MEMORIES ‘A PARK FOR THE PEOPLE’ Park

In 1926 Peter Tatton sold and its Park to Ernest and Sheena Simon, later Lord and Lady Simon. They presented it as a gift to the City, to be kept as an open space for the people of Wythenshawe.

It is much loved, especially by local residents. Many have a relationship with the Park that goes back to childhood and they, in turn, have taken their own children and grandchildren there.

During Spring 2008 local people were invited to share their memories of the Hall and Park in a special exhibition, „A Park for the People‟.

Over 40 people contributed, aged between 11 and 91.

Thank you to everyone for sharing their memories

Thank you also to Wythenshawe FM and Alex Parker-Brown for the oral history recordings and Parkway Green Housing Trust for funding their transcription CONTRIBUTORS

1 Ann Hilary Lloyd 2 Rhona Webster 3 Christine McCarthy 4 Jane Clinton 5 Arthur Buxton 6 Julie Gilkes 7 Brenda Lasch 8 Graham Sant 9 Roy S Ashworth 10 Mary Thomas 11 Hilda Nicholls 12 Anita Royle 13 Irene Davies 14 Susan Parker 15 Joseph Hawkland 16 Madeline 17 Trish Towe 18 Hazel Garside 19 Iris Commons 20 Donna Cunneen 21 Joe Hogan 22 John Steedman 23 Jean Belluz 24 Ron Green 25 Maureen Donnelly 26 Isabel Broughton 27 Philippa Lloyd 28 Colin Evans 29 Dawn Warriner 30 Julie Rogers 31 Arthur Buckley 32 Joan Theakston 33 Sarah Clements 34 Mary Clements 35 Susan Horton 36 Lucas Horton 37 Gavin Evans 38 Doris North (Interview by the NW Sound Archive)

SELECTION OF IMAGES 1 Ann Hilary Lloyd

INTERVIEW AT WYTHENSHAWE FM, FEBRUARY 2008

So Hilary what are your favourite memories of Wythenshawe Park and Wythenshawe Hall? My favourite memories are of riding from Piper Hill Riding School, round the Park. When you had worked there for a couple of years you actually got to take rides out and it was wonderful. I remember taking a ride out once and we had just got down [?] Road, crossed over into the Park and there was a little grey pony and it put its head down and the girl didn‟t let go of the reins and off she went, plop. Broke all her fingers and she wouldn‟t get back on. So I had to walk back with her, leading her horse and mine and all the ride as well, back to the riding school. And there was a doctor‟s across the road. Took her into the doctors and never saw her again. I think it put her off actually. But we used to love riding round the park. All the way round, it used to take an hour and then back. That was the best time of my life that. I was about 11. Because I was born in but I didn‟t pass my 11 plus and my father who was a bit of a snob didn‟t want me to go to School so I came to Newall Green and I didn‟t know anything about Wythenshawe, but on the bus I saw the riding school. So I used to go every day after school, every weekend, all weekend. It was wonderful. And the park was lovely then, although there were lots of places you couldn‟t go. You weren‟t allowed on the grass. There were all these signs „Keep off the grass‟. Loads of park wardens; what did they call them then? They weren‟t park wardens. Parkies, who were very, very strict. You would practically get shot if you went on the grass but it was lovely. Then later on I worked in the park in the Horticultural Centre selling the plants, that was nice, I enjoyed that. So that‟s my memory of the park.

How many horses were there? I think there was probably 10 or 12, something like that. We used to take them down Ford Lane in the summer and turn them out there and then go back and bring them back. We used to have gymkhanas on Shaftesbury Avenue and we had lots of rosettes; we won lots of prizes and things. We used to practice like mad in the field; it was great.

Did you help to groom the horses? Yes we used to muck out, groom, clean the tack, teach the kiddie-winkies in the paddock how to ride and then eventually when you had done all that you got to take rides out and that was such…that was your real star that. Means you didn‟t have to pay anything for it. It was great, good fun.

Did you have all the equipment like hard hats and everything? No, there was no healthy and safety things then. No, if you fell off you just risked it, you know. We all had jodhpurs that were very wide and if it was a bit windy you tended to get a touch of the Mary Poppins with them because they stuck out like mad those jodhpurs. But we didn‟t wear hard hats, no. Some did, but it wasn‟t compulsory then.

Was it in all weathers or only fine? No, we were there all weathers. The yard used to flood. We used to have to lie down and scoop all the straw out of the drains to try and get the water out of the stables. We were there in all weathers. Right throughout the year, it was wonderful. Even on Christmas day we used to go down. The horses were all in, in the winter. They still had to be fed and mucked out and cuddled and kissed and loved and talked to.

Plenty of sugar lumps? Yes it was great, really good. They still have riding in the park now. The stables are in the park now and you can book and have a ride. They ride round the same track that we did which is lovely really to keep that going.

[Work in the Horticultural Centre and Sherry?] How about the Horticultural Centre? Yes, I started off as a volunteer there. I used to have a lady living with me who was disabled, so I couldn‟t go out to work every day. I started off as a volunteer and then when the management changed, they said I couldn‟t volunteer, I had to be paid for it. They insisted I got paid for it. I said I didn‟t want paying but eventually they forced me to have this wage every week, which was very nice. Of course originally you weren‟t allowed in the Horticultural Centre because they used to grow all the plants there for the Town Hall and the and places like that; and they were really good quality. So the gates were always shut and everybody was dying to go in and have a root and then eventually, not that long ago really, probably in the 1990s they opened it up to the public so you could go in and buy their excess plants that they didn‟t need. And it was very popular. We had our regular customers, it was great, really nice and sometimes Sherry used to come in with me. She used to sit there in her wheelchair. It was nice, had little regulars and the gardens were beautiful; it was really nice. We used to watch the ducks and the moorhens from the pond. It was nice seeing the seasons coming and going, you know, in the spring we used to have sweetpeas growing up the fence and it was really nice, very pleasant. I don‟t work there now.

So you are involved with Park Watch, what is that about? Wythenshawe‟s Parks watch. That is for all the Wythenshawe parks and we do need more members. We meet once a month. It is just to raise money to pay for new benches. And everything that goes on in the park basically comes through grants from here, there and everywhere and you are talking about a lot of money really. We are hoping to get an older person‟s playground in the park.

That sounds fun. For over 50s, why not? We always go on the swings when there is no one looking.

We are all kids at heart anyway. Yeah, so it would be nice to get an older person‟s playground in, so we are hoping to do that. But we have to raise the money. So that is very satisfying really to have an idea and then actually see it happen. It‟s great. I enjoy that.

Nan Nook Woods? Yes Nan Nook Woods is a site of…it is a very important site isn‟t it? It has been long neglected and at the moment they are clearing out all the drains, the natural waterways. So we are hoping that will encourage more birds into it. Because you can‟t go into Nan Nook Woods in the summer because it is full of giant man eating midges!

Whereabouts is Nan Nook Woods? It just runs along from the athletics track, down along Wythenshawe Road. It is quite a big wood actually.

I know where you mean. A very ancient wood and it has got lots of bluebells in it and we are hoping to put lots of bird boxes up and things like that. And it is a bit of a mess at the moment because they are still digging out the trenches you know, the waterways. But it will be lovely when that is up and running. Nice, very pleasant. There are woodpeckers in there as well.

Natural flora and fauna of Wythenshawe. Plenty of it, yes, if you go looking you‟d be surprised what you can find.

[Hilary’s daughter Philippa works at the Park as Assistant Manager.] Have you always lived quite near the Park and did you bring Pips in when she was a child? Yes, Philippa used to go in quite a lot.

I understand your daughter is associated with the park as well, is that Philippa? Yes she works there and she used to go in when she was little. We used to take the dog in and climb a few trees and things like that; paddle in the brook and then take the dog and bath the dog and the child! Yes it is a lovely park and there is something in it for everybody, every age. I don‟t care how, what abilities you have got, there is something that you can do in there. It is beautiful, I am very proud of our park.

Quite rightly too. How long have you lived in Wythenshawe and how long have you been going to the park? I spent most of my life in Chorlton-cum-Hardy but I think we moved to Broad Road in Sale when Philippa was two and then we moved into Wythenshawe. So I have probably been there about 25 years; something like that and always used the park for that length of time. Seen a lot of changes, some for good, some for bad. It is on the up again now.

You have passed your love of the park onto Philippa as well? Yes she loves it yes. She had big ideas for it which if we had a bit more money we could do.

So Hilary do you mind telling me how old you are? I am 65, just.

You don’t look it Thank you; it‟s the mud, it‟s the mud that keeps you!

The beautifying qualities of Wythenshawe mud. Yes, Wythenshawe Park mud, very good for the complexion.

[It would be good to ask Hilary about special events.] Do you have any special events you can remember about Wythenshawe Park or even the Hall? Well I remember the re-enactments that we have every year. Those are superb, such good fun. Bit noisy but good fun. And the fair of course; we always used to go on the fair every year, which got louder and louder for longer and longer but that was good as well. And bonfire night that is a really good night out; used to enjoy that, still do. But I have got some good photographs of the re-enactment, one is quite amusing because I took it from inside the yard looking out and you can tell it is a modern park, there are cars and vans there. But two of the men who were taking part in the re-enactment were pulling the canon across at the time to do it. And I have just got this photograph of this canon being pulled across by these two dressed up men. It looks strange with all the vans and cars around them. But the re-enactment is brilliant, really good.

A lot of involvement with and the Roundheads? Yes and funnily enough, there is the last remaining relative of the Tattons [Francis Broun]. He lives in Canada and he comes every year to watch the re-enactment. And I was talking to him last year and he is a lovely man, really nice, very interesting.

So Hilary in conclusion, what does Wythenshawe Park mean to you? Everything, it is a lovely big green space…and we really need places like that. We need to keep it going. We need to keep the woods in good condition so we can attract as many animals and plants. It‟s just, it‟s just lovely for every age, every ability; it is just a beautiful big green space in a noisy, dirty, big city.

Thank you very much indeed. So Hilary can you tell us your full name and perhaps your age? Ann Hilary Lloyd, 65 years of age, born in January you can send me a card.

How long have you been associated with Wythenshawe Park and Wythenshawe Hall? About 25 years roughly. Well no, longer, probably 30 – 35 years. Maybe even longer when I think about it. Probably longer. I am 65 now, it must be 40 years off and on.

I used to come in the park. And my friend told me about the Horticultural Centre and I‟d never been in it before and went into it and I was absolutely amazed. It was fantastic. It was called the Safari walk and the way it was done, the little path going through these greenhouses. And it was just like being transported somewhere in a foreign place. And they had a waterfall at the end and a little stream running through it and there were greenhouses going off it. It was just fantastic to walk through there. All these great big cactuses growing right high touching the top of the green house. And I was just amazed that this place was there. Somebody had worked really hard. And there was a place where they had birds in the greenhouse that goes off it and there was like a pool there and little paths that wondered through it and you go under like a bridge thing. And it was just lovely and there were all these different, these foreign flowers, very exotic so it really transported you. You felt like you were in another country, it was very warm in there. I worked at Piper Hill special needs school and we used to take the children regularly there. And the children, you know, were fascinated by all these big flowers and bananas as well, banana trees, oranges, lemons, you know you don‟t see many of them in peoples‟ gardens. So it was a fantastic sight and the kids loved coming here and going through the safari walk. It was really smashing you know for the students of Piper Hill. We used to enjoy our visits.

I remember I used to come in the park sometimes with a friend and we found this tree that was always full of caterpillars. I don‟t know what sort it was but it was great for climbing up. We used to climb up the tree and then we‟d sit in it amongst the leaves where you really couldn‟t be seen and we would wait for people walking past underneath. And in those days men always used to wear trilbies and our aim was to try and get as many caterpillars as we could into the rim of the trilby or better still into the little hollow bit that was on the top of it. And we used t think that was wonderful and since then I have often wondered what these men thought because the caterpillars wouldn‟t have gone anywhere, they‟d have stayed in the hat until they got home. And I used to think, I wonder what they thought finding half a dozen caterpillars crawling round their hats. We got to be very good shots with those caterpillars!

I bet that took some explaining.

End of interview

* * * 2 Rhona Webster

INTERVIEW AT WYTHENSHAWE FM, FEBRUARY 2008

Hello. Can you first of all tell us your name and age and how long you have lived in Wythenshawe? My name is Rhona and I am 77 and I have lived in Wythenshawe for a long time.

Can you tell us you reminiscences about Wythenshawe Hall and Park in particular? Mine are quite different really because initially I was a city girl and we didn‟t live far from City and during the war of course it was quite a hazardous place to live. So various bombings happened in the family and we all had to come up to Wythenshawe because we‟d no homes, sort of. We were all crowded into one. So my life in Wythenshawe only really started at that age and it was very different from Hilary‟s picture because there were no lights, no buses and nobody wanted to live there because it was desolate. So my memories are quite different really. Just to sort of hop forward a considerable way, one of my very happy memories of the park really, really happy. Every Sunday afternoon they had a five piece band in the park on the dais and then a trumpet and all sorts of things. And you always saved your very best dress for Sunday afternoon and your very best shoes. And my sister and I lived opposite one of the entrances to the park, called Gib Lane and we used to walk down the lane in stabbing high heels that I used borrow from my mother, and she didn‟t know; and in our very best dresses and go in the park and it was the highlight of our lives at that age. Because the war had finished then just and all the boys used to go in suits in those days. And it was just lovely because the band used to play lovely music. But the only awful part was that your heels dug into the grass when you danced. And so you were continually apologising to whoever you would be lucky enough to asked to dance. And we‟d dance for two hours every Sunday afternoon and it was absolute bliss. And this band were lovely. They used to cheer us on and all the young people from about 14- 17 gathered. That was my happiest memory ever of that park and those days have gone now. But going back again, it was nothing like it is now. It was very flat, as you said before. No lights. Nothing really. I can‟t even remember until later years that there was a children‟s paddling pond which isn‟t there now. But I have a photograph somewhere that I couldn‟t find of my four grandchildren little, sat in that paddling pool in a row, little big, big and then the biggest at the end. I wish I could find that. And then it gradually sort of seemed to grow, the park. I can remember wire round the trees when I was younger. The trees now are very, very big. And it wasn‟t as well looked after as it is now obviously. But everybody came. They came in buses and charas and it was full day out for people who lived nearer the town. Because you have to remember really, Wythenshawe Park then was distant. It was country. It wasn‟t accessible because there were no buses, no lights or anything. And people didn‟t have cars you see. And you know you were very rich if you had a bike and a camera, you were rich, you know. So my memories are very different really. I was speaking to a lady, a very dear friend of mine who is older than I am and she can remember doing the Cubs. She was a Cub Mistress and Scout Mistress. And she said, all we ever did was let them run about. There was nothing else for them to do and nowhere to have a drink or sit. It was just, but always, always forever, that park has held its own aura. And it doesn‟t matter who goes. I have taken people there now at my age, who said, Wythenshawe Park, a little bit disdainfully, you know. And they have come back again and again once they have been in. And it has really held them, you know, because it has blossomed. It has really blossomed. And they are the sort of memories I have got because in those days the roads weren‟t like they are now. So we lived opposite the Park and I went for a bicycle and my father was furious because I got it on HP. And it was one and six a week. And my sister did the same and we rode into Manchester where we worked in an office, Dunlops Rubber Company, because the Germans were after that in the war which is how we came to be at Wythenshawe. And when we got to the gate of the Spinney at Gib lane, my front wheel hit it and I sailed over this gate onto the gravel and my mother spent about a week plucking little bits out of my legs. But we used to be able to do that because if you saw three cars on Wythenshawe Road on a Sunday you cheered. And if you saw a bus…we had no buses.

And other thing I remember about the park is that the Queen was coming to this estate that they built opposite the park and we woke up in the morning and my mother said, go and look on the lane. And we all dashed out my sister and there were trees all along the lane ready for when the Queen. This may not be put in your programme, but ready for when the Queen drove down Hall Lane and they were rows of trees. They didn‟t stay. I mean the next day they had all gone. That sounds sacrilegious doesn‟t it. But that was the sort of thing that happened when I was little. And there were no shops you see. So Wythenshawe Park was there and then there were two huts and things like that. But Wythenshawe Park was the gem of where we lived you, know. We used to brag about it in the office and brag about it, that it was our park. They are my memories.

Do you remember any particular occasions like the fairground coming? Yes. Why I remember the fairground, Hilary reminded me of that, is because there were no houses and I was married though then and my husband wanted one of the houses and we actually chose one at the side of Gib Lane and then he withdrew because he remembered the fair came and there were going to be no big noises next door to where we lived. So that house didn‟t go. Which is how we came to live on Nan Nook, opposite the Park because they built there then. They were all fields. I have watched this part of Wythenshawe grow from fields and allotments and sheds and bits of huts for shops to what it is now. And it has been a steady progress because even where I live now there were fields and you may remember that. Fields and no buses because the trams used to come from Manchester, stop at a place called Barlow More road and then you had to wait then. And this money may sound funny to other people who don‟t know it but to get people to live near Wythenshawe park they let you go to Manchester and back for one shilling and sixpence, which would be what I don‟t know, can‟t do conversion really now. But that was to get us up there you see. Well I was very happy to go there.

And then the sad memory I have of the park is because we were poor you know and the war was on and you had no shoes and you had no clothes and it was not very nice. But I do remember that I was short sighted and nobody picked it up. In the classroom I used to squint my eyes to see because I loved English and I used to want to read all this stuff, you know. And nobody sort of realised that you couldn‟t. Nobody knew about things like that, you know. So I went from a school called Ducie Avenue which a lot of people remember. I passed to Manchester Grammar High School but we couldn‟t afford the uniform. Now I didn‟t know that, but I remember kicking up a fuss because I didn‟t want to go to the grammar school in Manchester; I wanted to go to Ducie Avenue with all my friends. And then I remember a lot of men coming to the house from the Education thing, all arguing and then I went from Ducie Avenue to a school called Yew Tree and then back again, and I don‟t know how that happened, to Ducie Avenue. But I got off, went from a bus when I was at the school in Wythenshawe at Yew Tree and because I was shortsighted I couldn‟t see the number and I got on the wrong bus which turned onto Sale Road past the park and it dawned on me even as a youngster that I was on the wrong bus and I got off. And there was a gate into the park. And I was screaming. I can remember screaming. There was nobody about. And from nowhere a lady came and got hold of me and she said, what is the matter? And I said, I am lost, I am lost, got the wrong bus. And she led me to the entrance to the park which faces what is now the Britannia and used to be the Post House and you crossed the road. But there were big houses there then. All big dentist houses there. And then I got my bus home. I can‟t remember how. But that was my sad memory of the park.

How about your memories of Nan Nook Wood? Well they started to build because there was nothing really on Nan Nook Road at that time, you know and they started to build, but that was in later years. And we had a house built around the corner on Nan Nook Road. And I have a big picture and it is falling off my wall it is so old and awful, of the view from my window, which is over onto Nan Nook Wood. That is my memory of Nan Nook Wood. It was lovely.

Thank you very much indeed. That was wonderful. END OF INTERVIEW

* * *

3 Christine McCarthy

INTERVIEW AT WYTHENSHAWE FM, FEBRUARY 2008

So Chris can you first of all tell us your name and age and how long you have lived in Wythenshawe? Christine McCarthy, 61 and I have lived in Wythenshawe for about 35 years.

