The Geoff Burke Photographic Collection No.3

Delving for the third time into the photographs taken by my uncle, Geoff Burke. Perhaps a little background information might not go amiss here. Geoff was born in 1933 in Rochdale to John (my grandad) and Annie Burke. The first family home was on Church Street near the Rochdale gas works and despite the steep hill the smell from the works never failed to make me gag a bit whenever we visited my Great Grandma Brierley who was Annie's mother and who still lived on the street into the 1970s.

John and Annie however moved with their two children Allan (my Dad) and Geoff to a large house on Fenton Street in Rochdale not far away from the railway station. Geoff never married and spent many years caring for Annie after John passed away. Following her death at the age of 90, he moved to Blackpool, following Allan and his family who had moved there in the 1970s.

Despite the move he never sold, nor cleared out, the house on Fenton Street and this task fell to myself with my brother Frank and our families. Despite his claims that there were no old family photographs, we found many such albums. Whatever his motives were for denying their existence I have no idea.

It could be said that Geoff was a keen photographer. I tend to think of him more as a keen collector of photographic equipment that seldom got used and even then no one ever got to see many of the photos he had taken. He had a large collection of cameras and each one saw him go to his favourite spot to retake photos he had taken with every new camera, perhaps to compare them. Favourite spots were Broadfield Park behind the town hall and beyond to the parish church of St Chad.

Broadfield Park gave a fantastic vantage point, looking high above the town hall and town centre. Rochdale was well known in those days for having a very attractive town centre and had proudly named the road quite grandly as The Esplanade. It was home to the town hall, an astonishing number of banks, the main post office, Remembrance Gardens with a large cenotaph and a generously wide road.

The road was in part wide because it was one of the widest bridges in the world, covering the River Roch which disappeared somewhere near the main library at one end and only emerging some 446 metres later at the far side of the town centre. On its way it replaced no less than seven earlier bridges.

Broadfield Park was set against the steep slope towards the parish church and had the local nurses' home at one end. At the other end the terraced paths converged towards the junction of The Esplanade with Manchester Road. It had a large pond and a huge chunk of stone with a sign that said the stone had been moved here from somewhere in the Lake District by a glacier in the ice age. Bloomin' stone age men leaving their rubbish all over the place...!

Of more interest are the odd photos taken around the town. This is Oldmill Street either in or around the Lower Falinge district of Rochdale. I'm afraid I never did get all those many districts in my head. This street is now mostly residential but this photo betrays the reason for its name.

The car is a Ford Zephyr Mk II, one of the Three Graces of Consul (the cheapest and most basic), Zephyr and Zodiac (top of the range). They were made from 1956 through to 1962.

Not quite sure just where this is. Most of Uncle Geoff's photos were either shoved into tins and boxes and even the ones in albums had few hints as to who, what, when and where... Here, one lady isn't tempted at all by the thoughts of a new mop whilst another stares dubiously into the window of Domestrix, wondering how on earth vacuum cleaners work and whether they might be dangerous.

The Salvation Army Citadel. There is no identification other than this. Whilst I know that the present day building is on Newgate, I'm not sure where this is or was in the early 1960s. Leave a comment if you know? The cars shown here are a Wolseley 15/50 or 16/60 on the left and a Humber Sceptre.

A very early example of a supermarket, here shown just around the corner from Redcross Street. My grandad on my Mum's side had a traditional grocery shop on Yorkshire Street and it was the advent of these shops that led him to have to fold up and sell.

They were a halfway stage to today's supermarkets. For the first time you had to go and find and fetch your own collection of tins and bits and pieces instead of standing at the counter whilst the grocer did all the fetching and carrying for you. As far as I remember there were as yet no conveyer belts, you had to push all your purchases yourself along a formica plastic top until they were within reach of the till operator.

However all sorts of new goods were coming out at the time with brands such as Camay and Knights Castille soaps, individually wrapped replacing the large bricks of evil smelling red carbolic and dark green Fairy soaps that if not rinsed off quickly would strip hands of any remaining flesh - well that's what it seemed like, although of course they didn't...

A church social event. Annie Burke, my grandma, is next to the last lady on the right of the middle row and her mother, Maggie Brearley, is next to her to our left. What the event was I have no idea. They went all over to whist drives playing cards and she was never happier than when rummaging through a jumble sale - unless it was when trying to persuade you that you no longer needed your favourite pullover because there were needy people who needed it more than you.

