Manchester, 1970

Seeing as we have gone way back in time for the last few entries, let's have a look at Manchester as it was in 1970.

On Market Street, Debenhams had yet to take over Pauldens department store opposite the well established Lewis's. The trams and trolley buses had disappeared in the 1950s and the Metro trams were not to appear for another 25 years.

The Swinging Sixties had only just finished and mini skirts were gradually being replaced by flared trousers and maxi and midi skirts.

Piccadilly Gardens were still gardens - a mini park on the square at the top of Market Street. It was a place to sit and enjoy the flowers and lawns and the benches along the pathways. Across the road from the gardens Wellington House was still the home of the BBC in Manchester.

Mosley Street runs towards Market Street behind the camera - it's a long time since I've been to Manchester but since the introduction of the tramway system, Market Street seems to have been split into two with the side that contained Lewis's (later Primark) being called Fountain Street. I'm not quite sure how the two sides of a street can have different names, but there you go...

Anyway, this is still Mosley Street in the days when it was common to see two Triumph Herald cars next to each other.

I used to take the train every Saturday with my mate Alex and our first stop would be the burger cart on the corner of Pauldens. Burger were both yummy and eatable without quite as much mess as they inevitably produce today. A 2oz patty was considered standard and accompaniments were fried onions which stacked on a hot plate helped keep the burgers warm, mustard, tomato ketchup and nothing else. No salad, no pickle just a very tasty burger that you could expect to stay pretty much together whilst you ate it. Bring back those days! And whilst you're at it, let's have a Wimpy back on every High Street!

You can only see the very start of the word on the cart, but burgers were still hamburgers at this time. Trading Standards later demanded they be renamed beef burgers as they weren't made of ham, but the name came from the place burgers were first made - Hamburg in Germany.

A Manchester Index page will appear eventually

My First SLR Camera - The Zenit B

This article was originally published with just two photos in July 2009. I've refreshed and enlarged the images somewhat and found another two to join them.

I've laid off the negatives for a while and have dug out some old slides to scan.

These are from 1969 and go back to the first SLR (single lens reflex) camera I ever had. I paid a princely £20 for it...and it was brand new too! It was a Zenith B camera made in Russia and I bought it from Dixons who badged it as a Prinzflex - their own brand, gluing a plastic Prinzflex badge over the front of the camera where the word Zenit (the Russians didn't use the 'h') was etched in the metal body. This shot is of a rose stem with the sun coming from behind it. I only noticed later that the thing was covered in greenfly - that'll be my mum not spraying it then... ha ha!

The second shot is of some of the berries that grew in abundance on the trees at the back of our house. We lived in Milnrow, a village between Rochdale and Shaw in what was to become Greater Manchester, but was still part of Lancashire at the time. I remember a young lad who lived a few doors down from us, eating them. I was only fourteen and had a worrying moment when he refused to spit them out. I had to insert a finger to flick them out of his mouth. He was ok, but I bet he had a bad tummy ache that night!

A close-up look at the inside of a flower. Despite once working at an agricultural college for a while during my career, I have never got beyond this simple way of identifying plants: Coloured things on top - a flower; no coloured things - either a bush or it's winter; very tall brown "pole" holding it up - a tree; very low down, green and pointed ends - a mowed lawn... Works every time!

Personal Memories Index

Rochdale and Area in the 1960s

Almost as soon as I got my first instamatic camera (a Kodak Instamatic 50) in the 1960s I started experimenting with black and white film which could be developed and printed at home by taking over the bathroom and blacking it out with either sheets of thick plastic or by shovin drawing pins into the window frames through a few layers of blankets... This also meant that the family had to wait sometimes for quite a while before they could use the loo... but sacrifices have to be made. Not by me though - I was already in there!

Hollingworth Lake in Littleborough was Rochdale's main go-to place for relaxation. It was really a reservoir, covering a village so the rumours went. Of course there was another that said you could hear the church bells on stormy nights... Must be a ghostly one then because there are no buildings left apart from very low walls and foundations some of which showed themselves during the droughts earlier this year.

The lake used to be a hive of activity in summer, yachting, motor boats for hire, the odd brave person (or the brave odd person) swimming... and fishing. I was never a dedicated fisherman, but went several times with a mate, Barry, fishing on the canal and once at the lake where we persuaded someone in a boat to take our lines right out from the shore. On reeling back with a spinner lure I felt a bit of weight and eventually had a 2lb pike on the line. Perhaps not on the hook through as it dropped back into the water on being lifted out. Drat!

There was a tiny fair and a few one-armed bandits at the Lake, but every year a travelling fair would set up and we would go to enjoy the atmosphere and grab a few photos.

There was a scrap yard somewhere, possibly around the end of Albert Royds Street (now Rochdale Bypass) but round the back of Halifax Road, and I used to go taking photos of the wrecked cars there, with a mate. The chap who worked there soon got to know us and apart from a warning not to go climbing up the stacked cars, was happy to let us in to wander.

This was a Hillman Minx, a tank of a car, one of which was to be my own first four-wheeled car after a brief dalliance with Reliant three-wheelers at the age of 16. I would only be 13 at the time of these outings.