What are your memories of Wythenshawe Park and Hall in particular? Well Wythenshawe Park…I used to come mainly with my elder brother and we used to walk from - because I lived in Moss Side then - especially when the fair was on. And we walked there because we didn‟t have much money. We wanted to save our money for the fair. And we‟d go on a few things and especially the penny slot machines as well. And the waltzers and the bumper cars. And then we would run out of money and my brother would always find money on the floor. I would just keep my eyes peeled on the floor and find nothing, which used to annoy me. Other times we have been to the park was when we used to go in the Hall because it was free. And the main thing I can remember there is the cradle; the little crib they used to put the babies in. For some reason that used to stick in my mind. And the big four poster beds. I used to love looking round the hall and imagine myself dressed in the kind of dresses they used to wear in those days.

Tell us about the Hall? I haven‟t got many memories of the Hall.

What it was like from walking in? I wouldn‟t be very good at it.

Can you describe what the Hall was like in those days? Well I have only got vague memories of it. But walking into it, it was all, a lot of wood, you know. The wooden floors and the wooden walls. I always used to look for secret panels. I was always wanting, wishing that they were secret panels there. I‟d read too many mystery books and things.

What about outside as well, the setting of the Hall? I used to love the gardens of the hall. There‟s a monkey puzzle tree there and I‟d never seen one of them until I saw that one in Wythenshawe Hall Gardens. And in the spring when you went, I can remember the smell of the azaleas and the vivid colours of the rhododendrons, even as a kid. I don‟t think I knew the names of them then but I can just remember the colours and the smells. It was beautiful.

Apart from the fairground, can you remember any other events in the park? What we used to love going to was the Police Shows. The police used to put shows on here. I don‟t know whether it is police or army. I know the police were there with their motorcycles and everything. And we used to think that was really exciting because they used to stand on one and other and everything. It was really exciting. And the dogs. We used to love the police dogs and the army did used to have shows on here because I went down a great big zip slide that they‟d put up. There was a soldier. I got up there and you‟d walk onto this platform and you would get hold of this thing for the zip slide and it was really high up. And I said, how do you get off? And he said just go as if you are walking. So I just walked off and instead of letting me go, he just held me dangling there. And I was „Let me go, let me go‟. He let go and eventually I did get to the other side. I remember that soldier. And those were really good shows that they used to put on here, which we don‟t seem to have now.

What was your naughtiest memories of the park? One day I came for a nice walk through the park and I was about to go into I think they called Gib Wood near where the horses are. And there‟s like this little path that you go through to get directly into the woods and there was this man there and I thought he was looking for his dog, so I just sort of nodded my head to him like you do to say good morning. And then I walked into the woods and was having a nice look round; all the birds and the trees and everything. And then I heard this crack behind me and I looked round and there was nothing there. I thought, oh it must be an animal or something. So I walked on a bit further and I heard a definite noise behind me. Turned round and there was this flasher! And all I could think of was, oh you‟ve ruined my walk. So I just sort of carried on at first and then I thought, you are here alone in this wood and then I realised….Because this is in recent years and I realised I had a mobile phone in my hand. So I ……..[pause]

Chris tell us your naughtiest memory of the park please? Well one day I was walking; I thought I would go for a nice walk in the park. And I love walking through the woods. So I got into the park and I went into Gib woods. There is a little path that goes directly into the woods near the horse, the field where the horses are. And there was man stood there and he was looking into the woods. I thought he was looking for his dog. So I nodded to him, you know like you do, good morning and everything. Then I went into the woods and I was in the woods for a bit and I heard this crack behind me. So I looked round, couldn‟t see anything so I thought it must be an animal or something. So I walked on a bit further, heard this very definite sound behind me. So I turned round and there was this flasher. So I saw a bit more than I bargained for in the woods that morning. So I was cursing this man for spoiling my walk and then I thought, well I am here alone in these woods, I think I‟d better get out a bit sharpish. So I went to the Horticultural Centre where I knew I would find somebody and I reported it and they actually, from the description I gave them, they actually knew this man and they were after him. So that was the end of my naughty morning.

Do you have any memories of Nan Nook Wood at all? Nan Nook Wood, I used to take the children in there when they were younger and they practiced more climbing trees in that wood and walking along falling ones and jumping across little brook things and trying to find rope swings. I really like Nan Nook Wood and in more recent times my friend and mine have been litter picking there, trying to keep it looking as good as it can because it is exciting when you are young and it is nice for the younger ones to go there now and have adventures like we used to.

Can you tell us about your role as a volunteer? I can‟t remember how I got into the volunteer. I haven‟t really done much for you.

Can you tell us about the role of being volunteer? Well I do this Wythenshawe Wheelers morning on a Wednesday morning which is…it is like bikes for all, all different shapes and sizes of bikes. And anybody can come. It‟s at the athletics track and we have had all sorts of people come. We have disable people, older people. We had a lady that came and when she first came she could barely get on a three-wheeler bike and she just about managed one lap round the track. Then she started coming every week and she now does about 10 or 11 laps round the track, which is a quarter of a mile a lap so she does really well. And this lady is 80 something. So it makes it feel really worthwhile doing. And we have had people come and they have no confidence on a bike at all. Some disabled people or people with learning difficulties and they have no confidence. And you see them and they are scared to death to get on the bike. And then after they‟ve been coming a few weeks they are whizzing round and it is just smashing to see them you know. And they‟re all happy and shouting and even, you know, can take one hand off and wave to you as they are going past eventually.

Do you have any memories of any of the particular seasons? Definitely in the autumn. My brother and I, the one who I used to come to the fair with, we used to come conkering. Not conquering the roundheads or anything but used to come here for conkers and we used to throw our sticks up at the trees and go back with loads, bagfuls of conkers where we used to take them home and put them in vinegar or put them in the oven or do all sorts to make them the hardest conkers around. I can vouch for Wythenshawe conkers; they are some of the best around in Manchester.

How about winter time, things like snowballing? In the winter I used to bring the children and we had whale of a time. In fact we have got some photos. We‟d be throwing snowballs at one and other and the dog would join in as well, eating the snowballs. And build snowmen and sliding. We‟d all be sliding. It was just lovely in the winter and you look round and it‟s like Christmas cake you know with the fir trees with all the snow on. It was lovely. And the Hall looks beautiful in that setting as well with the snow around. It‟s lovely.

What are your memories of the guides? We used to come with the guides, part of our badge work. One of the badges we had to light a fire and we used to go in the road what is now known as the Rhody Woods. And we would have to collect all the kindling which was like cones or dead bracken or something and then the little twigs and we would learn about which was the best wood to use. The quickest burning was like the pine type, the dead pine. And we‟d have nice little fires there and then we‟d have to leave it exactly as it was when we got there. We‟d cover it over after we‟d put the fire out and that‟s where I passed my fire lighting badge in Rhody Woods.

Thank you very much indeed. I am not very knowledgeable about birds but I love looking at birds and walking through the park. One day with my friend, we could hear these woodpeckers and we could hear that they were really near. And it was when the fair was here. And it was just two trees that were right near where the fairground was, just across the path from the fairground and there was a pair of woodpeckers. And it was fantastic. We eventually found them and we could hear them, the noise that the Woodpecker makes for ages before we actually saw them. And when we saw them it was great and then they were flying from branch to branch to one another and it was a marvellous sight and it was my first sighting of a woodpecker. So that was really exciting. And another time, walking through Rhody Woods, I spied this lovely yellow fungus. I didn‟t know what it was but it was different to what I had ever seen before and we have since found out it was coral fungus which is not all that common. John Steedman came and had a look at it and he verified that it was what we thought it was. So that was quite exciting as well.

Could you tell us about the woodpecker again? I love looking at birds, I am not very knowledgeable about the, but walking through the park one day we heard the woodpecker, my friend and I. And it was right near where the fairground is, just across the path from there. There are two or three trees. And we looked up. I couldn‟t find them at first, but we could definitely hear them. And then we just saw one and then we saw another one. And they were hopping across from branch to branch. And it is the first time I had ever seen a woodpecker. So it was really exciting.

END OF INTERVIEW

* * *

4 Jane Clinton

Date: Thursday 7th February 2008

Memories written down by Ali Davenport, Development Officer as Jane sat in her office reminiscing.

It would have be in the 70s. In fact I used to come here every Easter as a child with my parents and go on the fairground. I remember the candy floss. The fair seemed to be more family-orientated then rather than lots of gangs. As a youngster I never remember any trouble.

As I grew up I took my son to the fairground. [The fairground has always been in the same place.] The only difference, Gib Lane Road over onto the left of it; that used to be the car park. I took him a few times but not that often.

Coming with son, I remember the hall always being closed. When I was a kid they used to have a paddling pond type thing there, then they got rid of the water. Then in the 80s there was a lot of skateboards about and he used to skateboard in it. [They weren‟t supposed to!] Then they filled it in.

The paddling pool was warm and gritty. Always busy. I remember having to wait to go onto the swings because there was a queue. I don‟t remember my dad being there but I remember my mum sitting on a bench and eating sandwiches.

I remember the cows – these were in a field next to Gib Lane, where the horses are now for the stables. It was such a rare occurrence to see cows in Wythenshawe. I was brought up in Peel Hall.

They go on about the cows quite a lot at the farm. Apparently they had Highland Cattle on there at one time – I don‟t know how true that is.

The farm – one thing that comes to mind is that the farm started up in on the old Sharston High School ground. I don‟t remember it; I didn‟t work there then. They had goats and our very first pedigree Hereford [breed of cow], Carnation. We got a grant for her and she was the first one we had; first in the line of many.

Jane is 42 years old. Works at the Community Farm in Wythenshawe Park. Has worked there about twelve or thirteen years. A farm assistant. On a typical day will do feeding, cleaning the animal pens, supervising work placements.

* * *

5 Arthur Buxton

Memories sent by email

I remember as a toddler (c.1970) learning to swim in the paddling pool at the park playground on a warm summers day. I can remember the smell of the pool, the laughter of the children and the thrill of so much water!

When I was older the playground had the highest slide „in the world‟ – so high that it gave me the feeling of vertigo looking down the side.

In my teens me and some friends would have played pitch and putt, tennis and then if the time of the year was right we picked conkers – bags of them

But the fondest memory would be being sat on the Lions Head on the wall on the Hall by my dad.

* * *

6 Julie Gilkes

INTERVIEW AT WYTHENSHAWE FM, FEBRUARY 2008

Hello. Can you first of all tell us your name and age and how long you have been associated with Wythenshawe Park and Wythenshawe Hall? Well my name is Julie Gilkes and I was born actually in Wythenshawe and my grandparents and great grandparents worked at Wythenshawe Hall.

What kind of life did they have at the Hall? Actually not too bad because the Lord at that time was, you know, kind. [Interrupt sound]

Tell us about life at the Hall then please? My great grandmother was…I don‟t know if she was in the kitchens or she was a maid. I think she was a lady‟s maid and she met this young man and he worked in the grounds. I also heard that he worked with horses so, you know, whether that was combined or not I don‟t know. And she was waving him off one night. They were doing a bit of courting and the servants lived in one little pokey wing and she fell out the window and broke her arm! And then when they got married the Lord of Wythenshawe Hall lent them his carriage, his horse drawn carriage, to go to get married at St Wilfred‟s church. And a lot of my relatives and a lot of the Wilds are buried in St Wilfrid‟s.

That was the Parish church? Yeah.

And what about your own memories? For us to go to Wythenshawe Park, it was a day out because we lived just on Gladeside? Road and my mum would pack the jam butties and the bottle of water, you know, and we‟d head down. We always used to walk to Wythenshawe Park and we had many happy picnics and we used to paddle around in the pool and we would find a nice spot to have our picnic and my father would organise games, cricket and football and all the kids that were there around would all join in. And I also remember the fairground coming every year. And it was the best fairground. There used to be one that came to Holly Hedge Road but the one that came to Wythenshawe Park was huge. And it was just such an event for us. And all the kids in the neighbourhood all used to, you know, walk down there. I mean we walked everywhere in those days because we couldn‟t afford bus fare.

As today is Valentines Day do you have any romantic memories of the park? Well yes sort of. We always used to go to the Forum Cinema on Palatine Road. We would watch the movie and then we‟d stop at a fish and chip shop in and then we would walk home. But we always walked through Wythenshawe Park so that we could have a canoodle on the way home. And it was just a favourite spot for courting couples you know after they had been to the Forum pictures to do; you know go and do whatever people do in the park. Not me, I must add anyway. But it really was a favourite spot to go. My aunt and uncle lived on Moorcroft Road in some prefabs but I think they were erected during the war. I am not sure. And again my sister and I used to walk there like. I would be five and she would be six. And we used to walk from here all the way to the other side of the park. In fact we used to cut through the park. And my uncle had an allotment in the park and he used to grow the most beautiful dahlias and the loveliest tomatoes too. So I really do have happy memories of Wythenshawe Park.

Any other stories passed on to you? I am trying to actually find out the name of my great great grandmother. She married into the Wild family and I mean two generations of my family worked there but always as servants. And the one Lord who lent them the carriage to get married. He was a very, very nice man and he was very, very good to his servants, which in those days usually the Lord of the Manor wasn‟t. But he was very kind. And I think his name might have been Lord Simon. Is there a Lord Simon somewhere along the line? It just rings a bell.

It would have been one of the Tattons. We just knew him as Lord Simon from Wythenshawe Hall. So maybe he was Simon Tatton. But I know they were very good to them and they looked after their servants. And my great great grandfather married a lady who was also a servant and then his son who is my great grandfather married this other lady and then, from then on the actual working of the park was finished for some reason. But we used to love to go to the hall and at that time we could wander in and out and there used to be a really lovely café on the grounds right by the big hall and we always used to have a cup of tea and that was the highlight. And I lived in Canada for 40 years and when I came back from Canada to visit my parents we took my children to Wythenshawe Park. Then they had water in the paddling pool and the kids would have a ball, you know.

With the servants, the house was sold in 1926 and Simon became Lord Simon who bought the property and gave it as a gift to the City of Manchester. So what happened to your relatives? They moved to , to Albert Grove in Withington. My grandfather worked, fought in the First World War and he met a Welsh lady from Carnarvon and they got married and she came back to Withington with him and that; my mother was their first child. But my mum always used to say, just think, our ancestors have walked through these halls. It was very nice. We used to love going there. And then for a while it got…I think probably my children would be about 10 and 7. And I came back from Canada for a holiday and of course the kids wanted to go there. And my mother said, no. And I said why? And she said because there are so many robberies there now with young thugs and she said it is frightening to go there. So when I went there with Norman and his family. My friend Norman and his family, that was when I first met you [Ali Davenport, Development Officer], it was just like going back in history. It was wonderful. And I was disappointed you know that the Hall wasn‟t open because I would have loved to have had another walk through.

What about the park itself, do you remember much about the seasons changing in the park? Yes. One thing that stands out in my mind were the rhododendrons and they were like, they were bigger than houses. Taller than houses and they had pink ones, white ones, red ones and it was absolutely beautiful. And I remember a little brook. I don‟t know if it is still there but I do remember a little brook and actually my mum jumped the brook and broke her arm in Wythenshawe. Wythenshawe Park and broken arms seem to go hand in hand. But there also used to be a festival there and it was a procession and it was all the Rose Queens and the Rose Princesses or whatever the other ones were called. And it would end up in Wythenshawe Park and Miss Wythenshawe would be chosen there. And that was a wonderful day. And then they stopped doing it there and it moved to what used to be the Cedars. But I know for years and years and years they had the procession and they chose Miss Wythenshawe at Wythenshawe Park.

Were you ever Miss Wythenshawe? Oh heck no. I know I was disappointed because I wanted to be a Morris Dancer and of course there was all the Morris Dancing competitions as well at the same time when this Festival was on and I never made the grade so I was never a Morris Dancer. But it was wonderful to watch them. It is a shame actually that you know you don‟t get that sort of thing any more. You know like where everybody went to see the procession and there would be hundreds of people at Wythenshawe Park watching all the festivities. So it was really nice. I mean I do have really happy memories of Wythenshawe park and Wythenshawe Hall and of course the fairground was the greatest. I mean all the kids from miles around used to go and you didn‟t have any money but you still went to the fair and kind of hung around you know the rides and this and that. So I don‟t think there is anything else I can think of right now.

Any more family history? No other than, as I say, there were two generations that worked there and died there actually too because then again they were taken to St Wilfred‟s and buried there. And my mum and I, at one time we found the old graves of our, I‟d guess they would be my great grandparents and I wish I could remember my great grandmother‟s maiden name, but I just can‟t. Because like I say, she was the, she was in the house, servant and my great granddad was either with the horses or did the grounds or he was, definitely an outside servant.

There must be records somewhere, so it would be interesting to find out? Yes, I have an old auntie, she is well on in her 80s and she has lived in this estate for 73 years. And I know she will have some pictures and I was just saying to Ali that I will try and get her when she is better and see if I can get some photographs because I know she has got a lot of old photographs of, I guess it would be her grand parents, so my great grandparents. So I am sure Auntie Flo will probably have lots of memories too about them.

Thank you very much indeed.

Thank you.

END OF INTERVIEW

* * *

7 Brenda Lasch Sent: 24 February 2008 09:02

I was born in 1950 and have lived in Wythenshawe since 1952 and have strong memories of my many times visiting Wythenshawe Park whilst l was a young child, a teenager & now in adult life.

I have written the attached poem about it, which l would ask to be considered for your exhibition in June.

Memories of Wythenshawe Park

Oh how we loved those days in the sun, Picnics in the park for everyone. A splash in the paddling pool was always a treat, Even though the water only covered your feet. The fun fair at Easter, where you could win a fish, Acres of space to do as you wish. The summer fete and shakers made of crepe paper, Marching bands, ice cream & the judging came later.

Teenage walks in the gardens, carpets of full colour, Cream teas in the teashop until you could not get fuller. A visit to the Great Hall with huge furniture and art The Pets graveyard, the rockery and pond played their part. The Rhododendrons in their glory The trees of all shades Sticks in a young girl‟s memory and never fades.

Years later, she walks thorough a wonder of plants, In the greenhouse and gardens, many thrills it still grants. The Home Farm, with piglets Horses to ride A Husband and children are now by her side.

She will always remember this wonderful place The picnics, the fun, the fresh air and the space. Wythenshawe‟s jewel in the crown, And Tatton‟s Wythenshawe Hall, Fond memories for her and fond memories for all.

Further email:

I would be very happy for you to use my poem on any media you wish. I was very pleased it was published in the Metro & am very proud of it. However being a bit shy, I do not think l can read it out over the airwaves but someone else is welcome to, but please let me know the details if this is to happen so I can record it.

I do have a lot of memories of Wythenshawe Park & I have photo of myself & a few friends aged about 8 standing in the ''paddling pool'' with the adults sat on the grass near the wooden fence which was around it. However as we only have our knickers on I suspect we could not use that due to it not being acceptable these days.

We used to get the bus from Wythenshawe & get off at the Royal Thorn, then walk down Road to the Park. Of course the huge roundabout was not there then.

I used to lie in the paddling pool pretending l could swim, as it was only about 5" deep at the 'deep end'

Whilst I was growing up we had many picnics in the park, played rounders & cricket, & there were always lots of other families doing the same thing. The park always seemed to be full of people, walking, sitting, picnicing & playing games.

