age, of the lady dentist from the school dental clinic on the first floor. “Keep still, this is going to hurt…what’s the red tie for… are you a communist?” She brooked no nonsense and was downright rude. Pleasanter moments were spent in Warburton’s Pork Butchers with the huge Kelvinator Fridges and blue tiled images of pigs on the walls, a scrupulously clean environment, smelling of butchers’ mace as the pork and pies were served out to the huge queues. Then perhaps across the road for a saunter round Woolworth’s. The manageress was usually found in one of those glass screened shoulder level offices and had a tremendous hooked nose which fascinated me. Not so the goods on offer as I always thought of them as too cheap and nasty and everything at a penny or a halfpenny short of a round number: I never cared for Woolworths but thousands did!

Woolworths, with Abbey National which was the site of the UCP cafe

The UCP( translated “United Cattle Products” for foreigners..) across Hamnett Street and the Shaw Hall bus stop was a favourite haunt for an “illicit” plate of faggots and peas or a savoury duck. It was always full and smelt wonderful. All those cubicles where people met to eat and chatter and meet friends and family. You would think I never got fed at home!

As I remember it, Hyde Market was held every Tuesday and Saturday. The square was packed jam full of stalls and people and buses were off-loading at every street corner. I am pleased to see that the elegant Tram Stops have been preserved and The Town Hall makes an excellent backdrop even now. What no longer seem to exist are Meschias and Levaggi’s Ice Cream Kiosks where I would squander pocket money, always leaving some for the horehound candy in the Market Hall. The smell of that candy filled the place. Summer months would see me rushing home with dripping bags of wimberries(bilberries) for deep plate pies with custard!   

Meschias Van on Hyde Market

Early teenage years would find me in Market Street gawping at the lovely new “rexine” record players at 15 guineas in Callers window – something I desperately wanted but was way beyond my income. No so the suet puddings, gravy and chips at Ibbotsons Café which were always wonderful for a growing lad’s appetite. Thence to Cooke Brothers for cheese off the slab and butter from the barrel and perhaps a swig of sarsaparilla or dandelion and burdock at the Herbalist’s fascinating premises. I never cared for liquorice sticks but loved pink “kalai”(is that how it is spelt?) that came in spills of paper where a wet finger would enable me to lick the glorious taste. When sweets came off ration I didn’t go mad for them. I still don’t!

These days, you can eat or drink anything you want and the huge choice doesn’t excite me at all. The times of shortages after the war made me really appreciate and enjoy absolutely anything that was on offer. Hyde could offer plenty enough even in those hard times. It was a wonderful place for me!

Thanks so much for your wonderful memories, Roger.
They are a delight to read.

ROGER V. CHADWICK Memories of Hyde part 1

Below are some memories of Roger Chadwick who very kindly sent them in to the blog. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as we did !!

MEMORIES OF GROWING UP IN HYDE: 1939 – 1945 

Born in May 1939, I grew up at 247 Mottram Road. Formerly the servants quarters of the adjacent property then known as “The Hollies”, it was a large and interesting house for a child – with cellars and an attic, the back room replete with six “servants” bells only one of which was in use being the front door bell which would clank and swing every time it was “pulled” from the front door! The kitchen was situate down two huge steps and had a black leaded grate and a hot fire! There was a washhouse, a coal house down the yard and a pleasant garden overlooking Gee’s Brook and the allotments sloping up the hill to a view of the old Godley Vicarage, Godley School and the tower of St John Baptist poking through the houses. We had a ginnel in a tunnel from the back door to the front pavement and the iron railings had not yet been taken down for the war effort. Just over the garden wall you could see the crenellated “castle” now called Brookbank Folly and three enormous trees. Brookbank House then belonged to Dr Grau who had a surgery in one of the front rooms of the house. He and his family could often be seen pottering around his huge garden.

Early memories of life at “247” was an earth tremor in 1944 , which shook the house for a moment: the distant glow of Manchester on fire during the blitz and the terrifying noise of a V1/2 Flying Bomb over the house as we hastened down to the cellar for safety. With all the fields and woods around, that bomb fatefully exploded on the farm buildings only a mile to the east of our house and very near to the The New Inn at Matley.

SHMD trams hurtled past our house across the cobbles and every fifteen minutes, the local “Joint Board” and North Western buses bound for Mottram and Glossop. This was the then infamously busy A57 trunk road with endless processions of traffic and the tar boiler was perpetually on duty with a man pouring liquid pitch between the setts and throwing to us little boys small globules of the stuff to sniff!!

Towards the end of the war a convoy passed through and stopped on our road. Soldiers got off the vehicles and lay across the pavements waiting for the order to move. Some of the women came out with beans on toast for the men, regardless of their own shortages. We cycled up and down our tricycles talking to them. The noise, smell and smoke of the diesel coming from the tanks was a memory for life.

The view from “247” across Mottram Road at that time was of the land belonging to the Ashbrook family. They lived in the end terrace house and at the end of the garden adjoining was their large shop which opened and closed a few times during my childhood. The shop afforded some shelter from the rain while waiting at our Glen Wood bus stop for buses into Hyde. By the side of the shop was Green Lane, from where, by way of the back of Ashbrooke’s garage, we could collect frog spawn from the water from the side of the bomb craters in the field above.

I was allowed across this road if I used common sense and being an only child looking for things to do, would often, with permission, saunter up Green Lane towards the railway bridge and Dove Holes Farm. The land was rough, boggy in parts, with reed beds, cotton grass and May flowers in the spring. Lying in the grass and looking up to the blue skies, I could often hear skylarks. Green Lane marked the end of the town and the start of the country and I loved it. Werneth Low seemed a long way away and would be an adventure later on.

The Bridge that leads from Green Lane. 

The Iron Bridge

Dad was an unknown figure for he had been at war from my birth until I was nearly 6. He was “demobbed” in 1945 and came home in a smart suit. The war was over. A new chapter was opening.

ROGER V. CHADWICK

Many thanks, Roger !! :)

The Phantom Lorry of Hyde

 Here is a wonderful account of Hyde's very own Phantom Lorry !!

It was written by Jeffrey Stafford and very kindly sent to us by David Stafford. 

Thank you so much, Jeffrey & David !

I had heard about it but hadn't realised it was quite so famous !

Hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did !

 

 







   
A map showing the stretch of Mottram Road where the Lorry has been seen.
The New Inn is top right.

Thanks to Google maps. 
  
The following article was sent to us by CeeCee and also By Eric Downs ! It's great to have people helping us  get information together for the site. Keep it coming !!
 


Many thanks, CeeCee & Eric :)

Mottram Road And The Olive Tree

Another great view from Mottram Road, with Otto Monstead's Margarine Works on the right. The pub next door is The Olive Tree.

Postcards of Mottram Road

 Below are a couple of postcards depicting Mottram Road - I love how tranquil it is.  I believe, at one time, it was a popular walk along there and up to Godley Arches . 

Be very difficult to have a quiet walk down Mottram Road nowadays with all the traffic !

Mottram Road... Hyde ?

It says very faintly on the bottom left that this is 'Mottram Road'... I'm struggling to place this but I know you will soon put me right.

UPDATED

Duncan has identified this road. It is ,indeed, Mottram Road in Godley.
Below I have taken some screen shots to show you the location.





Thanks to Duncan for the extra informatiom.