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Grandma's 1930s Photo Album Part 2

The second and final instalment from this particular photograph album that was kept by my paternal grandparents.

I'll start with this one. It is undated but my Dad is there - Allan Burke, aged probably one-year-old and certainly no more than two so I'd guess 1933. His brother, my Uncle Geoff, was born in May 1933 and he does not appear in the photo, so either he wasn't yet born or my Grandma, Annie Burke, didn't trust any of the kids to hold him securely. Dad is held I think by Doris Woolfenden who would be his cousin once removed - the daughter of his Great-Aunty Florrie. They are in front of the door on the back row.

There are very few photos of Allan and Geoff playing with other children. Dad always said that Annie viewed most of the other children in the street as "a bit rough..." and discouraged her two sons from mingling. I suppose you have to bear in mind that she had lost three children in childbirth or infancy before Allan survived. It may have made her a bit over-protective.

August 1935. Allan, Annie and Geoff on the beach somewhere. The date is the only caption so I'm not sure where this is. They are paddling in a pool on the beach and I note Dad is wearing sandals in case of broken glass. I'm not sure those knitted romper suits would stand up well to being immersed in the sea somehow...

Happily they make it off the beach with gussets intact and have a go on what looks like some kind of racing game. If only they were tall enough to see what was going on!

Taken on Allan's third birthday in April 1935. I've no idea where this is either, but he has a satisfied and brave smile on his face despite the large piece of gauze plastered to his knee, the trophy of some endeavour or adventure!

Allan and Geoff with an unknown child between them on my grandad's Ariel motorbike. Enthusiasts may drool over this bike now but apparently it backfired once whilst my grandad (also called John Burke) was kick-starting it. It broke his ankle and he sold it soon afterwards.

Allan and Geoff on a more easily managed roundabout somewhere. No clues are given - it could be at the seaside somewhere or at their local beauty spot of Hollingworth Lake where there was a small fairground and amusement arcade.

Geoff in what I take to be a pedal car. The year is now 1936. Those look to be a serious pair of boots he's wearing...

This tricycle had started out as Allan's as another photo exists of him much younger riding it. Now he is riding pillion behind Geoff round the back of the house. The gasworks can be seen on the far right.

Tired out by their efforts - Geoff pedalling to go faster and Allan dragging his feet to keep the speed down - the boys take a breather on the doorstep. Ah... scratch that, there's no door... on the pavement then!

Geoff with my Great-Uncle Percy on a carousel. Once again there's no clue as to where this was taken.

Geoff on Church Street, Rochdale near the gas works. Up until my own teens my Great-Grandma Maggie Brierley and her sister Great-Gt-Aunty Florrie still lived on Church Street and the smell from the gas works was a bit whiffy to say the least! I never knew my Great-Grandad. Fred Brierley had died in 1949.

This looks like Southport boating pool. John holds onto both his sons who are eager to play with their model boats to the point of going in head first... If you look carefully at the far end of the pool you can see that it has a curved end and then immediately gets wider. I remember as a small boy holding onto the mast of my toy yacht and watching it cut through the water as I ran around the end of the pool. I reached the wider bit and plunged straight in up to my waist... My Mum was extremely annoyed but I think Dad thought it rather funny...

Somewhere else I recognise! Blackpool beach, just south of the South Pier. Annie is with both her sons and her parents, Maggie and Fred.

Allan with his Aunty Elsie, Annie's sister and wife of Percy who we saw on the carousel a bit earlier. Both John and Percy had motorcycle and sidecar combinations.

Allan and Geoff paddling in a pool. No idea where this is either. It's not deep enough for the pool at Southport, which in any case is not bordered by hedges. Answers on a comment or on a postcard please...

And we finish this article - and the album - with a photo of my Daddy in 1938. The pier looks like Blackpool's North Pier.

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Scenic Photographs from the Geoff Burke Collection

Out of the 1,157 photos that I've scanned of those in the my late uncle's collection, only a few are scenic in nature. Of those many are similar views of his home town, Rochdale.