We always used to go to the fun fair at Easter on the Waltzers, & l remember being particularly sick once , but l had had lots of candyfloss beforehand. I also remember seeing the 'fattest lady in the world' the 'bearded lady' & many other curios, but again that would not be PC these days.

I attended Wythenshawe Technical High School for Girls in 1961 when l was 11. When I was about 14 I used to sneak off during Sports day to meet a boy in the Park, who has now been my husband for 37 years, & we used to walk around the lovely gardens of the Hall, have cups of tea from the little shop next to the hall with it's courtyard & wooden tables & find a quiet spot where we could do a bit of cuddling. No further mind in those days, as I lived in fear of my mum finding out. We used to visit the pets corner with the chickens with fluffy feet & the peacock with no tail feathers, rabbits & budgies, but my abiding memory was the wonderful plants & flowers, the Rhododendron trees & the many different species of trees of all colours in the park.

I also remember many visits to Wythenshawe Hall, although very little of it was open in those days. I remember my brother & sister & I used to believe it was haunted & we were always looking to the small top windows at the back of the Hall, where we had heard the ghost used to appear. I love history & was always keen to read all about the inhabitants of the Hall & what they got up to. I used to stand at the entrance to the hall and look down at the avenue of trees leading from Princess Parkway up to the Hall & picture all manner of gentry riding up to the hall in their various costumes to visit the occupants of the Hall. I still love that view although Oliver Cromwell now obscures it a bit. I have been there lots of times over the years and I am so pleased to see more & more of it being opened up to the public.

When I had my children in the 1970's we used to take them to the park for picnics, but in those days the park was plagued by Vandals & a lot of the Park had fallen into disrepair. You could no longer walk round the hidden parts of the park as gangs of youths hung around the playground area so we chose to stay on the paths in view of other visitors. What a shame times have changed so much.

We did used to play pitch & putt & when I was a Beaver leader, we took the beavers there in a minibus once, but it poured down with rain, so we had to eat our picnic squashed under the doorway of the Pitch & putt wooden building.

The Park later got a makeover with a new playground & the Home farm had moved from Sharston to the old Pets corner site & I seem to remember the tea room was moved to the far end of the hall at one time. I did actually attend a Christmas meal from my local keep fit class one year in the restaurant there, but l cannot remember what date.

It was not until I was about 40 that I discovered the wonderful greenhouses & Agricultural centre at the far side of the park. I am a keen gardener & I remember once in late Spring, going into one of the greenhouses & the smell of beautiful flowers hit you as you opened the door. There were all sorts of bedding plants in a glorious display giving carpets of colour with little pools & streams running through. I just sat on the bench & thanked god for all he had created. There were so many lovely plants in all the greenhouses, so wonderfully displayed. It was & still is a true joy to visit & l am always telling people to visit the greenhouses as so many of them believe that the greenhouse area is out of bounds & they are not allowed to go there. I do feel this should be rectified as soon as possible.

The last time I visited the park was last summer for the Archaeological dig open day, which was a really great day but I felt not very well attended. I visited the greenhouses & I must admit, thought the plants of distant lands a bit 'naff' after all I have seen in the past, but l really do thing that this area should be more accessible & inviting to the general public, perhaps with sensory plants in one greenhouse with smells & feel for people who cannot see etc. There is so much potential there & I am sure if more people knew it was there they would visit.

I will still visit the park in years to come as it has & always will be part of my life.

* * * 8 Graham Sant

Graham spoke as the Development Officer recorded his memories on computer.

My father was born in 1894 in Peover Heath, coming towards Chelford area. His father worked on a farm, he was a farm labourer; worked on the same farm for over 45 years, Shaw Croft Hall farm. [The photograph of the cottage may be a tithe cottage on the site.] There was ten of them lived there: father, mother and eight children. It‟s still there.

So when he left school at age 12 he went to work at Twemlow? Hall at Twemlow, near Goostrey and Holmes Chapel. His maternal grandfather was the head gardener there. He did talk a bit about there. The owners were industrialists, had a factory or works or something, not the landed gentry type. The owner used to go abroad big game hunting. They had to go to Goostrey Station and bring things like elephant‟s feet back. Never said a lot about there; only a child.

He was probably about 14 or 16 when he came to Wythenshawe. His aunt was the cook at Sharston Hall, so we‟ve always presumed that she must have heard from someone who worked for the Tattons that the work was going here; the servants‟ underground. So he‟s come to work at Wythenshawe. We presume he‟d come on the train to Stockport and then get a train to . He‟d got lodgings with a Mrs Hardy, Railway View, Sandy Lane, Baguley. Mr Hardy worked on the railways and she took lodgers in. There was a lot of them; don‟t know how they all got in. In the 1901 census there were four men there.

How long he lived there we don‟t know. He went to the war. He was in the 22nd Regiment. He went to India and Mesopotamia, the Dardanelles.

He lodged with Mrs Hardy – we don‟t how he got there. He worked in Wythenshawe Park in the kitchen gardens; the walled garden. There were pears and all that on the walls; all soft fruit used to be grown on the walls, protected from the frost. It was all hand-work, hand dug, no machinery in them days. They‟d plough big areas with a horse, not the walled garden. There were greenhouses there against the wall where the aviaries are now. He didn‟t work in the greenhouse. In kitchen gardens there was always the indoor men and the outdoor. If you were in the kitchen gardens you had to provide food for the house for 12 months of the year. Growing food inside as well, not all pot plants, to keep the house going.

One winter he was in the bothy [down where the Community Farm is – the Head Gardener lived in the house there] and dad was sent up – probably not in the bothy – above the stables, in the loft, to probably tidy up or do something. This other bloke - could have been a bit older than my dad I don‟t know – he discovered this barrel. When he took the lid off he said there were apples floating on the top so this other chap said he‟d sample it. So they must have found a cup or something, sampled it, kept having a drink until it was time to go home. Didn‟t get drunk but felt bad; felt really ill and swore he‟d never touch the stuff again; learnt his lesson.

During the spring when it was spring cleaning time he‟d have to go to the hall. All the male workers would be sent for to move the heavy furniture. He had to take all the carpets out and these would be beaten on a rope and then take them back afterwards. Went on for a while; it wasn‟t a day job.

On a Sunday dad always liked to have a walk, never worked; on Sunday afternoon he‟d have a walk around Wythenshawe Park, invariably meet someone he knew. I remember once I said to him, “Was it always nice and clean when you here?” And he said, “No.” The front of the hall used to be left as hay – they‟d let the grass grow and then use it as hay for the cattle and horses. And he reckoned that the gardens at the back of the hall weren‟t quite as nice as they were then [during the Second World War].

That‟s about all the stories I can remember dad saying. I don‟t think he stayed here long. The war could have brought on the move.

Where he was lodging there was a chap, Walter Dale, who worked on the railways – he rented strips of lands. All the market gardeners round Baguley rented land from the farmers. [Walter Dale‟s land wasn‟t Tatton land.] Dad worked for him for quite a few years and he started him up as a nurseryman; probably was paid a bit more there than he was getting at the park; plus it wasn‟t as far to work; just down the same lane.

Then he went in the army – we think it was 1916; probably conscripted. Was in the army about 1916-late 1919. By that time he was courting my mother. Her mother lived in a rented house on the same farmland. The market gardens were little strips of land. My grandmother, Alice Sherlock; her and her husband had little bits of land. She was left a widow with two children, one of whom was only 2 weeks old when her father died - Nelly, my mother. When dad came home from the army he went back to work for Walter; and then in 1924 Harry Sherlock [Alice‟s son] bought his own farm, Pear Tree Farm, starting market gardening on his own – so George Sant went to work for Alice, taking Harry‟s place. They married in 1929 – they were walking out for fifteen years. Alice wouldn‟t let them get married because he didn‟t have enough money – even though he managed her market garden.

During the thirties a man called Fred Deayton [? Spelling] came from Cambridge; came to find work. A lot of people in those days travelled to Wythenshawe to work in the park. At night he used to work for my father – probably for a bit of extra money. He used to drive this little lorry, only a little tiny thing, a Morris or an Austin – and they used to hook the gang-mowers behind it and cut the grass in the park. Before that it would be done with horses or scythed. He lived on Royal Oak – he worked here then went into the army. Came home, not been back long, taken ill and died.

I left school age 14 in 1948. Left school on the Friday and started work on Monday morning with my dad. The first day I said, „”What are we doing?” and he said, “Turning a midden over”. This was on Floats Road; always rented.

Just as an aside, although the development of the Garden City led to new housing being built it devastated the market garden industry in the area. It all used to be Cheshire. Then boundaries were altered when the estates were purchased. The Corporation had the powers to get land on compulsory purchase order. Fortunately when dad had to go he had to go anyway, had a bad leg – it came at the right time. The nursery went in 1955 – was demolished and South Moor Road built through it.

Baguley Hall was kind of like the Home Farm for the Tatton Estate. The wood yard was there, on Rackhouse Road. As you came in the park from Altrincham Road, there was the South Lodge. Arthur Aylesbury lived there and he was the joiner for the estate. He lived with his sister. On a Sunday dad used to have a walk in the park and call in to have a word.

Those little cottages at the end of Gib Lane dad used to call them Shepherd‟s Cottages – don‟t know if they were or not but that‟s what dad called them.

I was born in 1933. I remember coming in the park, fishing in Baguley Brook. Used to bring a jam jar with you and catch „tiddlers‟. They only lasted a day and would then be dead but it was something to do. During the war you couldn‟t go on holiday but there was always something going on in the park – Holidays at Home. Dad always used to enjoy listening to the brass bands. Used to have a big bandstand near by where the paddling pool used to be. Used to have all the top bands – Fodens, Faireys Aviation.

Once I was on a train about thirty years ago and saw Harry Mortimer, a famous brass band conductor. I told him about listening to him in Wythenshawe Park and he said it was a wonderful place to go, Wythenshawe Park, to play in a band there.

We used to come and play golf on the golf links. They must have been done in the early 30s.

My dad used to take us into the hall and I was fascinated, going upstairs, and in one of the rooms there were cases with dead frogs. They were arranged, they were playing snooker. There was a couple of cases of them. Fascinated I was. We even brought our kids here when they were young.

After 1956 I went working for Manchester Education Committee; for all town schools, they had plots of land, all cinemas there now. Everywhere I‟ve worked has disappeared. And in 1974 I worked as a technician in Wythenshawe College Horticultural College – that‟s gone too.

My dad died in 1968. He was one of the nicest persons you‟d wish to meet – a very big man – about 6ft 2, 18 stone – gentle giant. He was a brilliant gardener and he was renowned for the cleanest market garden in Baguley. Not a blade of grass out of place. “If you‟re going to work for me after you‟ve finished you clean your tools, you clean and oil them ready for next time.” I still use some of my dad‟s tools now. Some of them must be eighty years old.

* * *

9 Roy S Ashworth

Brought in.

My memories of Wythenshawe Park go back a long way to 1930, four years after Lord and Lady Simon presented it, complete with its wonderful hall, to the people of Manchester.

It wasn‟t long before my mother and father founded the Crown Green Bowling Club, which kept so many people of their generation happy for years, competing against all the other parks. My photo of the men‟s team shows that they won the Parks Championship in 1947. My father is on the extreme right of the front row.

The ladies team is also shown with my mother second from right on the back row.

I also have memories of brass bands playing from bandstands, to the delight of many families making up the audiences.

During the Second World War blitz there was a searchlight and anti-aircraft battery situated in what is now a collection of football pitches near Altrincham Road.

My other wartime recollection is the way the park was used as an overnight safe harbour for Corporation buses, keeping them well away from Manchester during the Blitz nights of 1942, so that we workers could be taken to our work places in town, even though when we arrived in it was a blazing inferno of incendiary bombed warehouses, factories and shops. Still, Business As Usual, was the British wartime motto, and I feel the Park played its part in helping to achieve this for Manchester.

* * *

10 Mary Thomas

Sent in by post.

Born in Westage Gardens, Royal Oak in 19944, Wythenshawe Park was an extended garden for me and my family. In 1948 we moved into the park as prefabs were built to ease the housing situation after World War Two.

These prefabs were like the mobile homes of today and were very modern with gardens, and the benefit of the park on our doorstep.

I have never forgot the trees, greenery, beautiful flowers and fishing in the brook, that runs through the park, also playing on my bike was a joy.

Each day my walk to Rackhouse School and back was through the park.

In 1952 we moved to Newall Green, still spending most of our weekends at the old hall and gardens, which to a young child was fascinating.

Having an icecream from the courtyard café was a wonderful treat.

Leaving Wythenshawe in 1964 we came back in 1970 to live in Sharston. I still visit the park now regularly in summer to see the farm, lake, ducks and birds, also the horticultural greenhouses to buy my garden plants.

* * *

11 Hilda Nicholls b.1933, 75 yrs

Talked to Development Officer, who typed up memories on computer.

I was only two when we came to live in Wythenshawe and it had just started to be the Garden City of Manchester. There was just Lawton Moor [which they renamed ], Benchhill, and Royal Oak. The rest of it was built after the war, you see. It was all farms. There were farms everywhere. Brookway High School was a farm; West Wythenshawe College, Moor Road - that was a farm. There was a blacksmith where the little post office is now on Altrincham Road. It was all country lanes. They were no buses. And the hospital was Baguley Sanatorium. We used to watch the soldiers in hospital blue coming out, having a walk, on crutches. There was only the one bus that went up there - 44. But the community was very strong, it was lovely. I could name all the names on the first road I lived on.

I'm one of six but there was just my sister and I when we first came; then two brothers, then a sister and a brother. We moved from the house we were in Hill End Road to a new one on Moor Lane after the war, to a bigger family house. My mother took us in the park nearly every day. My dad worked night work. I was only about 12 when the war finished but I can remember them putting boards down on the big field near the golf links for dancing to help people relax because of the war. It was done on the big field, other side of the road from the golf.

My school was St Hilda's, renamed later as St Aidan's - we used to go for nature walks. My dad picked us up when my second brother was being born and took us in the park until he thought the baby was born. There was always a 'Stop Me and Buy One' man on the bike selling icecreams. But then as we got older we went in ourselves; we went in a lot. My son-in-law now says, this must have been a lovely childhood. And of course, it was.

Instead of buying Easter eggs I asked my granddaughters if they'd like a horse ride instead. We‟ve been several times. My granddaughter was on a horse and then my daughter said she'd have a go. I'm forty, she said, I've never been on a horse. There was a lady and she was sixty; she said it was her first ride.

The park always looked so beautiful, the gardens were beautiful, behind the hall. Of course it's sad they're not now. In the holidays we went in every day having picnics. I've done that with my grandchildren because there are tables near the Horticultural Centre. In later years they've had the carol service at the farm; that's lovely. For picnics we used to sit on the grass; we'd put a rug down and all get round. Sandwiches and bottles of lemonade. We played rounders mostly - but children played out in those days, we had a big skipping rope in the road where we lived. In later years I went on the tennis courts with my brother in law teaching me. I was all right, not marvellous but I enjoyed it.

The bluebell woods, that was a picture. We used to love working through the woods and rustling the leaves in the winter. The bluebell woods did have to be cordoned off one time because there was a swamp there. A boy that didn't live here, came up for the day; he made a raft and got drowned. It was more Wythenshawe Road end. It wasn't far from the athletics track. It was like swamp area, you know. He was about 9; I might have been about 11; but you know how it stays in your memory. He didn't belong round here like I said; he'd only come from the day.

We never went near the swamp but the brook fascinated us having a little paddle in it. It was clean in those days. We spent a lot of time on the roundabouts. In the middle there was a thing called the ropes and we loved it. It wasn't quite as safe as it is now. The ropes - there were all ropes hanging down and you got hold of them and you ran round with them. We thought it was marvellous although your hands used to be full of hard skin afterwards. Of courses there were park keepers when I used to go in. You got to know them very well. There was a shop and a cafe as well; it was lovely; unique with that, I don't know why they closed it down.

I tell what there was; we have the crowning of our lady at the Catholic Church. The Italians lent us their Madonna and it was crowned in Wythenshawe Park one year. It was crowned near to where that big field is, after you've got the swings. The figure is very big and carried on a platform with four or six men. We take it through town now. Like they have May queens they picked a girl, the Queen; because they've been more religious than anyone else all year round. It was someone who lived here on Royal Oak who was chosen.

We've gone to all the events that have gone on in there. The morris dancing and all different things.

We've got such a lovely view here. I look out of my window when they're horseriding and it's a lovely view. When we first came here - we've been here 38 years - my husband says, that view is beautiful we hope they never build on it. But we don't think they'd be allowed to. It is a lovely view; we're so lucky.

I took the dog in every day; we had a dog for fifteen years. I worked part time at the hospital; I'd go in there after work and meet people I used to go to school with, with their dogs. My dog was called Kim; he was a mongrel, a lot of Collie in him.

The park has been my life. I think it's lovely when I see the benches with names on; they're people I know. The grandchildren love going in the greenhouses; the one where it's the World. We took the grandchildren in one day and gave them the camera; Eloise especially, she took a lot of photos. We went to the back of the farm and had icecreams. The disability people were planting vegetables and that; she took loads of pictures of the animals, and us as well. It was only last year, I think. They see all the baby piglets – there‟s even a maternity unit isn't there? I'm glad they've got the farm. It‟s lovely to see the children‟s faces.

We went blackberry picking in there every year; that's just come to me. They were on all the hedgerows around the fields more or less. Mum made pies from them. Ooh it was like wine; it was lovely.

Being of a big family they'd all come at Easter time and we'd all go over there and we always went in the hall. There were the doll houses and then there was the four poster bed. It was just fascinating as children. It's not open very much is it now?

* * *

12 Anita Royle b.1928

Talked to Development Officer, who typed up memories on computer.

I remember when I arrived here in 1969 everything was covered in deep snow; it was lovely; absolutely lovely. The park looked beautiful; it was really thick snow. I remember looking out and seeing rabbits playing in it.

My husband was a regular soldier and I travelled with him. He was coming out of the army, he did 26 years. His last posting was Liverpool.

We got this house on Bideford Road; I‟ve been there since 1969; came in the February. The house looks out right across the park. There‟s a stream just opposite the house. There used to be frogs and waterhens in the stream; they‟re not there any more. In the morning when you got up you‟d see all the rabbits in the field. There was pelican. It used to come and stand on the edge of the stream. I think it was looking for fish.

We used to get a lot of hedgehogs, but you don‟t see any of them now. And of course, the foxes. I feed them at night, but there‟s not as many as they‟re used to be. I‟m very fond of them.

There was a children‟s corner with an aviary. There were lovely budgerigars. I gave the corner a big black rabbit. I gave them a tortoise as well. I remember there were chickens and a peacock. There were lambs and little goats.

I had six children. We used to come up to the park. We used to play rounders and of course the boys played football. There was a paddling pool and they had fun days; there were lots of stalls. They had horseshows. We had an Easter parade and they had a shire horse here and a cart. We all dressed up one Easter – I made a big hat – we went along Wythenshawe Road in an Easter parade in this cart. As we went we threw sweets for the children on the side of the road.

They had a lot of volunteers and they used to plant the seeds. The shop was full of hanging baskets, bedding plants. You could buy anything at all. At Christmas they used to do lovely Christmas displays; the greenhouses were full of flowers. The gardeners used to bring flowers to our over 60s group and we were able to buy them.

They used to have an army display team; every year they came. And it was great. The children loved it. It was on the big field, the other side of the farm, and that‟s where the horse shows and s the dog shows were. There was always a fete where they had lots of stalls.

