No fellas, no kids, no-one mithers me

I’ve got no fellas, no kids and no-one mithers me. It was good to move here. I like my life. I’m in bed for 6.00pm and up at 10.00 am, but I have insomnia. I can’t settle. Mum died 9 years ago this September, aged 70. Dad died 4 years ago in January at 72. Thomas, my brother died at 59, on 18 March 2014. He was a drinker. I liked a drink, but I stopped 6 months before mum died. Mum stopped me drinking, her death. I have a memorial garden for mum, dad and Thomas, Everyone knows it. It lights up in summer.

From an interview with Christine Coad, 2015
Interviewers: Ged Martin and Simon Grennan

A tight-knit community

Sarah Pownall, at the Welcome in 2015, talks about growing up on Longridge in the 90s, and how the community used to be.
Interviewer: Vanessa Cardui.

Someone Else Can Clear It Up

From an interview with Rose Oliver in 2015, about how the community has changed:

In the early days, Longridge was a close-knit community and people took pride in their houses and environment – they cleaned their homes and swept the paths and the  pavements. The men worked hard to establish their gardens; the soil is very difficult. Even today, a lot of residents are related.

Now there is increasing fly-tipping, untended gardens, and there seems to be an attitude of “someone else can clear it up”. A lot of the houses are privately owned now.

While the estate was being built, there was a hut in the car park at the side of the shops, where you went to report any problems with your house or the area. This was helpful. This hut disappeared after around 3 years, and you had to go to Manchester City Council instead, who owned the estate. They sent the rent collector on a weekly basis and I seem to recall that one of them was charged with stealing the rent…

Interviewers: Diane Lomax and Lucy Beesley

Longridge was seen as an overspill

Longridge houses and streets have numbers, but Shaw Heath have street names. Shaw Heath was really recognised as a village, whereas Longridge was seen as an overspill.

I remember the butcher’s at Parkgate – he wouldn’t serve people from Longridge. The rent man came every week to collect rent. People could be told off if the garden wasn’t tidy! Brownhill was the rent man’s name, and he collected cash in hand.

The strange round car parks on the estate were something to do with the 1970s Olympics. They were like the Olympic rings.

From an interview with Rowena Acton in 2014
Interviewer: Lucy Beesley

Royal Garden Party, 2013

In 2013, the Welcome Community Centre was honoured with an award for its work in the community, and staff were invited to a Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace to receive the award. Elenor McAndrew, chef at the Welcome Cafe, was chosen to attend.

Here are the things Elenor was sent by Buckingham Palace to invite her to the event, including the envelope that the official invitation came in (with her surname spelt wrong!), complete with the Lord Chamberlain’s official stamp; and a label and marker to put on your car windscreen to allow you to park near the Palace.

The envelope

The invitation

A leaflet giving security advice

Car windscreen label

Car windscreen marker

Front of printed guide

Inside of printed guide

Memorial garden 2010

Anne Comley and her daughter Denise talk about the memorial garden near their house, created around 2010 in memory of their neighbour Bob.

Photos and audio: Vanessa Cardui and Diane Lomax.

There was a land grab

Great Places Housing Group is a different type of landlord to Manchester City Council. With MCC, there were no fenced gardens, they weren’t allowed, and two full time groundsmen/ gardeners, an older one and a younger one. All the free space was grass back then on both estates. When GPHG took over, there was a land grab. People pinched the land to make their own back gardens, for anything, flowers, bowling, big sheds. I couldn’t have taken advantage of that, even if I’d wanted to: my house was on the edge, so I was hemmed in.

From an interview with Stanley Seddon in 2015.
Interviewers: Ged Martin and Simon Grennan.

Before the parade, 1985

Retiring queen Nicky Wright and her borther Wayne in the front garden of their house, before the parade started. Nicky said in an interview in 2015:

The year I was Queen, he was the crown-bearer – which was fluke. I was on a float, but I think he walked – because he did drop the crown at one point!

I remember him being Tarzan one year – on a skateboard, bless him! And he dressed up as a woman once, which is quite ironic, because he earns his money as a drag queen now.”

Photos courtesy of Nicky Wright.
Interviewer: Vanessa Cardui.

Nicky Wright, Carnival Queen 1984

Nicky Wright, Carnival Queen 1984, photographed in her garden. The first two pictures were taken before the parade (as shown by the fact that she is wearing a small tiara, and not the actual crown); the last picture is at a family party at her house after the Carnival itself (she is wearing the real crown). In this last photo, she holds a giant teddy-bear that her Nan gave her as a present to celebrate being Queen.

Photos courtesy of Nicky Wright.

Garden disco, 1979

Amanda West holding another child, name unknown. Other children in shot, names unknown.

Alison West (in yellow, at the back), Vanessa McCauley (next row, centre, in red jumper and pink collar), Amanda West (next row, centre, in pink, leaning forward)

Vanessa McCauley (back, left, in red jumper and pink collar); Alison West (back, right, in yellow); Amanda West (2nd row, 2nd from left, in pink) Other children, names unknown.

A summer party in the garden of 103 Longridge, the West family’s home, in about 1979. The house had a large garden, as it was on a corner. The children are having a disco, as shown by the record-player and speakers in the background of the first picture.

Photos courtesy of Elenor McAndrew.

Elenor West, 1978

Elenor McAndrew, nee West, with her then boyfriend and the boyfriend’s dog, in about 1978. The photo is taken outside the back door of Elenor’s family home at 103 Longridge.

Photo courtesy of Elenor McAndrew.

103 Longridge, 1977

Outside 103 Longridge, where Elenor McAndrew grew up, in about 1977.

Back row, L to R – Elenor’s siblings Alison and Raymond, and (in yellow shirt) a friend of Raymond’s (name unknown).
Front: Elenor’s sister Amanda.

The old flats are visible in the background.

Photo courtesy of Elenor McAndrew.

Moving from Manchester

From an interview with Rose Oliver in 2015 about moving to Longridge:

I moved to Longridge in 1970 with my partner and five children.

I think most people came to Longridge from Wythenshawe in Manchester. I had 5 children and a pram, and I lived in a top floor flat in Wythenshawe Park in Northern Moor, in Manchester. It was difficult! I asked to be housed locally, but there was nothing available in Manchester and I was offered a place in Longridge: a 3 bedroom house in the country where the children could play outside.

Interviewers: Diane Lomax and Lucy Beesley.

A letter from Australia

Here is the text of some emails sent to the Creation Of A Community project by Margaret Henderson, nee Armstrong, former resident of Longridge, now living in Thirlmere, New South Wales, Australia. Margaret and her family were among the earliest residents of Shaw Heath, moving in in 1958.

 

1) Via contact form on the project website: 4^th July 2015
Hi,
I saw the article [in the Knutsford Guardian] on the project to do a history on Shaw Heath & Longridge. My family moved into Shaw Heath in 1958 & we were one of the first residents to move in. My parents emigrated to Australia in September 1969. I have quite a few photos of our house in Hayfields & around the local area plus have lots of memories of how we settled in and what it was like to see a real live cow for the first time as our house backed on to the Clarkson’s farm.

Hoping to hear from you, still get very homesick for Knutsford even after all these years!!!