I'd guess that whenever he got a new camera or tried a new type of film, he would go and take the same views to compare with previous photos and cameras etc. This did mean that I looked at many of the slides and negatives and thought "Oh, not again..." and just discarded them. But there were some interesting ones and some of those are presented here. This is the corner of the A58 Manchester Road and the splendidly named The Esplanade, leading off towards Rochdale's beautiful Town Hall seen in the background to the right of the photograph.

Taken in 1956, this shows the statue of the Angel on the corner opposite the town Library and at the entrance to Broadfield Park. It dated from 1899 and bore the inscription, "Presented to the town of Rochdale by Ellen Mackinnon. In memory of her mother Augusta sister of the late John Smith Entwisle of Foxholes". At one time it had two drinking troughs in front of it, a large one for horses and a smaller one for dogs. By 1961 it was showing signs of deterioration and was removed to the local Transport Depot where it was presumably broken up.

I'm not sure entirely which road this is, but there's a wonderful collection of 1950s cars travelling sedately down, whilst a convertible-topped sports car takes advantage of the lack of oncoming traffic to overtake the Vauxhall nearest the camera.

Taken in 1963 from Broadfield Park, all that space across the road is now taken up by an Asda store and the Sixth Form and Hopwood Hall colleges.

Taken some time in the 1960s this signal gantry was quite close to my grandparents' house which was only a ten minute walk away from the railway station. Semaphore signals have been in the process of being phased out in favour of coloured light signals for quite a while now. They were standardised in the 1870s at which time signals had mostly a horizontal or inclined downwards at 45 degrees position. Horizontal meant Danger/Stop whilst down meant Caution/Off (Clear). Heavy snowfalls could cause the arms to drop so it later became customary for arms to incline upwards instead of downwards for Caution/Off (Clear). This meant that if snow did cause the arm to fall it would be in the safer Danger/Stop position. Signals with a "fishtail" notch cut out at the end are Distant signals. They give advanced warning of the position of signals ahead, allowing a train to slow down should it be indicated that the next signal would require the train to stop.

Taken in 1968 (I only know from massively enlarging the photo to find the ABC cinema towards the right is showing Rosemary's Baby), this looks to have been taken from the balcony of Rochdale Town Hall one late afternoon. No fewer than four banks are seen here and identifiable traffic includes a Wolseley waiting for two people crossing the road, a Hillman Husky, Commer van, a Saab and the front half of a Hillman Imp on the extreme right. Three half-cab and open rear platform double decker buses are also in the scene.

A jump to 1984 now and another Hillman Imp travels past Rochdale's high rise flats. Known as the Seven Sisters, they were built in 1963 and currently plans to demolish some of them are meeting opposition from residents.

Taken in 1989 this is the magnificent Rochdale Town Hall, built to the designs of William Henry Crossland who won the competition for designs in 1864 and it opened in 1871. The original clock tower of 240 feet was destroyed by fire in 1883 and the current 190-feet tower was built in 1888. The interior and stained glass add to its beauty which apparently caused even Adolf Hitler to so desire it that he planned to have it shipped brick by brick to Germany had they won the war.

Behind the Town Hall the land rises very steeply to the Parish Church above, the rise occupied by Broadfield Park which we have seen before. Bordering the park then, are some very steep roads. Sparrow Hill led off to the right of the angel statue we saw earlier but the road was blocked off when Manchester Road was widened. Church Stile and Church Lane lead to the east and School Lane where the school sat on the corner, roads falling on all sides!

As far as I know Uncle Geoff only went abroad once, as a teenager with his Uncle Percy and Auntie Elsie. My Great-Uncle Percy had a photographic shop on Spotland Road, Rochdale and took commissions from local travel agencies and coach firms to take photographs and 16mm film of coach trips to the Continent, Austria and Switzerland. This is a view of Vienna taken in the 1950s. I still have some spools of 16mm film taken by Uncle Percy and some spools of audio tape containing Austrian music that would accompany the films at film shows at community halls and other venues in and around Rochdale.

Closer to home - indeed it is my home town - this is Blackpool, taken in 1956 at the Gynn area. In the background are the plywood laburnum tree illuminations that are probably the earliest of the Blackpool Illuminations themes that I remember.

And on the first day of December, I'll finish with this one taken of the beach at Blackpool with frozen seawater, Christmas 1976.