They used to do guided tours in the hall followed by scones and cups of tea. You paid about £2.50. I only ever went in once. There was a café behind the hall, a little one, and they sold sandwiches and ice creams and the children used to sit on a table outside.

The park‟s lovely. It‟s not as nice as it used to be. The woods are not as nice; they‟ve cut a lot of the old trees down. They‟ve been clearing a lot of the undergrowth. The old manager that was here years ago he wanted eight pairs of foxes in the park. There‟s no hedges or rabbits now like they used to be. If you came across here early when I was walking the dog you‟d see foxes playing.

Photo shows Anita in the Horticultural Centre.

* * *

13 Irene Davies b. 1926 Talked to Development Officer, who typed up memories on computer.

We used to all belong to a health and safety thing at Wythenshawe. We used to go to Hall Lane to do keep fit. We ended up coming in the park because Liz who ran it, she had a demonstration in the park. She asked all our ladies if we‟d go to it.

Photo – Irene & Olive Hayes

It wasn‟t very hot; just a nice day. Liz had us line up and we had different coloured scarves that we used. It was all ladies; about 70 of us.

You know the open field next to – where they‟ve built the running track now. It was there.

* * *

14 Susan Parker

WFM recording, April 2008

Can you tell us your name and age and what memories you have of Wythenshawe Park and the Hall itself please?

Well my name is Susan Parker. I am 57 years old and I have got quite a few memories of Wythenshawe Park dating from when I was about 16 to the present day.

Start when you were 16?

Well I am not very clear when I was 16 to now as it was such a long time ago, but I did used to attend the firework exhibition and I attended that for quite a few years. I have been with my friends since I have been an adult and sort of.

So I have been quite often and they were really lovely, they, a professional used to sort of arrange it. In fact it used to be an office I worked in which was Manchester Show Office at the last office, in the Crown Square, but it moved to Moss side. So the last location, I am getting all mixed up. It was the last location that I worked and I worked there and then went onto the Forum in Wythenshawe and worked there for about 2-3 years and then I was ill, not for the first time. So sort of. I was going to say what has that got to do with it, I don‟t know.

When you were 16 did you live near the park?

Yeah, I live in Cross Acres in Wythenshawe. Sorry no, I have moved. I was thinking I lived at home with my parents. I had moved. So what age? I moved after I came out of hospital and I first of all went to and then went to Peel Hall. No I went to that new housing estate at Sharston. And then I came to Peel Hall.

When you were 16 and living in Cross Acres and you went to the park, can you tell us who you went with and what you remember?

Well I remember going to where the funfair, especially when I was younger, I used to go with a few of my friends and we always used to enjoy it. We used to go on the rides and have a good time and yeah, we just used to walk round you know and try different games and things like that. It was really good you know. I used to enjoy it at the time.

Did you go other times?

Well I did. I have been, not very often to be quite honest, except for the fireworks you know. I didn‟t go last year, but I went the year before and me and a friend went and it‟s a really good display, really nice and that is about the one memory that sticks out in my mind, fireworks and the bonfires really.

What was the atmosphere like on bonfire night?

It was very good, everybody gets excited going wooooow when the fireworks go off.

Have you any memories of the hall itself?

To tell you the truth I have not really, I don‟t think I have really been in it that often. I have seen photographs here of what people have done of the hall which they did last year which are very good. And sort of, I have seen the outside of the hall and to tell the truth I have not really been inside it. Is it the hall you are more concerned about? I have not really been inside it.

Do you have any memories of the various seasons changing in the park?

Well I know there would be changing seasons, I don‟t think I would notice no, because always gone you know when the bonfire was on you know and of course the trees were bare and everything you know. There was a café there as well near the hall, yeah.

Anything else about time spent in the park?

I have been on the odd occasion you know. Even when we have been to, actually the night, the things that we used to organise. I was working in the Show Office. We have been to the open days that they have at the parks and they were very good you know, sort of horses and shire horses and the army and Morris dancers and all sorts of things you know that I can‟t remember now what they were. But it was very good. Summing it up, it was very good.

What was the atmosphere like?

Oh it was very good yeah, everybody enjoyed it. We used to really enjoy it and it was a good atmosphere and everybody was out to enjoy their self and they did you know do stuff, different sorts of like games for the children and yeah it was good family day out. It was really enjoyable.

To finish off, could you say what the park means to you?

Well I, like I say I have not been that often since I have been an adult, but sort of, I wouldn‟t like it to go you know. It, I have been. Oh I know I have been on the dig, going to the park near the hall where the stables were and yeah and the stables.

Tell us what you were doing on the dig?

Well the first thing I did was take photographs of the people that were actually and the part of the dig that they were doing you know and sort of take photographs with the zoom lens or with the distance lens and just get the idea of the dig and what people did and how they went about it and all that sort of thing. And then after that. That was the first couple of times. We used to go once a week from here and the first couple of times it was you know observing people doing the digs and then we went into the, I think it was what was a and did some machinery that was stored in there and different things like that. It is very interesting and I really enjoyed it.

Do you know if anything interesting was found?

No, I don‟t know about that, no. I don‟t think that there was actually. I mean there must have been things of interest. You know to make them carry on. They must have found things, but I don‟t know if there was anything really unusual that they found. I am not sure.

Did you have a go at digging yourself?

No we couldn‟t do that, but these different jobs on the dig that people can do, but we just more of less went with the painting and aerial drawing after that, after the first couple of days.

What we should say is that we are here at Studio One in Wythenshawe which is an Arts Project and that is the kind of work that Susan is talking about that she was involved in?

Thank you very much indeed.

End of interview

* * *

15 Joseph Hawkland

WFM recording, April 2008

We are here at Studio One. Could you first of all tell us your name, your age and then your memories of Wythenshawe Park and Wythenshawe Hall in particular please?

My name is Joseph Hawkland. I am 47.

What are your memories?

My memories are nice. Nice way of thinking about parks in general you know. Growing up in Wythenshawe, especially with the park always being there, there were things that were missing and things that were brought back and it was like, everyone who knew about Cromwell and the war that Cromwell fought with the Irish and also with the French. And everybody was fixated with the [?] and some of me friends all had nicknames and one thing and another. So it was part of our life like and when we were young we all went climbing in the park and it was like a scrambling course I always remember and we used to go over the field and used to ride our bikes into the ground in the park itself like and some people thought we were made in them days. Kids will be kids like you know what I mean. I remember one year we were in there and there was a theme, with Oliver Cromwell and his army. And you know if you wanted to join in with what they were doing but you could dress yourself up as either Cromwell or the opposite side. And I picked for you know, I saw a fencing helmet and had a load of paint on me. And there was people who were in the park, because I was in this outfit, saying, I can understand your voice, I know who you are, but I can‟t figure out who it is like. And I used to tell them or I wouldn‟t tell them. We had a bit of fun in them days like in the park itself. We would always feed the peacocks and one thing and another and they always put a wish in the wishing well. I mean they must have raked some money in that wishing well over the years that we all went in there like and had a bit of fun in there like.

We used to climb the trees and everything like you know. We put pulleys up and would do a load of huts in the woods and one thing and another and pick up fly hooks. You could make a fly up in them days, there was something wrong with you, especially. There were a lot of greenfly and all that I remember. Greenfly and ladybirds, loads of them in the woods and we used to make tree houses and we just were very boyish like you know. Some of my friends, still recall to this day what we were like. You know we used to have a bit of fun like really, just enjoyed being, you know as youthful as we were. We used to jump the brook and use canes to jump the brook with and used to put swings on the trees and swing out the trees like monkeys like you know. We used to have a real good time. With the Parky we always used to say, the Parky is behind you, better watch out the Parky is here. He is going to catch us doing something wrong. There were all these greenhouses at the back of Wythenshawe Park and you would always get someone who put a stone through the greenhouse you know window and it was always us to blame for some reason like. There was a school there and I never forget. There was they called it a pass school and we thought there was something not right in that school. There was something wrong with them or something. But it turned out one of my best friends used to go there so that blows it all out of proportion like because we all thought they were nuts and they thought we were nuts like. So it was funny how what goes around comes around like. It is a shame the college is gone, because that was a nice college. Nobody is perfect, you know what I mean. You think you have got to keep up. I watched the TV the other night and I felt really sorry for that fellow you know, he must have a horrible life, if you know what I mean.

Did you play any sport in the park like football?

We played football, volleyball, usually would go in a paddling pool and paddle about and have a bit of fun with that. We used to play I Spy, Hide and Seek, Manhunt, all these things. You know we used to make up games. If we didn‟t have any games we could do, we would make one up like you know. And I used to always take me dog there and one of me dogs called Ben, who was a cracking German Shepherd. Very cunning and I used to train it on, just to chase everything in sight like. Anyway one day he was chasing this, he was about 9 years old this dog at the time and he was running, just after these squirrels, we used to train him not to kill anything. Anyone I see him one day and he just jumped at it and it was dead like. So I buried it any everything and I felt terrible like, but the thing was, if anyone was to catch that squirrel, but he was a bit horrible like, so I had trained him to chase squirrels, but it used to do it when I was walking around with people like, you know. I had some really good fun.

There was a fair always there every year. I used to go to the fair all the time like. It was a nice fair, come rain or shine you know it was always. You could see over the years they just kept putting up the prices. But you know there were loads of things that happen in the park. There was horse riding, there were horse shows and one thing and another and on Bonny night, that is a classic event in the park. We used to always have bonfires on the estate when it was getting built and it was like anything else. It was who has got the biggest bonny like. And we used to go up Shady Lane and rob their wood and they used to come to our side and rob our wood. No one got hurt, it was a bit of slapping about here and there, but no one got really badly hurt, not like these days you know with guns and knives and god knows what. But that is life really. You have got to go with the flow you know. Keep trying to appeal young like. You get old, too old, you end up being old and grumpy with no point and your hair falling out like. My friend Keith and Kelly and Butch we all made this putting in the woods, we used to call the woods, Tiger Woods. It just stuck with us like, Tiger.

Like the modern day ?gulf?

That‟s right yes that‟s right. So what comes around, goes around. We always called our estate the new estate for some reason. They still call it the new estate, there was all new buildings all over the place, but anyone who wanted to know where we lived, it was the new estate we called it like. But it has all changed round there. There are not the big pubs like there used to be. Maybe it is a blessing in disguise, but you have to go with the times.

Did you do any courting in the park?

Well yeah, so so like. It wasn‟t really. It was like everything else. We used to play true or dare kissing I remember in the woods and that. We would spin the bottle that way. We were just experimenting in life like. You know didn‟t play any card games ……. It were too cold.

Any memories of the house?

Oh the house was brilliant yeah, we always used to try and find a secret panel where Cromwell used to go under the house into. You know we thought he were into all. There was another, there was supposed to be a tunnel that went from one, from the house to Hall Lane, but we could never find the secret panel where it was like. And when we were in the house we were always looking for the secret entrance. There is supposed to be a ghost in there like as well. There is supposed to be a lady ghost, like one of the bosses I think like. And we used to go there at night sometimes to scare ourselves to death like, you know what I mean. But it was just part and parcel of life in them days. We liked scaring the arse out of ourselves. That was one of our biggest dares to go in the park on your own in the dark and come out alive or whatever. It was really black and dark and I remember in them days. But I think the kids are losing out with sitting down playing with computers, they are missing out on the fun that is out there. They always say it is too cold. Well put something warm on like. They are couch potatoes these days.

How about the changes in the seasons in the park, do you remember?

I do yes, the park on really nice sunny days and in the autumn. Summer time was always you know we would go to the horses and feed the horses you know. So anything else was. It was nice to see, you change the park to suit everybody‟s environment in a way. Because things happened in the park. There was the aviary, there were some people who used to wreck the aviary and kill the birds and we could never understand why or the mentality of those kind of people. Why spoil something so lovely as an aviary. But it was like Oliver Cromwell‟s disappeared one year and they never found it anywhere. They found it in London last time I heard something. So steeped into that kind of era and the music, The Who and the Smiths and Phil Collins of this world like. Always remember the good times we all had. We used to go in there at one time and crash out. Have a little smoke with a bit of marijuana like. It never did us any harm. Everything in moderation like. It does not affect your memory in that sort of respect. As long as you know what you doing what you are doing. And the big issue about that these days is everybody is too addicted to narcotics in a way. But it is part and parcel, you have to know what you are doing. We would always see the Parky with the Woodbines like and that is what we were. Look at Parky he is smoking Woodbines and we would get a packet of Woodbines and we were always changing our appearances, growing beards and shaving them off and getting long hair. It was a fun time.

Did you live near the park?

I used to live down the road. It was like, Wythenshawe Road leads onto Moore Road. It was only about five minutes walk to the Park and I had some belting times in the park. I used to do the bowling in there and the gulf. We would do, I never did the riding, I never got on a horse. I still could do it like. But it was like, money was too tight to mention in them days. We were always bloody skint like. We had a few pennies but they would soon go. We would go to the café when there was a café there and get a cup of tea or a coca cola or you know pepsi or orange or whatever like and would sit out there reminiscing about the days gone by. There was one year, it was a really hot year in 1989 I think it was and it was a really hot summer and it was like, we were all sat round this tree and there were all these mushrooms over the place and they were all poison mushrooms, but a friend of mine started squeezing all the life out of them and that. And we was a bit stoned and we thought what is he doing with mushrooms, you will get poisoned. There was a stain on his hands. And you know, bet Cromwell didn‟t eat any of these mushrooms, I wish he bloody did like, sometimes we used to say. It was all old worldly in them days. Even the radio seemed to be a bit and the currencies all changing and the house style. And comedians like Dave Allen and people like that who were classic comics, I don‟t know. Maybe it is an awareness of cancer, but we are all born with cancer in the first place, but people are treated like disturb the environment they live in. Or they are seen an anarchists or rebels because they light a cigarette for some reason.

Do you go in the park now?

I do walk through to me friends every now and again like. You know a lot of people take their dogs in there still like and everybody seems to have a routine. You are bound to bump into someone with a dog. But my dog days are over. I have moved away. The flat that I live in, you can‟t have any animals in there, but that is a blessing in disguise.

In conclusion, what does the park mean to you?

In conclusion it is a like a state of history that no one has ever forgot and nobody ever will do like. And it is like a status of law and order in a sense like. It is knowing what to do and what to say and the right time when you need to speak to somebody like about anything like. Because there has been a few people who burnt themselves and been stabbed in the park and some people have been raped in the park. It has got an issue of a bit of violence in the park like. And people have kept away for that reason like at times of the night when they won‟t go anywhere near it like. And although it‟s like. And we have got all these immigrants here at the moment, I am not prejudiced, but to me they have got to learn English or get out in other words. Because we are all born here, regardless of our nationalities or whatever. But the more they undercut the working class, the kids won‟t want to work like you know for a pittance because these immigrants are taking over all of us jobs like you know.

Thank you very much indeed. That was great.

End of interviews

* * * 16 Madeline WFM Interview, April 2008

We are here at Studio One again. Could you first of all tell us your name, your age and then your memories of Wythenshawe Park and the Hall itself please?

I am Madeline. I am 55 and I was brought up in Wythenshawe and have spent many happy times in Wythenshawe Park. I can always remember the peacocks, they always had beautiful peacocks and lovely gardens. We used to go walking in the gardens. I used to take my younger brothers and sisters. They used to have a paddling pool that we used to go into. And they used to have the big house that we always went in because everybody said it was haunted. So we all liked to go in the haunted house. And I can remember the old fashioned four poster beds and the old fashioned cots and you could picture the people of that were living in there. You know to me, and we‟d walk round for hours and we used to have a little café, that was more or less attached to it, but at the back of the building. That has long since been gone and been replaced with a much better one. Just generally playing as a child really. They did have the tennis courts then and we used to go and watch the tennis and sometimes had a picnic with the little ones. So it has been. Oh and then the fair always came and we loved that. Even though you used to get up to your knee caps in mud. We loved going to the fair, absolutely loved it. Taking the younger ones as well.

You mentioned the mud, what about the changes of seasons in the park?

Oh yeah say in the autumn when the leaves were falling you know. I used to think sometimes, that is a bit dismal. But when you think back then to when all the leaves are back on the trees and how nice it so. So we still went in the winter. Because when it snowed it was breathtaking it really was. As I got older you learn to appreciate it more. So we used to go and take some photos or go and make a snowman, because we had lots and lots of snow so you could make a nice big snowman. So it was nice. No I enjoyed it. I think the last time I was in the park, it was about a year ago and somebody had dumped a cat called Bugles and with me being with the CPL, Cats Protection League, I took it on myself to go and walk the length and breadth of Wythenshawe shouting Bugles. I got some very funny looks especially when I was in the bushes. Because they have got those massive big rhododendron bushes and I got my head stuck in there shouting Bugles. So it didn‟t bother me. I thought they can do what they like. And they had the ponds and we used to go catching newts in there.

Did you go and see the animals in the park and the greenhouses?

Yeah we used to go and see the greenhouses and it didn‟t have many animals then really. Like I say the peacock was the main attraction, that was wonderful. And they had the rabbits and guinea pigs and things like that. But now where that used to be is the farm, like the farm sort of thing. So yeah we would go and see the bull and the pigs and things like that. I went there to ask actually if they had seen the cat you know and they said they would keep they eye out for it, but apparently it never surfaced. So I don‟t know what happened to it. But it didn‟t bother me running through the park shouting in all the bushes.

You never know what you might find!

Precisely.

When you had picnics, can you remember where you had them?

Well it used to be round by the paddling pool because we would go paddling. And in them days it was a bottle of juice, we took a bottle of juice and your sandwiches, your biscuits and things like that. And you were given like you know a sixpence or something to go in the café. And we used to enjoy it and enjoy the time when we had it really. And when it was too hot, I couldn‟t stand it when it was too hot and I used to go a lot in the shade you know where the trees are because they had some very enormous trees. And like I said, those huge high rhododendron bushes and I would sit in there.

What were the ghosts stories about the hall?

We were told it was haunted you know by Oliver Cromwell. Because we used to send little ones in and didn‟t tell them that it was haunted otherwise they wouldn‟t stop screaming. But I used to love walking and seeing the old oak beams. I just imagined people of that era, the likes of Cromwell and what have you. So I enjoyed it.

What would you say the park means to you?

Well it means a lot in my childhood. It means going over your old stomping ground as a kid. So because, my mother used to say, get off to the park. Off you go. And we‟d be there for hours and we liked the swings. You know they had the swing area and the play area and the paddling pool. So no we stayed for hours. Hours and hours.

What about when you were older, did you do any courting?

No. Oh in‟t she a devil!

Well you know a lot about the bushes

Well I certainly do. No because when I got married, I went away because I married a soldier and then of course when we came back to Wythenshawe I had my own children then and he used to take them. So you know they were more or less sharing in my memories. And then they would go to the fair. They used to love the fair. And sometimes they used to have different tournaments on sometimes. So I would take them there. And the circus. The circus would come as well. Not very often the circus though, but the fair year in year out that has been coming, just never stops.

Did you go to the bandstand and see any of the music at all?

No I didn‟t, no. That probably was when I was away. But they used to have the bandstand there.

And the brook that goes through the park?

I nearly fell in it looking for Bugles. And we used to have little woods like I say individual woods that you could go down a track and then it would lead off and you would be like you know. Like in the summer we used to go fishing for newts and frogs and take home the frogspawn in a jar. My mum went, oh get rid of that.