It's fascinating looking at these now - not so much for the girls - who let's face it are a bit young for me now ha ha - but this is Yorkshire Street, Rochdale in the swinging 1960s. As far as I remember it was 1967, the Summer of Love. You know, I always wondered... Where was all that free love that we heard so much about, going on? This must have been one of the first black and white films I ever developed myself. Full of drying marks too... But just look how busy Yorkshire Street is...

Snapped walking across a zebra crossing. The girls were walking the opposite way, towards us and I got a smile from one of them.

Rochdale Index Page

Stock Cars at Rochdale Hornets Ground

These photos were taken oon a 126 Kodak instamatic camera, and I guess they date from 1969.

At that time, Rochdale Hornets rugby ground had a dirt track running around it that was used for BRISCA Formula 1 stock car racing. Races used to take place on Sunday afternoons and we quickly became avid followers.

Cars that had been written off were resurected from scrap yards and furnished with huge engines - 7 litres were the most highly prized cars. It was part of the fun to look at the backs of the cars to try and recgnise what they were originally when they were just ordinary road cars.

At the tail end of the 1960s we were looking at the tail ends of cars originally sold during the later 1950s. That bit of bodywork, though, was almost the only surviving component. Apart from the supercharged engines, roll bars and cages were the norm and brakes that could stop a car without the need to open a door and drag your foot on the floor...

This was a contact sport. nudging or "nerfing" another car either to try to pass or to spin it off the track was encouraged and a well-practiced manouvre. Very occasionally it would result in a more spectacular result with a car riding up the outer barrier or rolling over (hence the standard fitting of roll cages!) Whilst injuries were a risk they were very few and far between.

Coloured lights were used to warn drivers of a serious pile-up ahead causing an obstruction and in cases where an injury or high risk, such as someone trapped in a car where it was likely to be hit, the red lights used at the end of each heat to stop the cars were lit.

Rochdale Index Page

Rochdale Index Page

A series of articles covering our original home town of Rochdale. It was mentioned in the Domesday Book, started out in Lancashire and somehow found itself in Greater Manchester.

I've had to be selective a little bit as some other articles set in the town can be reached from the Personal Memories or Family Memories index pages, though the articles featured here are mostly about the town itself rather than what I or my ancestors got up to in it...

Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to each of the articles. A link on each page will bring you back here.

Rochdale Town Centre, 1981

Some of my own photos of Rochdale this time, as opposed to those of my late Uncle Geoff.

During the 1980s and 90s whilst Miss Franny's parents were still alive we used to make regular trips over to Rochdale to see them. Every now and then I'd go out with the camera, sometimes with Bob if he didn't fancy whatever sporting event was on the telly. This is Rochdale's main town centre road, grandly called The Esplanade.

Designed by William Crossland who won a competition for the honour of doing so, the town hall was opened in 1871. Its clock tower, topped by a spire and a gilded statue of St George and the Dragon was destroyed in a fire in 1883. The preent clock tower is 190 feet tall (58m), some 50 feet shorter than its predecessor and was designed and completed within four years.

Rochdale's parish church is dedicated to St Chad and sits behind and above the town hall, accessed from below by a flight of 124 steps dating from some 400 years ago. It has roots in Anglo Saxon England and a tale that fairies or spirits repeatedly moved stones intended for building from a riverside spot to the top of the hill where it now stands.

A fountain near the site was known as the Packer Spout and in Victorian times the whole are was full of slum housing, many used for prostitution and the area known as the Gank.

The churchyard has kept its old set of stocks although the wooden bits have had to be replaced - more than once I'd guess. Sadly they are not still in used...

Looking further down the town centre, the new council office block was not particularly well-loved by the populace and became known derisively as the Black Box. Given that that unofficial term had become so well-used, it seemed somewhat inappropriate that the Council decided to name it Nelson Mandela House...

The complex included a new bus exchange that no one liked using at night due to its isolated location and its exposure to the elements.

The ABC Cinema, ex-Regal Cinema and shortly after this photo was taken, inevitably, a Bingo Hall. It was showing the Bond film For Your Eyes Only, The Time Bandits and the (ahem) artistic classic Flesh Gordon...

On the very edge of the town centre the River Roche emerged from the widest bridge in the world and flowed past the garages of Yelloway coaches with their familiar yellow and orange livery.

Moving back to opposite the Town Hall, the building to the left of the photograph was the town's main Post Office. A couple of bright red K6 telephone kiosks can be seen just to the left of the buildings front elevation.

The Central Library and Art Gallery seen from the slopes of Broadfield Park. Some of Rochdale's more modern buildings for the backdrop.

Rochdale Index Page

Valletta to Barcelona on Oceania Sirena, 2026

Join us for a ten-day cruise on the Oceania Sirena cruise ship, sailing from Valletta in Malta and ending at Barcelona, after splashing our way around the Western Mediterranean Sea. And it's another chance for us to catch up with entertainer friends Tomas and Maris!

Each day is shown on its own separate entry, reached by clicking/tapping the seven photos below. A link on each page will bring you back here.

Return to Cruise Holidays Index