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Photographs from The Geoff Burke Collection

My late uncle was a keen photographer, but didn't exactly show us very many of his photographs... Perhaps it might be said he was a photo enthusiast more than a photographer, for although he had lots of photographs from the 1950s, 60s and even into the 1970s, after that they sort of peter out. Even though, during these later years he spent a great deal of money on darkroom and other equipment, much of which is of only academic interest these days.

So today I am going to delve into the collection of photographs uncovered after his death, with the focus being mainly on his lifetime, either photographs of him, or family, or taken by him.

A hand-coloured studio portrait of Uncle Geoff on the left sitting with his brother, Allan, my father on the right. This photograph always sat in a frame on top of the piano in the parlour which was only used at weekends and special occasions.

Uncle Geoff with his parents, my grandparents, at his Christening in 1934.

A street photograph of all the children living in the street. Taken around 1936, Geoff Burke is sitting on the knee of the young lad on the front row, third from the right. This must be Church Street in Rochdale, near the gasworks and the general poverty of the times can be seen particularly by the state of the two cricket bats, proudly held by boys in the photo. Both are splitting and coming apart, yet bound together by string, rags, anything that could be used to extend their life as precious playthings.

There were very many photographs, loose, framed and in albums, that were older (in some cases much older) than Geoff and I'll just include a couple here. Labelled on the back: "Charabang trip, Rochdale, early 1900s". The correct term was "charabanc" but they were commonly called "charabangs". I suspect they did bang quite a bit... The two ladies towards the back of the carriage - third and fourth from the left of the photo - are both relatives: my Great-Grandma Brierley and the other being Great-Gt-Grandma Woolfenden or Brierley. I've no way of knowing which.

The same two ladies are seen on a spanking new form of transport a year or two later, back row, fourth and fifth from the left.

This photo is of the Nativity play at St Alban's, Rochdale somewhere from 1948 to 1951. My Dad stands behind his mother who is looking somewhat glum. She was always apt to be a bit maudlin at Christmas and could be counted upon to stop most Christmas parties with "Eeh, our [name] would have been here last year..." Making the most of this hobby, the X markings are made by her to highlight people who have died since the photo was taken. Names and dates are listed on the back...

My Mum and Dad at Belle Vue Manchester, 1952/53. The zoo and amusement park had opened in 1836 and at their peak covered 165 acres and attracted in excess of two million visitors a year. The zoo closed in 1977 and the amusement park in 1980.

Dated 1966, Uncle Geoff picks up a prize at Rochdale Photographic Society. His attic still held a small collection of large prints of some of his photographs from competitions and exhibitions. A couple of the subjects were quite stunning young ladies. He used to hire photographic studios in Manchester along with models during the early 1960s. These young ladies would be in their 80s, if still surviving today. He had meticulously written records to be kept with the negatives. "x: petite, good figure, poses well, very good indeed." or "y:" (less enthusiastic description) "no good at all..."

My grandparents outside at the back of their house. This is the one we have just cleared. This will be in the first half of the 1960s.

In the harsh winter of 1962/63 the local beauty spot, Hollingworth Lake, above Rochdale froze over solid enough for people to enjoy a February day walking across it. Today if we had such a winter again there would be chains and "DANGER - DO NOT CROSS" signs everywhere!

Very rare are photographs of possessions. In the days when photography was film based and required expensive developing and printing, few people thought to "waste" film on what was then quite ordinary day-to-day objects. This type of travelling alarm clock, again from the early sixties, can still be found today, but the modern ones do not glow in the dark like this one would have. The green coloured dots at each number and on the hands was radioactive paint. So radioactive that it would glow in the dark. They were commonplace. Everyone had a watch with similar properties. Even my cherished Mickey Mouse watch glowed in the dark. In pitch dark we would hold it right up to our eyes to see how bright it could be! I'm still alive...

Many of the workers at factories though contracted cancer and died early. They had been told the radium/paint mix was harmless and as japes they would paint their fingernails and teeth, turn the lights out and smile at each other... They had also been told to ensure a fine point on the brush using their lips... Do a search for radium girls to find out more.

And we'll finish this time with a slightly less tragic story, but one much closer to home, as the fire in Uncle Geoff's photo here is his garage and car which was set ablaze by arson on 7 May 2002. Two garages and cars were destroyed, my uncle's Nissan Bluebird being only a few months old at the time.

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