Did you ever see any of the re-enactments?

Oh I went once, yeah. I took the boys, they were all about 14-15 and we went and watched that. That was actually amazing yeah. I would have been definitely on Oliver Cromwell‟s side you know. But it was very, very good.

Was it private where it took place?

When they saw us trying to get to the house. I mean I am not sure if at one time there may have been a big moat, I don‟t know to the house. I am not sure. But I used to stand there and visualising how it would be, you know. And in the Cavalier suits you know what they used to wear and didn‟t we have fun back then [laughing] Saturday morning you know, fight on the main grounds, what else did you want you know. That was it really.

Thank you very much.

End of interview.

* * *

17 Trish Towe

Memories from circa 1955-1962 Sent in.

Going to Wythenshawe Park was a day trip out on the bus. We used to splash about in the paddling pool, which was always a must and afterwards we would go to the ice cream parlour at the side of Wythenshawe Hall. There was a small animal farm then, which was always visited to see if any new animals had been born. You could always spend a full day in the park enjoying yourself.

Of course, every Easter the Fun Fair came to the park and we allowed to go to that after “The Stations of the Cross” on Good Friday with our sixpences to spend.

The area was probably a lot better in those days (nearly 50 years ago) and it was just great to take a picnic and sit in the lovely fields, play ball or play ticky-it (the games children just don't seem to play anymore).

One of my best memories (because I love history) was going into Wythenshawe Hall which was so old and soooooo exciting...... !

* * *

18 Hazel Garside, Lichfield

Memories from circa 1970 -1975 Sent in.

We went to the park quite regularly but I can distinctly remember one hot summer day we went to the paddling pool with my mum, sisters, auntie and cousin. We were only supposed to paddle but ended up getting our knickers wet. I remember the horror of having to travel home on the bus with no knickers on and only a cotton shirt-dress!

I also used to meet two of my earliest boyfriends at Park - Ray Heslop whom I met at Wythenshawe College and Nigel Trevethyn-Murch, who lived in Peel Hall and met at a party. Ray and I met in September and we used to hold hands and walk through all the fallen leaves for hours.

The fun fair was always great, the noise and the smell of axle grease always led to a feeling of excitement!

* * * 19 Iris Commons

Memories circa 1990 - 2000 Sent in

We didn't go to the park very much when the girls were younger because we were nearer to Styal and always went for a walk there. But after the girls had grown up and left home Vincent and I used to go and have a game of bowls during the day and then walk through the lovely Rhododendron Garden. It was always such a pleasure to walk through the gardens when they were really lovely.

* * *

20 Donna Cunneen b.1968

Talked to Development Officer, who typed up memories on computer.

I‟ve always lived in Baguley my whole life. I remember coming to the pets corner with my dad and my mum. And the peacock, definitely the peacock. Waiting for it to open its tail to show all its feathers; it was fantastic. The guinea pigs and rabbits; feeding them grass that I used to pick.

The other thing I used to like about coming here was the little pool, the paddling pool; I couldn‟t wait to get in it. My dad used to tell me this story that someone he worked with used to paint the pool. This man had to paint it and it had to be when there were no children about. It was blue; bright turquoise blue.

The other thing we used to do; every single Easter, without fail, was come to the fair. My dad always wanted to go on the red train. I remember going on it, ringing the bell. It was always a big treat to come.

As I got older I used to come with my friends. We used to bring children from the street, bring them on picnics. I would have been a teenager then. We used to picnic on the benches in the play area – and I always remember eating near the statue. We used to sit down on the ground. I remember one of the little girls being scared of it. We had cheese sandwiches, crisps and apples and things like that, cartons of drinks.

Going back a bit earlier I remember going into the hall with my mum and dad. I used to think it was so big and grand. The big four poster bed and the rails where you couldn‟t go. And my dad used to say, you can‟t go past that rope. I‟m sure they had a cradle in there; a little wooden cradle. When it was shut for years it was really sad; it was shut for ages and ages. And it used to be black and white; a big black and white house. It was really nice; I used to imagine the people who used to live there, how they would live years ago, all the landowners and rich people.

I did a sponsored walk here when I was eleven or twelve with Newall Green Secondary School. We did it for Help the Aged; it was a the back of the hall in the gardens. I think it was a Sunday and we had to do laps around the gardens. I got a certificate for raising quite a bit of money so I was very pleased.

I came here another time and Frank Bruno was here, raising some money for something. So we all came, with my dad, nieces and nephews. He said hello to us and my dad was really chuffed. It was in the local news; it was a big thing to come and see Frank Bruno running around the park. I don‟t know when it was; eighties probably.

When my daughter was little we used to bring to her to see the animals. My mum had died and we used to bring my dad; it was the only place we could get him to, in his wheelchair. We used to bring him out. It‟s a nice remembering those last days; we used to have ice creams, it always had to be a 99. My dad lived round here, lived in , then came here in the 1950s. He always came to the park.

The park is all happy memories for me, happy times. The bonfires, that‟s another thing we came to. Just really happy memory, good times. The weather – it always seemed to be nice; playing cricket, football, flying kites ,all those things you used to do, picnics.

The memories are still going on because I‟m here all the time – with the new addition. [Charlotte, 9 months.]

* * * 21 Joe Hogan

Memories written down by Ali Davenport, Development Officer, as Joe sat in her office reminiscing.

I used to bring my mum in her wheelchair every day for a number of years. Whatever the weather, she still insisted on coming to the park. I‟d go to the shop – we had a shop then at the top, it was round the back in a big greenhouse – and then I‟d bring her to the bowling green and she‟d sit and watch the bowlers. She‟d be here all day; all day. I‟d be with her all day too. This was after I stopped working at my own job [Maintenance at Wythenshawe Hospital]. Mum loved the park, it was her daily routine. If she had to stay in she was upset. She was 84 when she died, of a stroke. She‟ll have been dead seventeen years this Monday – February 3rd.

The park meant a lot to my mother. When she died the park staff did a plaque for me and put it on a tree in the Horticultural Centre. They did the wording. She knew all the staff by name in the greenhouses; all the lads and the girls, you know.

There‟s a plaque with my name on too when I opened the Fern House in the Horticultural Centre.

Altogether now I‟ve volunteered here for seventeen years. I‟ve done all sorts: helped in the plant shop, gone out doing flower shows at Platt Fields and Tatton Park, helped in all kinds of ways, Relay for Life, shows in the park, Lord Simon‟s Day. Do all sorts now, helping one of the Leisure Attendants; cleaning, fixing things sometimes, and of course, brewing up!

I remember once when the café was down at the end, in the hall courtyard - she used to love going there every day to have a cup of tea - some photographers came and took pictures of her with Walls ice cream. We never saw the photographs.

One of the best days here was Simon‟s Day. It was a brilliant day, I thought. One of the Simon‟s family came, one of the nephews; he did say he lived in Timperley. It was like an event day, all stalls and that. I was dressed as King Charles; a red rig-out. Steve Downey, the park manager, dressed up as Cromwell. The atmosphere was marvellous, the weather was brilliant; there were hundreds of people here. At night-time we finished up with a Medieval banquet in the hall.

The park means a lot to me; all its different ways, the staff I work with. I don‟t think I would have lasted this long without it [Jo is 75 in September]. When I first retired from the hospital I used to do every day, when my mum passed away.

In 2001 Jo won a volunteer award from , presented to him at Platt Field.

Joe grew up in Green then moved to in the 1950s and now lives close to the park in Northern Moor.

* * *

22 John Steedman

WFM interview

If you say your name and how old you are and how long you have worked in the park? My name is John Steadman. I am 65 years of age and I have worked at Wythenshawe Park probably for about 15 years although I have worked for the Council for over 30 years.

Carry on? I suppose my first memories of Wythenshawe Park were when I used to go down there as a child and about I don‟t know about 1957/58 something like that. I used to live in and we‟d get the bus from - I think it was a 45 or 102 something like that - and from Wilborough Road. And we would take my dog and about four five of us would go and play in Gib lane Woods, the woods right next to the motorway now. They used to be bigger, but they took a big slice of the woods away to create the motorway or to widen Princess Parkway. And I can remember somebody would get hold of the dog and myself and a couple of the others would go and hide and then the dog had to come and find us and this was a great game. We played it probably for 2-3 years on the run, I suppose. The dog always found us as well. But memories of that time were of the woods being a lot bigger and we used to cross the River Mersey then. It was little more than an open sewer, you know, it smelled and there were factories up stream there, in Stockport, that used to put dyes in it. It would be a different colour every year and now it is a totally different story because we have cleaned it up and there are fish in it and angling clubs have the rights to it. And something, I did a little book about Wythenshawe Park a few years ago and something that sticks in my mind that I came across was it used to be called Whitten Score which meant Willow Wood. Because apparently they used to grow a lot of willows there and send them down the Mersey to Warrington where they had weaving factory. And little things like, Bagley was apparently originally called Badgers Leigh, from Badgers Hollow. So presumably badgers around there at that time.

I know the park today and the edge of the park stops and the river is like another mile or so away, was that before the estate was built? No, my mum used to give us bus fare and you know we would save a big part of the bus fare by walking. So we used to walk over the river and look into it. So that is when we noticed that. A colleague of mine who used to work in the park told me that extensive parts of it were used for growing vegetables during the war. No signs of this now, but it was the area near the motorway and the big round I believe. The big round is the big circle of woods in, well there are a couple of rounds in the park and they are just circles of woods. I became involved in the park again around about 1980 the then director of the parks decided to develop the greenhouse area in a different way. Previously it was used for growing bedding plants; we used to grow about half a million bedding plants for using around the city of Manchester, in all the different parks. Incidentally on the corner of Wythenshawe Road and Princess Road there used to be a massive big roundabout absolutely full of really well done bedding; it was quite a picturesque area at that junction. Anyway he decided to make a horticultural centre, that is what he called it. The idea was to open it up to the public so the public could walk through the greenhouses and see how the plants were grown and so on. And then a few years later, about the late „80s, I was put in charge there as the manager and we developed it further and we encouraged schools in and developed different plots. The heather garden and the vegetable garden and the greenhouses themselves were changed from being just functional to being educational interpretative if you like. And where they were once shelves of thousands of bedding plants, which were quite interesting when you first see it, but gets pretty boring after the first few, we planted it up. We made little walkways through and planted it up with palm trees and tea plants and sugar and all sorts of things that we deemed would be of educational interest to the schools. And it sort of built up from then.

Then it had a bit of a lean period when the staff was withdrawn due to lack of cash I think and we are just at the moment in the process of revitalising it. The wardens are working very hard to produce interpretive areas showing how plants are grown and getting school kids in to show them not just how plants are grown but all the things that are sort of tied in with that like recycling, you know. And the obvious recycling in the garden is the compost heap, but you can relate that to things in the wider scale of life. You know bottles and paper and all the rest of it. So the horticultural centre we see as being a very important feature because it can widen the education. It is not just about how plants grow. Well if you go into the greenhouses, the greenhouses themselves they are usually warmer than outside, even when there is no heat on. And the reason for that is that the rays from the sun can pass through the glass quite easily but when they are absorbed by the materials inside, they are re-admitted as a different form of radiation that can‟t pass through the glass and it is trapped and that radiation is head radiation. And so the glasshouses are always warmer inside than it is outside.

So you are getting there into the realms of explaining how global warming works. You know you‟ve got a, you have not got a layer of glass around the earth, you have got a layer of gas and the thicker that gas layer gets, the more it keeps the heat in. And we have got the herb garden. And again you can relate that to far more wider aspects of life in that the herbs obviously can be used as food and in the past they have been used as medicine and they still find important medicines in herbs and so you can relate that to the destruction of the rain forests in the Amazon basin and places like this where you know they are destroying, I don‟t know, two football pitches worth a day or something like that and there may be a cure for cancer or AIDS or something like that in some of those plants that are being lost. So it gives the kids the importance of other aspects of life; that is what I am trying to say.

In 1989 a group of people called the Friends of Wythenshawe Horticultural Centre formed and they are primarily to, well they are a social group, but they on occasions help with work in the park and have a series of talks that is ongoing. Talks on horticulture and natural history, birds and things like this. Very good series of talks actually. And they have outings and I think there are about 150 members and if anybody was interested in getting involved with them, they could always contact me. I am on 0161 434 1877. And as I said my name is John Steedman.

They also, another part of their role is to apply for money from grants and this indeed is how we have built up the horticultural centre, mainly on money that they had applied for and got for us. So that is the horticultural centre and the friends. And the friends have since changed the name to Friends of Wythenshawe Park. So it is not just the horticultural interest, although that is a big part of what they do.

We did have a problem with dog faeces in the park at one stage; well it is an ongoing thing in most parks really. And I saw an advertisement for a machine for removing them in the horticultural press and it was called FIDO which stands for Faeces Intake Disposal Operation. And I thought, well this sounds pretty good so I rang the guy and asked him if he would come and give a demonstration for the parks managers because as I say it is a problem in all the parks. So all the park managers came down and this guy was bringing FIDO. And then I suddenly realised that we had not got any samples. So I just went out into the park and usually you can just step out of the door and whoops you are into one you know. But I walked around the 260 acres of Wythenshawe park and I couldn‟t find one dog dropping on that particular day and I was getting desperate. And then somebody said, well Colin Evans is pretty creative - he was the warden in the park at the time - you know he might be able to come up with something. So I went to see Colin and, Right, he said. And he went and got some mud and he rolled it into sort of sausage shapes and drawn out ends and got carried away and got some sand and colour; really authentic actually and we laid this out all along the drive, put cones along so that the public would not stand in it, because they seem to feel it is their duty to do that. And this guy turned up with FIDO and FIDO turned out to be, I think it was a converted golf cart with this damn great vacuum on it with a big see-through tube going up on the side. And you drove along and this thing sucked the droppings up. And you could see it whizzing up this tube. And if there was a particularly dry hard one it actually squirted a mixture of some sort of disinfectant onto it, which softened it and sucked that up you know. So this was very impressive and he was telling us that you could actually progress from FIDO which goes 26 mile and hour, if you are that way inclined, to RALPH which is a motorbike and RALPH stands for Ride Along Lifting Faeces. And this motorbike could do 50-60 mile and hour. So you would have to have a pretty good eye I reckon and it had this damn big saddle bag on the back that was telling the wardens, for god sake don‟t put your butties in that. But anyway we eventually bought FIDO and that was used for some time for clearing the faeces in the park.

What sort of year would that have been? That would be about, I would guess, ten years ago. So FIDO is still around. They have come up with a legal ruling that people can‟t allow their dogs to defecate in the park now and so there is some sort of control exerted by the wardens and so it is less of a problem and FIDO has been converted into a run-around. They have taken the vacuum off it so it is not quite as exciting now.

That is a good little story, so anything else like that. Because no one else is going to come in here and go I have got a story about a machine that picks up dog ****. That is a good one. I can remember there was a flasher in the park on one occasion. And the then manager whose name I won‟t mention had this guy pointed out to him. Somebody noticed him, he was sitting in a car. And he said, he was told this was the flasher this guy sitting in the car. So he went over to the car and beat on the hood and berated this guy who was wearing a striped coat and a straw hat. And there was an event on in the park that day and he opened the window and he said, but I am a member of the band you know, this is the first time I have been in the park. So that was a pretty embarrassing sort of situation for that parks manager.

From the point of view of gardens and plants. It is quite difficult to keep parks in the way they used to be because there tends to be a different attitude towards bedding plants and things like that. And years ago there was a big herbaceous border stretched right from the gateway coming right to the end near the car park and that is all gone now. But at the back of the horticultural centre, the greenhouses - which is where the people in the hall originally used to grow their vegetables I believe - there are a series of gardens which are very nice and most gardeners would appreciate them. You know it is well worth going in there for a look at. And it is nice and quiet. It is a walled off area so it tends to be a lot more peaceful than the rest of the park so you can sit down and have a read and enjoy the surroundings.

I can‟t think of anything else.

These are nice little bits there. You have bits from when you were a kid, the woods that are now gardens, the river and colours down the river, dog ****, the borders, the flasher. Some nice little stories there. We have got 17 minutes so some good stuff. The one about the flasher was a big weak. I mean it is usually.

No if you mix that in with, saw we have 30 other people relaying little stories and you give a 10 second clip then it will work really well. So don’t worry, that is cool, it has been very good. I have run dry I am afraid.

Right that’s cool, brilliant.

END OF INTERVIEW

* * *

23 Jean [James] Belluz

I just happened upon your website letter about the Wythenshawe Park memories. Here are a few thoughts of my own. The photographs were taken around 1940 at the Wythenshawe cottage where I lived at that time. The children are the ones I mention in the short article. The lady is Mrs. Jackson at the gate with us sitting on the gate behind the cottage and again at the side of the cottage. This one taken 1960.

Living Next door to Wythenshawe Park

My mother Maisie James and I moved to Wythenshawe from Dudley, Worcs: at the onset of World War 2. My father George James had been called back into the army and we had no choice but to move. So we left the relative safety of Dudley and evacuated ourselves close to the bombing area of Manchester. My mother had heard of a Mrs. Jackson from her sister, who lived at Wythenshawe on the south side of Manchester and she would be happy to take us for a week or two until we found our own place to live. I had just had my first birthday on August 29 1939 and by September 20th we were living with a family that previously we did not even know. The Jackson family had three children. Zena was the oldest, Arthur the middle child and John the youngest, who was two years older than me.

My mother and “Aunty Gert” as I was to call her, got along so well, we never did move until after the war was over and they became the best of friends. We eventually moved back to Dudley in 1946 when my father was demobbed from the army.

The old cottage where we lived was one of three that were joined together and that at one time belonged to Wythenshawe Hall. Originally, I understand were built to house the people that worked on the Wythenshawe Estate. They had lovely lattice windows on all the windows and a fireplace with an oven built into it in the front room. Great bread and other baking were done in it quite often. Aunty Gert would black-lead it every week. She had a wonderful collection of brass of over a hundred pieces and they too were polished every week usually by us children. I still have a couple of pieces from her collection. Next door lived a single lady, and at the far end of the row of three cottages lived Mr. & Mrs. Houston and their son, Raymond. Our garden was kept spotless and neat by Mr. Jackson with straight rows of Golden Balls, peonies and other flowers all in weedless beds. . Lovely raspberry canes, blackcurrants, gooseberries and rhubarb plants. “Uncle Joe” as I called him, would cut the grass with a scythe and then we would jump into the piles of dry grass we collected for him and make forts out of it .Our garden was quite large at the side of the house and ran right up to the large white gate at the end of the lane, which marked the beginning of the park driveway. He worked for Wythenshawe Park in the gardens and the stable. One day he rode home on a very large cart horse and we all had turns riding him slowly up and down the „bottom road‟ which was directly in front of the cottages, I believe Aunty Gert had once worked in the kitchen of the Wythenshawe Hall and she was a great cook.

