1 post tagged “hyde grove”


Victoria Baths Chorlton- on-Medlock: I

This believe it or not is the pool I used to swim in as a kid it was just around the corner from the terrace houses in my last blog.

It is still there as it won a lot of money in a tv programme where lots of old buildings where featured that needed restoration (hence the name of the programme).

It was built i think in 1908 and shut down in 1993.

Originally it had 3 pools 2 males 1st and 2nd class!! and one female pool threre was also a turkish baths and a washroom people used to go there and have a bath as lots of the houses in the area didnt have bathrooms or could even afford hot water. Eventually the 3rd pool was boarded over and used as a sports hall and for a short period it was used as a dance hall and local ladies and gents danced away an evening at the tea dance.

When we used to go with the school it was freezing and we were terrified of the instructor who used to have a long pole and tap you with it to get you moving, I was never much of a swimmer always terrified of drowning and in awe of my peers who seemed so confident. My mother couldnt swim either so she never brought us to the pool out of school time.

Even now I am scared of putting my head under the water yet i can swim 45-60 lengths!!

What we loved loved loved the most was when we had got dressed and all wrapped up then we were allowed to buy a cup of 'oxo 'piping hot and some toast dripping with marg'....

Currently it is still being restored it has been featured in lots of tv shows over the years i remember it in Cracker and at the moment if you know the show'life on mars' you will spot it in there.

Back aching and back to work tommorow got to earn some dosh for my Kansas trip

Hyde Grove 1972 after compulsory purchase: .This is the street where i grew up i havent lived there since 1972 as then is when it came under compusory purchase order by Manchester City Council which means they want the land and also i think it means the houses are unfit to live in so they rehouse you in nice council houses in nice areas..of course most of the areas where lovely to us after living in 'the slums' (that s what they were called in the '60s)

I googled the address and found my excact house no. 8 in Manchester City libraries archive it was quite moving to see that house after all those years mine was the one with the little balcony above the downstairs window and i never remember that being there.

Any way we used to live there with my mother and 2 sisters and 2 brothers we all used to sleep in one bed in the attic and the other rooms were let of to lodgers even the front room!

I always remember the advert written on a postcard and put in the local shops for a 1d a week the advert went like this..DIGS FOR CLEAN WORKING IRISHMEN APPLY 8 HYDE GROVE OFF SHAKESPEARE ST C-ON-M. There would be one( A lodger not a postcard) in the little back room and 2/3 in the front bedroom and occasionally a long distance lorry driver used to stay in the front room downstairs he was called Dennis and wasnt Irish.

It was one of those streets where the kids played out all day and night and the women sat on the steps gossiping either to you or about you no one ever shut there door and you felt safe summers seem to last forever and i also remember the tar in the roads used to get so hot it used to bubble up. We used to play 'alleys' or 'marbles' in the grids a grid was a lid on top of an opening that you would lift up to put the coal down.

Some childhod memories

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