Scales Street Seedley Salford 6

A Memory of Salford.

Seedley, Salford 6

God, how this page is bringing back memories!
I'm a demob baby! Mind you, a lot of men coming back from the war celebrated the that's why the baby boom happened! Although born in Old Trafford, my first home was 1, Scales Street, Seedley, Salford 6. We were the corner shop, far, far smaller than anything you'd get today. We had a small tap room where dad kept the cigarettes and the beers, including a small barrel of Guinness and one of beer. Little Billy something or other from number 35 or so would come in every Friday with a large enamelled jug and get his dad's usual couple of pints. He came prepared with a damp tea towel to cover it as he carefully escorted his precious cargo home. The shop itself only allowed space for around three or four customers at a time and although we sold pretty much everything, the strict rationing that still obtained did limit the stock levels.

Outside, every Monday morning, you'd see quite a few housewives busily using their 'whitening stones' on their doorsteps and making sure that their leaded windows, if they had them, were shiny. The brickwork was dirty: this is Lowry country. We were on the corner of Scales Street and Highfield Road, which climbed up to Seedley Road, where on the other side you were confronted by the imposing and forbidding complex of flats, Sutton Dwellings. Seedley Road itself ran from Langworthy Road to the left and to the right it climbed round to the left, up to near where Broad Street became Eccles Old Road.

At number 9 lived Charlie Pickles and his wife May. A joiner by trade, he'd been a sergeant in the Manchester Regiment at the Battle of Vimy Ridge. I remember the tears and the faraway look in his eye as he told me of their advance under fire. I was the son he had never had and number 9's door was always open for me. Unlike ours, their lavatory was outside in the little yard. Remember those aerial shots, the next time you watch Coronation Street. Those original credits show you just how little space they had in those backyards. Mind you, it's certainly show you how close communities were in those days -- you always knew when your neighbour was setting out back, smoking and reading his papers!

Oh yes, the rag and bone man! The cart with its hard-working horse and you could hear him from the next street sometimes as he shook his loud handbell and bellowed what sounded like "RAA-BOWWn”. Whatever he was given, his reward was standard and pathetic -- stones for the step or balloons for the kids. Still it worked because his cart was usually well covered.

Scales Street, like a lot of the other estates, arose because of the need to provide housing for the thousands of workers needed in the many industrial operations developing in Salford and Manchester. They weren't built to last and the late 19th century network of streets had disappeared when I last paid a nostalgic visit: the old network of streets remained but all trace of housing had gone, showing just how small they had been.