On Sundays we walked to church, sometimes twice, after which we weren‟t allowed to play with balls or to play games but were sent into the park for a walk. We spent many hours walking through the park and exploring the brook alongside the park driveway. Sometimes we caught small tiddler fish with a little white net and brought them home in glass jars. One day John fell off the small bridge over the brook and had several stitches in his head and a concussion. After that we weren‟t allowed to go by the bridge. We loved the swings and slides over in the children‟s play area and would race to get our favorite one. On the right- hand side of the Wythenshawe Hall building was a small ice cream shop and sometimes, not very often, we actually bought one or maybe a bottle of orange juice. Wall‟s Ice cream was the best Usually however we would venture out on our walk armed with a bottle of water each and some apples from our tree. We would be in heaven. In the late summer when the apples were ripe in the garden we would sell them to the people going into the park. I think we charged 1 or 2d per pound and felt very important when weighing them out on a large iron weigh-scale. We had cooking apples and the best eating apples I have ever eaten...

In the park was a green band stand and there we would shelter if it rained and of course carved our initials into the back wall. J.J. for John Jackson and J.J. for me Jean James. I can‟t remember if Arthur or Zena carved theirs in there, but they probably did.

On the retaining wall behind the small moat in front of the Hall, I remember, was a beautiful Lion‟s head. And I always „had‟ to sit on it when I could persuade someone to lift me up. How I loved that Lion‟s head. Another activity would be collecting the conkers that had fallen off the trees and after threading a string through them, we would play for hours hitting our opponents‟ conker with our own until one was split into two .This activity could go on for weeks.

During the war we had our air-raid shelter built at the side of the house and one night when we were in there I remember the ground shaking when a bomb fell close to us and hearing my mother say “It‟s alright it‟s on the other side of the park”. Sometimes there were American soldiers marching along the Altrincham Road on their way to the Ringway Airport and tanks would noisily roll by also on their way to the airport. For a short time along the „bottom road‟ which was the inner road leading to the cottages off Altrincham Road anti- aircraft guns were parked ( possibly hidden under the thick branches of the trees that lined the road)? At the time we thought this was quite normal but also exciting for us children. I remember one time we were standing on the fence along the road in front of the cottages watching some troops marching by and we were shouting “Go home yanks” and Aunty Gert coming out of the house and chasing us back indoors.

After the war our friendship continued with the Jackson family and I spent many holidays at 1, Wythenshawe Cottages. Gib Lane, Northenden. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson and Zena have since died and the rest of the children have moved away. They had one other child after the war, Catherine. We all still keep in touch and I still think of them as my siblings. I have many wonderful memories of Wythenshawe Park and the Hall and someday I hope to visit again.

I hope these are a little better for you. Use what you can. Jean.

Also another change to text I sent to you. I have since read my mothers diary and the actual dates of moving to Wythenshawe goes as follows: My first birthday was August 29.My father was called up as a reservist on August 30th.They decided to leave their home and got friends and relatives to take the furniture because they didn't know how long it would be until the army would send mom any money. or how long the war would last.He left us on September 1st. Mom and I couldn't go to live with mom's sisters in Birkenhead because it was to be a heavily bombed area close to the Liverpool docks and all the children were being evacuated from that area to North Wales. Her sister Edna's two children had already gone. Mom's sister Lily and husband came from Birkenhead to pick us up on September 3rd and took us to Wythenshawe to stay with a Mrs. Jackson and her family until we could find a place of our own. We didn't know Mrs. Jackson before this and so it must have been very traumatic for my mother. Mom and Mrs. Jackson became very good friends and we would stay there until after the war was over and left there in 1946 when dad was demobbed from the army. We then returned to Dudley.

Use this information as you see fit. Sorry I didn't take out her diary before I wrote before. As you can see there wasn't much time between the war being declared and our move to Wythenshawe.

Thanks for your patience. Jean Belluz.

* * * 24 Ron Green

WFM interview conducted twice due to poor quality of sound in first interview.

Hello. Can you first of all tell us your name and age and what memories you have of Wythenshawe Hall please? Ronald Green, 74. What do I remember about the park? I can remember playing in the park as a very young boy which we use as our tracking area. This would be in the late 30s.

[Pause]

Can you tell us your name, your age and what you remember about Wythenshawe Hall and Wythenshawe Park please? Ronald Green, age 74. Memories of Wythenshawe Park and Wythenshawe Hall really go through from my grandfather who was a chauffeur to Sir Thomas Tatton. He started with them round about 1914 I think and when Thomas Tatton left, having died of course, the park was created by Henry Simon, Thomas Tatton‟s grandfather was retained as an issuance caretaker.

Interrupt

I can remember Wythenshawe park mainly because my grandfather had worked at the Park. He was chauffeur to Thomas Tatton until he died in 1924 and then when the park was sold.

Re-start

My memories of Wythenshawe Park

Your name again sorry? Ronald Green, age 74. My memories of Wythenshawe Park go back really through my grandfather who was chauffeur to Thomas Tatton until 1924 when Thomas Tatton died. And the park was bought by the Simons and given to Manchester to be a public park. But my grandfather was retained after that for ten years actually until he retired in 1934. So the associations with the park were quite close because I was born in 1934 just as he retired. But until that time of his retirement, my mother and father lived in the cottage that had been allotted to my grandfather which was on Wythenshawe Road. They were sort of caretakers of the cottage I think until he was ready for retirement.

In the early days, well certainly in the days from 1930s into the war, my grandmother was obviously involved up to 1934, they start to serve teas from what used to be the old laundry which was served on cups and saucers, teapots, served on trays with deposits of two pounds I think which was a lot of money in those days. And these were for people who came to visit the park from far and wide out of the city and city areas. So a refreshment area for them and they could take this wherever they wanted in the park and obviously had to take the tray and teacups back and got the deposit back. That tea room which operated quite a long time. I don‟t know when it stopped, but certainly through the war and beyond the war and maybe is still going now, I don‟t know. But during the war I can remember going there with other people with our sweet coupons which we got. And every Sunday morning if we were lucky, they had an allocation of chocolate that they sold, kit kats and mars bars and that sort of thing. So that was a memory I have got there.

I certainly played a lot in the park where we used to have a game when we were kids. We were talking about kids between 7 and 15 I suppose and had a game called tracking. We lived about a quarter of a mile away from the park and we would split into two, two teams and one team would go off into the park and then the other team had to try and find them. So it was a fair big area so we covered a lot of ground there actually.

Another memory I have was of dancing that they used to do in the park. This would be just after the war I think, on the grass. They would rope off an area of grass on the ringfield, which I will come back to in a minute and I think there was a van which used to come with a couple of loud speakers on top of it. So presumably it was operated from records I suppose. But we danced on the grass there. The ring field I mentioned, it is probably a well known name, I don‟t know. But it is called because it used to be used for exercising the horses that belonged to the hall. And you can actually see the area, the ring that they used to walk round. Other memories, well the golf pitch and putt that seems to have been going a long time. We went there as boys. I remember the part, just near the golf course, between the golf course and what is now the playing fields, the football pitches and so on/ there was an area there that was tarmaced I think where they used to, the Manchester corporation uses as a bus depot. This was during the war and lot of the buses were used there for transporting workers to Trafford Park. They used to have an open air depot. It wasn‟t covered in or anything.

What about the changes in the seasons in the park? Changes in the seasons in the park? Not. Only probably the different, well certainly the spring when the bowling opened, but moving onto the summer, in the summer months they had the best band concerts on a Sunday afternoon and evening which again were held on the ring field, where they erected a stage every year and we used to enjoy those. They got all the top bands from everywhere, Yorkshire and Lancashire. I went to, not many recollections of winter really, apart from in the autumn throwing sticks and stones at the chestnut trees for conkers.

How about the fairground, do you remember that? Yes but we are going a lot later now, the fairground. And the fairground used to be in Northenden, by the river. That was in my early days. I can‟t remember when they actually came to the park, but I would guess somewhere about 1960 but it is only a guess. I think I can remember taking my two sons around it when they were quite young, that would be early 60s.

What about the Hall, do you have any memories of that? Very little because we weren‟t allowed in the Hall. The only memory I have got. It is not a memory. It is a story that my grandfather in his guise before he retired, he used to show parties around the Hall apparently and made a big emphasis on the ghost that was supposedly there. He made up stories I think as he went along.

Is this the grey lady? Yes, actually he and his son, who used to stay at the hall when they were there, when they were caretakers, they swear blind that they had seen this lady ghost walking through where the tea rooms were, that area. And also my sister-in-law who was quite a bit older than me, she and her boyfriend who were walking through the park one night in the dark you know, as you do and they would definitely, they would swear that they had seen something on the back drive. And something that appeared and then disappeared. The other thing about the back drive is there is a row of chestnuts on either side and my grandfather was involved in the planting of those. So that would be in the …..

Pause

My grandfather, Charles Browning, took the post of Coachman and chauffeur to Thomas Tatton round about 1914. His wife, Lucy worked in the hall and they lived in a tied cottage on Gib Lane with their three children. Thomas Tatton died in 1924. When the hall and grounds were sold to Lord Simon, my grandfather and grandmother were employed by the Manchester Corporation as caretakers and because of the wishes of Thomas Tatton or actually it would have been the son I think, Peter Tatton, they had the cottage on Wythenshawe Road allotted to them for the rest of their lives at a rent of three shillings a week. They lived there until they were 90. The laundry building on the left, near to the house was converted to a tea room which my grandmother ran with the help of her daughter and they provided pots of tea and cups and saucers and a tray to take into the park with a two shillings deposit to make sure they were brought back to the tea room.

Repeat

My grandmother with the help of her daughter, Flo, they provided pots of tea and cups and saucers and a tray to take into the park with a deposit of two shillings to make sure they were returned.

One of the duties that my grandfather did actually was to tend the Tatton family tomb in St Wilfred‟s Church in Northenden. He sort of made sure that it was kept neat and tidy and in fact I can remember going with him on one or two occasions to do that. In 1934 he retired my grandfather and was presented with a clock [bell ringing]

Repeat

My grandfather retired in 1934 and was presented with a clock by the staff of Wythenshawe Hall on the occasion of his retirement, 18 January 1934.

During the summer in the wartime there were concerts and bands in the ring field which was between the back drive and the front drive which is where they used to exercise the horses and hence called the ring field.

Prior to joining the Tatton‟s as chauffeur my grandfather was coachman and later chauffeur to somebody in Bailey who had a big engineering business in Eccles and he lived at Sale Old Hall and my grandfather and grandmother lived in the lodge to the hall. In fact when they got married that was the first home, that was his first appointment I think, certainly as a married man. And they were there until 1914. He chauffeured somebody in Bailey to the opening of the Manchester Ship Canal. Somebody in Bailey was involved/ So that was quite a thing really.

Where are your grandparents buried? They are buried in Northenden Churchyard.

My grandfather and my grandmother, strangely enough. They both lived to be 90 and died within three months of each other, which is not uncommon, but that happened and they are actually buried in Northenden churchyard. There is a grave there that they had actually bought some time, a long time ago specifically for themselves and unfortunately my brother he was killed in the war and he was ten years older than I am, but he was first in the grave as it happens and then my grandfather and grandmother three months later. And my father as well is buried in that grave, the ashes with my mother. So they are all together in St Wilfred‟s Churchyard.

My brother if he had been here, he would have been 84 now, he would have had a lot of memories because he was born in Moston but he came.

Pause

He was born in Moston and he was two when he came to live at the cottage, Wythenshawe cottage which was my grandparents cottage. But whilst they were caretaking in the park, he twisted my mother‟s arm to come and live in the cottage and keep it maintained and live there with her husband and eldest son Charles and they stayed there until 1934 and then they moved out when my grandparents needed to move into the cottage. But my brother would have had a lot of memories I am sure of the park before it became the park actually. No I am sorry about the time it became the park. He was born in ‟24, so by the time he was 4-5 towards the end of the 20s, it was the very early days of the park, Wythenshawe Park.

Are there any other members of the family still alive and would also have memories?

No they are not unfortunately. No. I have got a cousin, but he is a lot younger than I am. I can‟t think of anything else.

That was brilliant, fantastic. Thank you very much.

Then your grandparents knew Maisy James during the war, her and her daughter were evacuated there with the Jackson family? I remember the Jacksons they were in Gib Lane weren‟t they? Near the front lodge. I can‟t recall them but I can remember the name Jacksons. There were three cottages on Gibb Lane, my grandparents lived in one before they went to the Hall. When he worked for the Tatton that was his home and my mother lived there and elder brother. And I am pretty confident that one of the other cottages was owned by the Jacksons. So you reckon this lady was a Jackson?

Yes the Jackson family and they took in Maisie James and daughter during the war. They came from Birmingham. Evacuees?

You mentioned something about during the war a plane dropping a bomb in the playground? During the early part of the war when the blitz, sort of 1940, 41, 42, there was one well remembered evening or night when one of the German bombers had obviously went to Trafford park in the main, around this area and one obviously was getting a quick getaway or finish what he was doing, but he made tracks from Trafford Park and he could follow the track because he was obviously offloading bombs as well. There was a line of bombs that were dropped between Trafford Park and Wythenshawe Park I would say. But one landed in the middle of the playground in the park, the swings in Wythenshawe Park. One landed at the end of my road actually and unfortunately killed the mother of the family, tragic. There were two families hit.

Did you see the playground afterwards? Do you know I can‟t remember seeing it at all.

Were there any air raid shelters in the park? There were.

That was really good. Thank you

End of interview

SECOND INTERVIEW

Hello. Can you first of all tell us your name and how old you are and your memories of Wythenshawe Park and Wythenshawe Hall?

I am Ronald Green don‟t really start until just before the war I suppose, but the association with Wythenshawe Park goes back quite a lot longer than that through my grandfather. He was born actually In Sussex, Charles Browning and he left school at 11 and he went to be a stable lad at Newmarket Stables and he must have been involved with horses obviously for quite a few years after that because the next, his next surface if you like is in Cheshire where he was in the service of a gentleman near Nantwich and it was there that he met his future wife, Lucy. And in, they were married in 1893 and their first home was in Sale. They moved to Sale from Nantwich and he must have got a job as coachman to William Bailey who lived at Sale Old Hall and my grandfather and mother they lived in a lodge to the Hall and he was as I say he was coachman to William Bailey who was later Sir, knighted, who seemed to be quite an important figure in Manchester and Salford at that time. He owned an engineering firm in Eccles and he was involved with the ship canal and my grandfather actually, I have got a photograph of him at Trafford Bridge, where he drove Sir William Bailey as he was then, to the opening of the Ship Canal in 1894, May 1894. Later after that of course with the advent of the motor car he became transferred from coachman to Chauffeur and he remained with the Baileys until the outbreak of the first world war in 1914, when I think they moved from Sale and my grandfather got an appointment with the Tatton‟s of Wythenshawe Hall as chauffeur to Thomas Tatton whom. He remained there until 1924 until Thomas Tatton died and the estate and hall were sold and bought by Sir Henry Simon and given to Manchester as a public park in 1926. But my grandfather was retained, he was the sole retainer apparently for that period and he became Manager, Caretaker for the Hall and went to live in the Hall during that period from 1926 up to 1934 when he retired. When he went to live in the Hall in 1926 his daughter, who was my mother was living at Moston at the time and they moved into the cottage on Wythenshawe Road which is still standing that my grandfather had been given in perpetuity at a rent of three shillings a week. So they moved in there to sort of kept it warm while he was in the Hall. But in 1933 just before he retired, the Lorton Moore Estate was being built and my mother and father got a house there and I was born a year later in 1934, so that was when my sort of association if you like starts with the Hall. But I had a brother who was born in Moston, he was two when they came to Wythenshawe. So he must have known the Hall very well I would think at that time.

As I say my grandfather was the sole retainer and seemed to have a multitude of duties in the Hall apart from looking after it. Long after it became a park of course.

When the Tatton‟s left Wythenshawe Hall my grandfather was seemed, one of his duties if you like was to maintain the Tatton Grave which is in the Northern Churchyard. I can remember going there with him when I was quite young to maintain it.

This really leads me now to my associations, my personal associations with the park. When we were young, we used it lot for various activities. But during the war I can remember one occasion when the swings had a bomb landed in the centre of them. It was a lone German plane I think coming back from Trafford park and must have had a few bombs to offload because there was a string of landings of bombs. You could sort of measure them in a straight line from Trafford Park across the estate, Long Moore East, two houses were hit. And as I say there was a bomb in the middle of the swings. I can‟t remember actually, strangely enough, I can‟t remember any damage or crater to the swings, but it was certainly happened. We did a lot of fishing in the brook that ran through the park, still does. And in the swamps what we used to call the swamps which were small drainage ponds I think in the woods, along Wythenshawe Road towards the Bagley End. We played a lot in there actually. I played football and cricket of course on the ring field which was the field opposite the golf course. They call it the ring field because the horses in the old days were exercised and trained there. The ring was still visible I think in parts in that field. And tennis, we played quite a lot of tennis when the courts were opened. I don‟t know when they were actually opened, somewhere around about 1950 I guess but we had a team from the Church, St Michael‟s church and we had a team that competed in the Church league I think it was. So we had one or two happy years there.

Talking of St Michael‟s. Another memory I have got of the park is that in the, again we are talking around about the end of the 1940s, early 50s, St Michael‟s Church Long Moore and St Aden‟s Catholic Church and Wotton Lane Methodist Church on Whit Sunday, always had a joint procession of witness and they used to finish, end in the park, nearly outside the Hall and finish with a couple of hymns and so on.

Also I would think just after the war again, there was dancing. They used to have dancing on the field, on the grass, they would rope off an area and someone would arrive with a van with a couple of these big megaphones on the top and presumably they were records I suppose that the music came from so that was another memory. And also visiting brass bands as well, that was quite a big feature on a Sunday evening, Sunday afternoon and evening, they had. During the summer they would have a band every week. I am talking about the main bands as well you know the Brighouse and Rasterick? and Thornton‟s, Black ?, you name it they all seemed to come and that was very well attended as well, very popular.

I can also remember at least one occasion they had open air Shakespeare just outside, well if it was fine, again this was summer of course, if it was fine they would have it in front of the hall where the beds are now. The rose beds. If it was wet there was one occasion I can remember going, I think it was Midsummer‟s Nights Dream, they had to have it in the old tenants hall. So we all crammed into there. But that was quite an early memory actually.

I also remember the café. Which was in the not the stable yard, the yard just behind the hall which, it was actually the dairy that they set this café up and this was probably in the time when my grandparents were still living in the hall actually because my grandmother and my mother who lived across the road in Wythenshawe cottage, they were involved in this. And they would provide tea. Pots of tea on a tray, crockery and what have you that people could hire, take out into the park and then there was a three shilling deposit on the tray to make sure they brought it back. But I can remember my own relatives, probably a bit later than that, but they. This is on my father‟s side, they seemed to. They came from Congleton to Manchester at the beginning of the century and they seemed to congregate around Redditch, Gorton and that area. And of course going out from there to Wythenshawe Park was like going you know out into the countryside, well it was virtually. And I can remember they used to arrive on mass and many a happy hour was had in the park with them.

Another memory is that just where the football pitches are now, at the end of the golf course, the 9th hole I think it is, part of that must have been taken over during the war and sort of tarmac or something put down because there was a bus depot there for an overnight stationary place for the buses which served Trafford Park.

