Miles Platting Naylor Street Flats

A Memory of Miles Hill.

Well not just 1953 but for most of the 50s, I was brought up by my Grandparents Charlie & Elsie Duffy "Mam & Dad" to me. Mam's family had a newsagents shop years eariler on Gunson Street, hence when they built the old pre war flats ( WITH a bath I may add!!) Mam married a local lad & decided to settle in the area. Good days and times to live in Miles Platting, although Mam wasn't one to mingle she kept herself to herself she was very well known and repsected in the area, and she more or less brought me up to do the same. I went to Georgie Lee Street school but not for long, then on to Abbot Street and finally what was Holland Street. Memories are of sneaking up the back Ginnels to place a bet on at Creegan's for my Dad. The feuds at Whitsun with the Catholics and Protestants, absolute mayhem, and for me not nice memories of seeing local kids sat on the pub steps of the Angel, Vulcan, Pack Horse etc with a bag of crisps & a bottle of lemonade while their parents got bloto inside then came out and knocked hell out of each other ( something I was never subjected to ) or any of my brothers or sisters!! Lucas the butchers, on Oldham Road, Chapman Street would run from Oldham Road to Rochdale Road, Mays the pawn shop on Butler Street. I can't remember all the names of the shops but there was Prices bakers, Plants what had womans aprons hanging outside, the Butler Cinema, Jacobs shoe shop near Butler Brew, and Newmans Fruit and Veg...Oh, and Cummins wool shop. Not forgetting Jim Carrs Ribs !! haaaaa and the tripe shop...On Oldham Road there was Ben Hartleys Mens outfitters where Dad got clobbered up for 12/6..and Sufflebottoms glass wear. Then Masons where we bought our oil cloth and the Granellis ice cream shop...St Barnabas Church where I went to Sunday school and walked with them every year until I was 10; proud as punch, pouring rain, we walked to Albert square and back in the most beautiful dresses ever!!! Women used to go to the wash house, (Mam went relgiously every Friday morning at 8am) trolly piled high with all the family's washing. Mam worked in one of the local mills all her life - Shaw Jardines and the Roya in the Gassing room, she took early retirment at 55 and it was all down hill for her after that 'cos she loved to go to work. Dad was a well known character, especially in the Dan O'Conells, The Ram and the Heywood all the chesters houses. He died on his 63 birthday 19th May 1963 and we had to hire a flat back lorry to collect all the masses of wreaths from every boozer in MOP Collyhurst, Ancoats and even town haaaa!! Yeah they was very happy, happy, carefree days. I left the area when I was 11 ( due to my parents being reloacated to Langley in 1958) and they decided it was time I was sent "home". I had other ideas and within 9 months I was back living with Mam & Dad and thats when I went to Holland Street.. Most of my friends were catholics though and went to St Pats & Corpus. I can remember very well me coming in from school one day and asking Mam if i could go to St Pats. She was washing the floor with a bucket of soapy water and my head went in it !!!! Haaaaa ( imagine doing that today). Mam was a very bitter lady and would cross over the street rather than walk past a Catholic church...Sadly....I could waffle on all day....But enough Its all been in the "Blink of a eye". Now my oldest granddaughter is almost 21, & we have a totally different quality of life....I'm still in touch with some old school friends from Holland Street; Linda Mason and Sally Fleming and I've seen Alan Conroy many times....Happy, Happy, times xx