I mentioned the golf course. That is probably the biggest memory really, apart from general playing around. Because we used to go on the golf as much as we could, which wasn‟t too often because it cost of course. We didn‟t have a lot of money but we used to always enjoy going round that golf course and we still enjoy going round it actually, occasionally, but I think that golf course is probably one of the best pitch and putts that was ever laid in Manchester area. Because it is a little bit more than just putting. And we had a lot of happy hours on there. And thinking about it, my grandfather played on there because he used to boast about going round in 57, that is 57 shots on an 18 hole course. And I have often wondered since whether he really went round in 57 because that was one of my aims was to try and beat that and I never got anywhere near it actually. But he played golf on there. My father, when they came to live at the Wythenshawe cottage during the period where they were sort of minding it for them, he worked. He was employed in the park as a gardener. And I am pretty sure that he played on the golf course later when it was built. I don‟t know when it was built actually. I played on it. I have taken my sons on it when they were teenagers. And recently we have taken our grandsons on it. So that is five generations of the family have played golf on that course.

The only other thing I can remember really is the fairground which was a bit later. It came later. The fairground used to be in Northenden. Somewhere by the river anyway until 1950 again I suppose, before it came into the park. It has been there ever since as far as I know. Those are my memories. All I could say about Wythenshawe park is that even now when standards are not as high as they used to be, it seems to be pretty well, reasonably maintained. It has always remained to be sort of a fresh place somehow. They have not got rid of many trees and so on and it is still a very good place I would think for families and kids and so on. And it must be responsible I would think over the past 70 years for thousands and thousands of marriages one way or another. So yes happy days.

I am sure you are right on that one as well. Do you have any memories of how the season changed in the park? Not really, other than conkers. We used to go in the park collecting horse chestnuts if we could find them. Winter, I can‟t remember. No the answer is no really. Strangely enough I can‟t. I suppose you remember the times you enjoy best don‟t you. And I suppose we would have used it far more in the spring and summer than we would in the winter.

Did you go tobogganing in the winter? No can‟t remember it. Too flat. We once tried it on the shale path which is the path which runs through right along Wythenshawe Road from Bagley virtually to Wythenshawe parkway. There is a slope there at the Bagley end, but it wasn‟t really steep enough. We had to pull and push unfortunately.

You mentioned about the tea rooms in the Hall, do you have any other memories of the Hall? Very little other than the tenants hall. We never went in. I never went in the Hall. As far as I can remember. As I say I was a bit too late for that. I think my brother would have probably you know gone in even before it was or became or it was still the Tatton‟s I suppose. No it wouldn‟t be the Tatton‟s then would it, he came in 1926. But the early days of the corporation and while my grandfather was still there as caretaker, I am sure he must have gone along. But I am afraid I have no memories of that at all.

Thank you very much indeed, that is fine.

End of interview

* * *

25 Maureen Donnelly

WFM interview

Hello. Can you first of all tell us your name and age and what memories you have with Wythenshawe Park and Wythenshawe Hall? My name is Maureen Donnelly. I am 75 years old. I came to live in Wythenshawe, I remember we had……[poor sound]

My name is Maureen Donnelly and I am 75 years old. My family came to live on Baxter gardens. There were four of us, there was mummy and daddy and granny and Laurie was wasn‟t quite two. And our name was Lynch. It was a Cole house when we went. And that was where we lived. Granny lived with us, which I have come to realise was a [poor sound] What today would be called a three parent family. And granny was a great walker. And we walked and we walked and we walked. And one of the places we walked of course was into the park. We didn‟t, I don‟t think. I couldn‟t possibly have done because of my age known that the Park was called Wythenshawe Park.

The big house? In fact granny always called it, the big house, and she loved to ramble around the park. And we rambled around the park. There was one big tree, two trees had merged into one and created a seat. And we used to sit on that. We walked into the park and because I had granny with me, it was granny who was taking me out. I took it for granted that I would behave myself. Children weren‟t allowed in. But well miles away.

What do you remember about going into the Hall? We would go into the Hall and we would go through the door into the big kind of Hall and then we would go into a big room to the right with the long, long polished table and come back out of the [?] and come back and there was another one on the other side. Then we would mount the staircase. The staircase must have been polished oak. I presume, it really looked lovely. Then upstairs the bedrooms. Now we don‟t know, we don‟t think it was original. I think the furniture had come from the corporation stores or other parks and other places. But then there was a door and you went through the door you were in the Georgian part of the Hall, not the black and white Cheshire part any more and there was an exhibition of dolls houses. And there were these different dolls houses of different sizes and occasionally the man who was in charge of them would open the cases so that we could have a look and we could also open the houses so that we could have a peak inside. It must have been, that we were very special. Because I don‟t know anybody else who knew as much as those places as we knew.

I do remember the stables.

Can we go back to the looking at the dolls houses? And then on the first floor there was a door and if you went through that door you were in the Georgian part of the house and it, there were a collection of dolls houses there. All sorts of different dolls houses, where they came from I did not know but granny and I. Granny and I managed to, sometimes they would open the case, open the dolls house and let us see inside. One stipulation we did not touch, which of course we didn‟t. But it was lovely to go and see all those dolls houses and see them all together there as a collection. We looked out of the window, we were in what we thought was the wing of the hall. And, never called it Georgian, presumably because it followed the black and white Cheshire type building round the front of the Hall. But we enjoyed very much.

We always had special things happen to us when I went out with Granny. Granny had great ideas about people. There were two workmen who wore caps and when she passed them, she would say, good morning men. But if we ever came past [?] with a collar and tie, she would say, good morning sir. I really used to laugh but this was the granny who told us stories and made up tales for us and as I saw was our third parent.

Did she tell you any stories about the House? No not. Oh yes there were stories about the House. We went in, as I say we went into the House, ultimately years later I was to have my daughter‟s wedding. At the head of the park I know, at the front of the park, towards the gate there were two lions, one on each side. One had a rein. I used to sit and astride one of those and pretend I was riding through you know, not a jungle, the bush on the back of the lion. This was rather funny because the park, the playground in the park had various things, including a slide which seemed to a five year old‟s eyes quite high. And there was always a queue to go on the slide. By the time you got to the top and launched yourself down, it seemed a long way, but you either had to go on and do down it or come back disgracing yourself right to the end. I was a big doubtful sometimes about riding the slide, but I was not doubtful about riding the lion.

There were two lodges at the park then. There was the south lodge which belonged I think to one of the park workmen and his wife was there always gardening, who was a very green fingered ld lady. And in April 1938, St Hilda‟s school was open and we walked across the park four times a day because there were no school dinners in those days. We walked to and from.

Do you want to talk about walking across the park? In those days there was a

In those days there was always an hour and a half lunch break and no such thing as school dinners. So we all walked across the park four times a day. The mothers from Pentwyn? Grove, the …. From Stash Grove. Josie and Sam the eldest two still live in the same house to this day. The Morris family from Welfield? Road, they were grassed backed gardens. Many other families from Royal Oak came to St Hildas. But they came from the other side of Royal Oak. They used another path which was called a riding track. And there was a little bridge over the brook which meandered all around the spinny and then into the park at our end. There was a short cut over the brook by some stepping stones. I was expressly forbidden to do this because the stones could be very slippery and you would get your feet wet.

The riding track gang included the Duffy sisters from Royal Oak Road, Reenie, Lillie and Eunice who still live close to me. We have shared good times and bad and are good friends. The Lambs from Westedge? Gardens, their mother and mine had been friends since we were three. The Green sisters, Mary and Jim Brown, the Kelly‟s, the Penningham‟s, the Noland Sisters, the Donnelly‟s and the Maloney‟s. And when Eileen Maloney fell into the brook at the riding track end we thought we would never see her again because surely she had got drowned. There must have been quite a lot of children crossing the park four times a day, because the big ones from Ewe Tree School came too. And in the late summer when those days were longer then in our childhood there were blackberries to be gathered and eaten on the way home. Blackberrying is not so easy now except for the carefree tended bush you might have in your own garden. The last pantry blackberries I tasted two years ago in the [?] and they must have been unpolluted because I am still here after enjoying them.

During the war one summer, the authorities decided that a good idea would be to have what they called holidays at home and one of the things that they did was to bring a theatre company from London to perform two Shakespearean plays. They had a screened off area because of course we had to pay but the backdrop was the Hall and they were in full costume. I have some idea in my mind that they were the Robert Atkins Company, I might be wrong and they did two plays. They did The Tempest and As You Like It. Young as we were, it must have been June 1943, it was absolutely wonderful. Rosalind in As You Like It was a typical principal boy and she slapped her thigh and we shooshed her buckle. And at least I was enthralled by the story. We knew that Touchstone [?] were funny. And then of course after all these years you much realise some of my memories area a bit, there was Prospero the Magician, the exiled Duke of Milan. There was the Butler and the Butler‟s friend, they had been shipwrecked on this island and I don‟t know some of the things I have remember since I have not put in, but that doesn‟t matter though. We knew that Audrey and Touchstone, they were funny. You could spot the funny parts. We went back to school and Miss [?] knew that we were interested and she obtained, she went to the library and got „Lambs Tails‟ from Shakespeare for me and this is one Wythenshawe girl who later that same year went into school to the town, to Loretta, to the Convent school and there we were presented with our book, each term, a play each term and the first play we were presented with was The Tempest. And the second one was As You Like It. So the [?] had a very special meaning for one Wythenshawe girl at least.

What about your air raid shelter story? There was an air raid shelter just inside the park and from the entrance of North Lodge, North Lodge is the one that is still there. And strangely enough two people who lived in north lodge, I don‟t know which lived in there first. But one family came to live next door on Rackhouse Road where we had moved by that time. And the other one, Frank Connell, his mother and I were friends, teaching friends. His father was a horticulturalist and he was either born or brought to the house as a very new baby. And he lives now in Polden? Avenue which is across from where I lived. But the shelter. Two friends of mine dared me to go down the shelter and I went down the steps into the shelter. I got half way down the steps and landed up to my waist in water. I had to get out. That was the first problem. I was even wondering if I had gone right down what would have happened, but never mind. I somehow got out and then I had to walk to the other side of the park, across Altrincham Road, down Hollow Lane to [?] Road onto Welfield Road, down to Welfield Road to Royal Oak Road and on to face the wrath of my mother because of my clothes and my good shoes. But that was probably the most trouble I was ever in at school. But it is a very vivid memory. And my mother of course had something to say to Mrs Green about Pat and Jo daring me to go down this shelter.

John and I bought a house in Bagley and we walked across the Park and the fair was there and it was 3 April 1958 and we walked to our new house in Bedall? Drive. And I used to go home through the park pushing my pram. I had a big high pram. And one evening I was coming home, it was a Friday and I was going home in the afternoon and suddenly I found myself engulfed in water and one of the workmen in the park came and pushed the pram. I don‟t know why I didn‟t decide to go back to my mother‟s house. But I pushed and pushed the pram straight through and I went not quite the distant story of before, but across Altrincham Road, down Hall Lane, round into Blackfriars Road and down to the Cul-de-sac in Bidell? Drive to discover that there was lots and lots of water there. And fortunately our house was not flooded, but next door was. And to make matters worse they were away on holiday. And various different parts of Wythenshawe were flooded and friends of ours who having a house built, had to have the foundations dug again, that was the McShanes, they were both doctors, Ethel and Joe and they had to have all the foundations dug and there was a girl killed, drowned in crossing a little stream. What was his little stream which was a torrent. And she was drowned trying to get across at Granny‟s Hollow. And it turned out that she was chewing some chewing gum and it stuck in her throat and there was a post-mortem and that is what happened. And of course we were all very shocked you know. Floods all over Wythenshawe and that was one thing you didn‟t really expect.

Your daughter’s wedding and the function you went to last year? No

What about the Hall? When my daughter came to be married because at one time my mother had lived on the other side of the park, the park meant a lot to all of us and we had, my sister in law and I went on a Sunday morning to have a look and see the catering manager. And we decided, yes we would like to have Maeve‟s wedding breakfast there and it was I think half past two in the afternoon. But she wasn‟t married there, we was married in St ? Church but then came back over the park, into the park and of course there were lots of parking space then around the back of the big house. And we had three rooms, but now they have really gone to town. We had a very happy and successful wedding there, but now they have really gone to town and it is a suite now and the bars have been done up. There are carpets in most of the places and it has been done. I don‟t know whether you would say modernised. Yes the bars and the obviously there has been quite a lot of modernisation. But you can now get married in the park. The man who lived next door to me in Biddell? Drive, he and his fiancé were actually married in the park a couple of years, I suppose about five years ago, but the whole affair went on in the park, they had their wedding there. Whereas it was something, you know they didn‟t have those places. I mean, it isn‟t anything to do with Wythenshawe, but it was quite funny when the news leaked out that the Leader of the Council was getting married and went to book the Town Hall for his wedding and discovered that it had already been booked. So he had to go and find somewhere else and that was Richard Lace.

What about the function you went to recently? That was Tony [?] birthday party and there were lots of different people there that we knew. And I was talking to one man and I thought there was something familiar about him and we were chatting and I discovered what it was, his name was David Wilmot. And I said that accounts for it, he told me. I said, that accounts for it. Because of course I had been a Magistrate in Manchester and I had sat in Court and of course every charge was brought by David Wilmot and he introduced then to his wife who was the lady who had her handbag stolen at the Chinese New Year Function. But that is a by the by.

To finish off about the May Queen? During the War there was something very special took place on Rackhouse Road, St Aden‟s the school was then. The Parish was split into two and there was a beautiful statue in our hall of the Madonna and her bambino. It was indeed the Madonna Des Rosario which belongs to the Manchester Italian Society and was carried proudly by them in the Great Whit Friday processions. It is still carried by the Manchester Italian Society around Little Italy on Trinity Sunday and also at another celebration. Just as we had Sunday socials begun, so the main procession where the first time the parishioners carried the Madonna into the park and there was a service of prayers and hymns and the rosary. And of course the song of Mary Be Crowned Thee. Now the girl, it was always a girl was not the May Queen. She just crowned the Queen with Mary to be chosen to perform the ceremony, it was a great honour. And the Parish Priest had decided the crowning would be performed by a girl in the senior class. The first to be chosen was Kathleen Callaghan from Royal Oak and the May Sunday that year, the sun shone. God knows his own, he used to say. But the next day when Rita Lennox crowned it was a very wet day. Never mind love, God waters his own flowers, was the cry then. And I can still see Rita standing in her lovely dress in the rain. So as far as these occasions go, rain never stopped play. The processions would always take place no matter what the weather.

Do you have any memories of the various seasons in the park? I can remember the wonderful chestnut tree which was the main drive through the park and it would, it looked like, when the blossoms were on the tree it looked like candles and it was a magnificent beautiful sight. It is so long since I have walked in the park, but I don‟t know. But granny used to love to ramble around the everywhere she would ramble round and she would tell you about different things. Being a country woman she knew more than I did. But again you don‟t write things down and you miss lots and lots of things. But four times a day across the park, and so many children going four times a day across the park. And of course St Aden‟s only have five classes to begin from 5-14. But then Ewe Tree school was made and the children from 11 – 14 went across the park to Ewe Tree school. And there were two schools at Ewe Tree. There was the senior school and the central school. Central school, the senior school was the secondary modern, but the other one, I think we had, I think it was the second tier of the old 11+. Ewe Tree central it was called and they were called Centrals. But then they did away with all that.

Think about the park, are there any memories or feelings you want to share? I have always been. The park was part of my life and probably when I was teaching, I used to ask, I used to ask ….

I asked the head if I could take my class to Wythenshawe Park. You had a tickets to go on the bus and I would take two other members of staff with me and we had to cross the road near a pub called the Mancunian. And I would stand in the middle of the road while the children all walked across, then we would go on this first bus as far as the bridge in . We would go right across the bridge to the other side and we would wait for the 102 bus. And we would take the 102 bus and we would go into the park. Now the children, those children would walk round. And I couldn‟t go into the house because there were so many of them. Miss I thought we were going to the park. But when they were at the swings that was fine. The swings were the park. And we would come back and from the same bus stop. But the biggest excitement of all was one time when my daughter brought the dog. And she brought him on the lead and he wasn‟t allowed off the lead because one time he had been allowed. My son used to take him to Northenden and they would come back through the park and he was so anxious this time that he escaped and went straight home and we knew. He wasn‟t really being naughty, he was just showing us how clever he was that he knew the way too. But the children were thrilled to bits to see him. And it made it. And we went to the bus stop and the stop we got onto the bus you could just about see my house. And I showed them where I lived so they were very interested in that.

Can you say, when I was teaching in Hulme? When I was teaching in Hulme.

Thank you very much indeed.

At some time during the war there were Nissan huts and in the Nissan huts there were Italian Prisoners of war who went out daily to the farms and market gardens around and they didn‟t. Oh yes if they came to the shops they would say „Hello Italian‟ and they would say hello kid but they were mainly out of the time. You realise when you get older of course, they were half dad and half worried. And it is interesting to know that. One time I was in Sorrento on 25 and there was going to be a holiday and I asked one of the shop keepers what it was and he said, it is called Liberation Day and it was the day they got rid of Mussolini. And literally he changed sides. And there was a land girl who worked in the Park too and I could see that where the ? beds are now, that that was the area that she worked in. But. And of course we had the dancing. The dancing on the green which lasted for a long time. And the man‟s name was Tomlinson. And he had as I say this car. He had this car with a loudspeaker on the top and I presume a gramophone underneath playing 78s. We waltzed and quickstepped and we did the Valetta and we did the St Bernard‟s Waltz and the square tango. We had a wonderful time it was great.

Thank you.

I went to this wonderful class. I still lived in Bagley and I went to this, they held a day for 50 plus and one of the things there was, reminiscences and I think 6-7 of us in all, all 50 plus and we became a unit and we enjoyed things that were you know. We enjoyed things that were being said. Everybody had a different style. Now I don‟t know how many other people remember Shakespeare. Do you know it surely was something. The Co-op used to run have gales and they used to have to appear at ?. And of course they had, is there nobody. I don‟t know who I could send.

Just have a think

End of Interview

* * * 26 Isabel Broughton

Sent in.

I have particularly fond memories of Wythenshawe Park as it was the place I met my husband! Back in 1976, when I was just 11, I used to look after the ponies at the stables (now the Community Farm). At aged 14 I met a handsome young man there who I was later to marry.

He had started work at the park as an Apprentice Gardener. Although we sometimes had a good laugh together, my adoration was totally unreciprocated - he was nearly 17, and I was 'just a kid' who would follow him around like a lost puppy! It was common knowledge amongst his workmates that I fancied him and they used to rib him about it, which just made him embarrassed and eventually, determined to avoid me!

I was heartbroken when, after a couple of years, he was transferred to another park. Meanwhile, I left school and went to Wythenshawe College. At lunchtimes and free periods I would sometimes pop into the Park to say hello to the ponies and some of the lads I still knew. One day, one of the gardeners said to me, He's back. My heart skipped a beat as I knew exactly who 'He' was. I was told where I could find him - and the rest is history.

We have been together now for 27 years (married for 19 years), and have our own fourteen-year-old son. Wythenshawe Park, though still a wonderful green oasis in an ever-growing concrete jungle, has changed much in this time, but we are as much in love as we ever were.

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27 Philippa Lloyd Email from Philippa Assistant Manager South Area Parks

As a teenager (last two years of secondary school), we used to play games of chicken in the park here at weekends. There are loads of ghost stories connected to the hall, so we used to dare each other to actually go through the park on our own, in the dark at night! The adrenaline rush was quite amazing by the time you got to the other side as you were so scared by this point it was untrue. Great place to get away from the prying eyes of adults to half harmless fun and laughter. As a very small child, I used to come here with my mum into the hort centre. It was literally like travelling to another world. Not only did the mile journey here seem like an age away (as it does when your a child) but then to walk into the paradise of jungle plants all around you, the heat, the smells of all the different plants, the humidity, the giant leaves of the banana trees, the sound of running water, birds singing and the innate sense of just being surrounded by leaves almost enclosed by them. It was a transformation into the magical mystical world. So many fond memory's. My middle child age was all about adventure in this park with my friends, climbing trees, making dens, exploring around the hall looking for secret passage ways, playing tick, making rope swings over the brook, getting dirty. Learning to take risks, to challenge yourself, to understand my ability's to find out who I was I guess.

My memories and experiences have definitely sculpted me into the person I am today. my love for nature, for green places my desire to preserve, cherish and look after this beauty all around us. The innate feeling of inter warm when i these surroundings and the desire to be able to pass theses experiences on. (hence my job)

Wythenshawe Park has played such a large part in all of my life, right up until now (30), the park has been able to adapt and change to my needs as I have grown up and has been a great asset to me. I smile now typing this

Hope this gives a small glimpse into my relationship with this park.

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28 Colin Evans Warden, Manchester City Council b.12.6.63 Interview with Development Officer

I‟ve thought of two good stories; one from my childhood. Every year the army used to come into Wythenshawe Park in the summer and put on like a military tattoo and there were lots of things to do. You could go on a harness and parachute a short distance, also on the tanks. There was a firing range and all sorts of activities associated with the army and as kids we all thought we were action men, Joe 90. It was a lovely day and they used to give all sorts of gifts out and probably in the sixties they recruited more people that way. They were really good enjoyable days.

And the other story is when the stable lads used to be away I used to look after the Shire horse whose name was Ben. I used to walk him in the mornings to the front of the hall where the best grass was and in my head I was playing Ivanhoe coming back from battle with a big heavy horse. Ben was a very gentle horse although he must have weighed about 2 tonnes and his best friend was a pony who was a quarter of the size of him. They used to neigh to each other across the park when they saw each other. Anyway one morning I let Ben off his bridle whilst he was having a chew of the nice sweet grass and all of a sudden he decided to take off and pay his friend a visit. There was 2 tonnes of shire horse running wild about the park. I radioed all the gardeners to come and help but every time we tried to round him up he was bolting at us, so we paid a visit to the local supermarket and bought 3 pounds of apples and 3 pounds of carrots and his favourite trebor mints and we threw a couple of carrots at him so he‟d get interested and then had to line the carrots and apples up so he‟d eat them one by one. We slipped the bridle back on him and after a few minutes he was back to his docile self. But for an hour in the park – it was quite scary – you could hear him running from 400 yards.

When I was here there was only ever one Shire horse, Ben. He was employed for, in the week, taking the cart that did the bin round in the park. At weekend we used to swap carts and he was like the bus. Kids would pay about 10p for a trip on the horse coach. He died when he had gallstones; went in for an operation and didn‟t wake up. There are still pictures of him knocking around the park. He used to do a lot of ploughing too.

As a young lad I visited the park all the time. We used to make rope swings over the streams; we visited the hall every week to find more secret passages; we used to play we were the Royalists attacking the Cavaliers; we used to make up loads of stories in the hall gardens because we knew about people finding skeletons there years ago. It was a complete adventure ground. I lived in ; we used to walk, come on bikes, anything.

Years later when my children were born we used to come to look for squirrels and different birds and feed the ducks and then I‟d tell them all the different stories, usually the ghostly ones, and they had a whale of a time. On nights when the mist had come in early we used to go looking for the ghost of Mary Webb in the hall gardens. I never actually had any ghostly experience – but didn‟t tell the kids that.

Later on in life when I became a warden [about 1990] I had tons of fun with local schoolchildren and school visits doing exactly the same as when I was a young kiddie; adventure walks, ghostly visits, roleplay. In fact some of the best times were when we did the role play and haunted walks, Tatton family visits. They were my best time.

When Gavin Evans came [no relation] he brought a whole new theatrical role to the school visits. We used to dress up in ghostly uniforms, gamekeepers outfits, wizards outfits. A good part of the school visits were the themed things. The favourite were the Tatton family visits when the schoolchildren had to come to the hall and see if they were good enough to gain employment in the old trades. The whole class were put through a series of tests; water carrying, muck-shifting, serving at the table – we were putting them through the paces with a terrible Victorian attitude, of being tough with them. In fact it started when they got off the coach and we lined the children up and, let‟s see your hands, let‟s see if you‟ve got farm hands, see if you can work or not – and these kids took it really seriously. We got a telegraph pole, put a saddle on it and did a version of the bucking broncho.

We did a public day. Loads of people came. I‟ve got a picture of Steve Downey and his dad being thrown off this thing. We just put pegs in the ground and we had silver trays and we had kids with trays with plastic beakers on and they had to walk round this servants course really fast but we always nudged them so they‟d drop the glasses. Another task was to muck out the Shire horse stable. The only people allowed in were Gavin, a teacher and myself with 5 kids at a time. We kept it secret from all the kids what was going on until it was their turn. Gavin and myself were dressed as gamesmen and rat catchers and all the kids thought they were shifting muck from one side of the stable to the other but it was actually clean straw. We‟d shout out, watch that rat! So all the waiting kids outside would hear was screams!

We composed 60 certificates of different trades for children and we‟d give them out accordingly, signed by Joe who was dressed up as one of the head butlers. Some of the kids were really chuffed if they gained service as waiters but some of them were really ashamed if they got the job of night-muck shifter. There was a kid once…it got to this part giving out certificates and Gavin and I were really laughing – all the kids were laughing and if any of the kids were naughty we‟d give them the title of chicken-plucker or night-muck shifter. We‟d put them in stocks! You‟ve got to bear in mind this was quite a long time ago! Each child had to sign their certificate of employment and it had terms and conditions on. They had to sign with a quill. One of the children from one of the schools had to start at 6 o‟clock in the morning and said to Gavin, What bus can I get here in the morning? Some of them really believe

* * *

29 Dawn Warriner Wythenshawe Regeneration Team WFM interview

Hello. Can you first of all tell us your name and age and what memories you have with Wythenshawe Park and Wythenshawe Hall? I am Dawn Warriner the Cultural Regeneration Officer. I am 23 and I can‟t remember what else you asked to be honest.

Just give us your memories of Wythenshawe Hall and the Park itself? Okay my name is Dawn Warriner and I am the Cultural Regeneration Officer for Wythenshawe. I am actually 37 ½ oh god. And what memories do I have of the park, lots really. I suppose my first memory of the park was about 2-3 weeks after I started working in Wythenshawe in 2005 and I saw the first Wythenshawe Festival of my life. Although it is one of many, many, many that have been held at the park. And I remember sort of realising how large the park was. I think the main field in particular could eat a stadium. It is a massive area, quite deceptively so. And I remember, as I drove away, seeing the heavens open and finding out that actually after I‟d done the entire place had flooded out and they‟d had such a bad job trying to get the actual stage off the field at the end of the event on the Sunday. So my first impression is of a very, very hot day, massive, massive field and this incredible torrential downpour that closed motorways and things across the North West.

The year after, I actually organised the 2006 Festival, which I got to say went brilliantly. I really enjoyed it, it was one of the best events that I think I have ever been involved with and I worked very closely with the people from the parks on that. In the end over a two day period in July, we actually had something like 10,000 people at the Festival. Again the big field could more than cope with that. It is a massive, massive field. And that equates from when I am speaking to about one in seven of everybody who lives in Wythenshawe. So one out of every seven people went there on numbers that weekend. Very, very hot weekend, we were really, really lucky. I think that of all people were sharing cars, we went down to two car parking spaces left in the entire area. All the overflow car parks, all of the overflow fields, all of the roads around absolutely heaving with cars. It was absolutely fantastic event. Magnificent, what can I say.

If I describe it yeah. On the main field which is the main show field, we had a big stage on the Saturday because it was a Saturday and Sunday event. We had young people on the stage during, on Saturday during the day. So all of the sort of rapping, the MCing, the child dancers, things like that. And on the Sunday we had what I would call the slightly more mature bands, like the local rock bands, the equivalent of I suppose people who play on a Sunday night in a pub. But you know we had some really, really good bands and some came up from Charlton and Didsbury, so you know it was really, really good as well as local bands. We had a stage collapse slightly on the Sunday where because it was an inflatable canopy above the stage and I remember that the generator actually gave out so the whole thing started to deflate. I think we had a shocking hour where the stage manager called in every single favour and you know sort of contact she had. We got another generator delivered on a Sunday during the summer you know, which was fantastic in itself. And we got the stage re-inflated and the bands went back on. And it was really nice because you saw families sat down in front of the stage all having like snacks, drinks, things like that and really just chilling out. And even on the Sunday evening after the entertainment was over, the families stayed there as the sun was going down. It was really, really nice, really magical.

So that is I suppose one of the reflections. The other one was that we had for the first time ever we really looked to have a special area for quite young families and for certainly for older people. We had this in the garden at the back of the Hall, and this was absolutely fantastic. We put some marquees. We put more gentler music on. So it was things like brass bands, jazz quartets, we had ladies harmony singers. We had children dancing again. We had senior belly dancers, the oldest one was 81 and the young kid was 67 in that group. And it was really, really lovely, it was really important that people, the older people actually had control of that area, ran it, performed at it and it was sort of by them for them so they were doing that part and we called that the valuing older people garden party. Volunteers from local age concern and cross acres came and we put on a free cream tea for everybody. So you could go up, put a donation in if you wanted, but you know we raised over £500 just from donations for the cream teas. And over a couple of days they gave out hundreds and hundreds of cream teas. So it was really nice, because that meant that people, everybody could have joined in whether they had money or not and feel really spoilt and something special.

Yeah it was a fantastic area and I think it also made people more aware of just what a great sort of little place the garden is you know, how much you can fit in, but also what a tremendous, beautiful space it is really. Two of my favourite trees in the park are actually in that garden. And one is on the corner as you go in, it is the Sweet Chestnut tree, which has an amazing twisty trunk, you know its bark is very, very like sweet chestnut trees, twisty trunk. And then if you go to the very, very end of the path as you go in, there is a massive, massive beech tree. If you sit at the bottom of that and look up, you do really feel in awe really, it is a very, very old tree. I think one of the park keepers told me it was over 150 years old easily. It is absolutely stunning, really, really stunning.

Yeah part of the festival that everybody always wants is the re-enactment and it is the Civil War battle re- enactment and every year I think it is Thomas Tydsley‟s Regiment of Horse and Foote spelt with an „e‟ on the end of foot, comes along and they camp and they live. I don‟t know if I should say this, but I don‟t think they really wash either for a weekend. They live in tents at the back of the field, as they would have done in those times and they re-enact the siege of Wythenshawe Hall and all the little stories that go with that. And you know loads of people go to that, to watch that. And you know and I think it is really these things that people like to take their children to, they remember from when they were younger and they want their children to see it. I think some of the park keepers get, who have been there a long time, have seen it so many times that they would re-enact it in their sleep really. It haunts their dreams but it is a fantastic thing to see. And the 2006 Festival we had one casualty, one casualty in the whole Festival of 10,000 people and it was one of the re-enactors. They decided to. He had got one of those old musket guns. He held it in his hand and without thinking, the gunpowder, it hadn‟t gone off in the gun, so he thought that he would check to see whether it was there by putting a lit match down the barrel. It exploded in his hand, he still has that hand, which is amazing and I think he felt more foolish than anything else, but he did have to be rushed to hospital because obviously you know a bit piece of metal had exploded in his hand. So there you go, Thomas Tyldsley‟s Regiment of Horse and Foote available for hire at any major event near you. But they were very, very good.

I think another thing of the hall is it is very, very. It has got that history. It attaches you to a softer, different part of Wythenshawe and Wythenshawe‟s heritage. You know it is always surprising. I have been involved in plays, Heartbreak Productions doing summer plays in the garden at the back of the Hall and that has attracted people over the years from Didsbury and other areas which seem to be more salubrious and they have got such a bad idea sometimes of what will be in the park and they are stunned at you know the sheer beauty and size of the park, but also a lot of them have no idea that there is this big Tudor Hall sat in the middle of it. They are absolutely stunned when they see it, you know, I never knew this was here. So it is wonderful to see.

I mean I have got a personal bugbear myself, I don‟t really like the statue of Oliver Cromwell, but then again, you know Irish family we wouldn‟t would we really. But you know it is fair enough. Queen Victoria didn‟t like it either.

What else. Pause a minute.

What about the house itself, any ghosts? No but I can say about the launch……..I think some of the big things about 2007, 2006/7 were the, was the dig in Wythenshawe in the grounds of Wythenshawe Hall. I was involved in that in that we did the open weekend. I organised the open weekend at the end of it. Which was two days where people could come, have a look round the dig which had been guarded and see what they had found and artefacts and things like that. But also we put on some really traditional entertainment around that so they could have a tour and then come and enjoy themselves, you know have free bread and cheese. We had some bread made especially for us by Barbican in Chorlton, which is called Chorlton Sour Dough from a special old recipe where they don‟t use yeast, where it rises over two days. And big wheels of this Belton Farm Cheshire cheese which is absolutely gorgeous and lots of chutneys and things. And myself, and other volunteers, actually dished that out on the day. We also had sarsaparilla and dandelion and burdock the old cordial types that I‟d collected from a small company called Morsons up in [?] So very, very traditional, people loved it. It is surprising how many children really loved that and the adults really liked it because a lot of them could remember having that sort of thing when they were kids. And again we got a couple of thousand people turning up to that, watching the Punch and Judy, who I was told when I hired them that they were very pc, which unfortunately they weren‟t. Yeah I got the wrong one. I was given two names, I got the wrong one. I shouldn‟t say that really should I, but yeah it was what you call a traditional Punch and Judy, but the kids seemed to love it anyway. So that is my remembrance of that.

But the inside of the Hall, well a couple of things I helped to put on or have been involved in within the Hall. One was we did a murder mystery called Murder at the Hall. We got the local amateur dramatic group, CATS Drama, which is nothing to do with the feline friends, it is something like Community, Arts and theatrical Society, or CATS drama as everybody calls them. And they came and they did a role play in full costume. The author, crime author, Martin Edwards came, he had written the murder mystery that they had performed and he did a talk about writing about the history of the Edwardian Melodrama and gave out lots of books, these books were prizes, it was a really good afternoon. I remember we had three prizes and two were won by 9 year old girls who were competing against adults. I think we had 57 people, we held it in a library at the hall which was a lovely, lovely setting and we had 57 people which just about filled the room, couldn‟t have put any more in. so it was a sell out in my idea. But it was a free event. You know the library is a fantastic room.

The other one was when we launched the Heritage Trail which starts at the Hall and that was part of Heritage Open Weekend. And I was asked to find a celebrity at short notice who would charge us nothing. So that was easy wasn‟t it? So what I thought was, it was a walk, and I thought of something I‟d seen before and I rang up and asked Charlie Waldock who was famously on the programme this morning for having lost 30 stone through walking and he was very much an Evangelical sort of walker. So I got him to come down and talk about the benefits of walking. He absolutely loved it. And people who remembered him from this morning and from the women‟s magazines, he has been in a lot of women‟s magazines type things, came down and were asking for autographs and types of things. He is a very modest man, he is a bingo caller from Failsworth, but he was quite shy so it was very nice was that.

Have you been to the Park in your Leisure time and your own kind of feelings about it? I‟d like to go to the Park more. For my own personal use and I did ask for permission. When they were doing all the sort of coppicing, is that what they call it when they chop all the underneath the tree canopies down. They clear up all of the undergrowth and things. They tend to have sort of piles of twigs and branches and stuff lying around until they manage to mulch it. I had just taken up an allotment in Northern Moor so I asked permission and they let me and I went in and took a load of these Holly, big Holly bows that they had cut down and I have made a Rose Arch in my allotment and it was the same day I found out that I am allergic to Holly. Do you know the male Holly tree can actually bring you out in a really rather nasty rash, but less said about that the better. But yeah that is my own personal use. I do love the park, it is really nice to stroll around. It is peaceful. It‟s not. I think people think that parks are dangerous places. Wythenshawe Park never feels like that to me. It always feels like a welcoming place. And you see such mad things there at times.

There is a family that go there and they have all these little what are they called, ferrets, pole cats. And there is a family, there are 4-5 of them and they have got about 12-13 of these things all on little leashes with little, you know like little jackets on and hats even some of them. And they go walking these ferrets and it‟s one of these things that you see and you think, how unlikely is that? So yeah I do. I do love the Park and I would like to use it more myself. I think I was surprised at what facilities it got. I still have got to go on that mini gulf course. It beckons me does that mini gulf course. And you know I am interested in the sort of tennis club because they have proper sort of members hut and everything don‟t they, a members clubhouse. So yeah.

What would be your vision of the park for the future? My vision of the park, it would be nice. I know they are developing it so that you can get in from different ways. I would like people to be able to access it more easily from the south. I‟d like more people to go and use it in a nice recreational way. When we did one of the brass band concerts in the garden in the summer last year, 2007, a whole family turned up quite out of the blue. Set up a mini gazebo, set up tables, chairs, everything and they got out all of these chiller boxes and they ad this marvellous picnic and I‟d love to see things like that you know. I thought, in't that fantastic. They‟ve all turned up, they had a full range of their family there. So old people, young people, there was somebody in a wheelchair. They all just sat there and had a real hoot for the afternoon. You know it was their excuse to have a picnic, you know and free entertainment as well that was set up near the brass band. And you know that is fantastic and people have to realise that they can use their parks for things like that. They can go and have lovely picnics and just chill out like people used to do. I would like to see people use the park more for that really. I would like to see family groups.

Have you had a look at the greenhouses at all? No

What about the Hall? I like the Hall, I would like to see. I would like to see the Hall have a lot of money spent on it. I would like to see it open more. I think when I was a child, I don‟t come from round here so I don‟t have memories as a child of Wythenshawe Hall. But where I come from there were old halls like that which I used to love going to. I used to love seeing things and I have very, very strong recollections of that. And I would like children in Wythenshawe to be able to say, you know, gosh do you remember when we used to go down and see the hall, or we used to have those visits to the hall, or you know remember when me dad took me. I would like people to be able to say that and I think it needs to be open more. I think the café, the new café next to the Hall is fantastic and that will help people to stay longer at the park and it makes it more of an attraction. Obviously it is more difficult to have something inside the Hall. But you know the back of the hall that faces the garden, would like to see that more spruced up because I think that can look a little bit, it looks a bit tired. I look at the back of the Hall and I think that this is a building that the council owns. Does that wound awful, it does donnit, but it‟s true. You know you know that National Trust haven‟t got it. It does need a lot of money. I think just keeping it up. But once you go inside it‟s beautiful. You know and people talk about how they go to and how nice Bramall Hall is. But a lot of Bramall Hall stuff, it looks nice, but it‟s replicas, it is high quality replicas, but it is replicas. When you go to Wythenshawe Hall and see a chair, that is the real McCoy, you know that is a real old piece of furniture. It is not something that somebody has knocked out in a factory to look old. It really is you know the real thing. I think that is fantastic you know that Wythenshawe can cock its snook at Bramall to be honest.

Unlike you, you are the genuine article? Yeah well that chair in Wythenshawe Hall that is made out of sliced logs, that is from something like the 16th century I was told. You know and yet it looks so much more recent than that. You know it looks like something me dad made it sort of. But it is not, it is very old, it is a very old piece and you think, wow you know somebody hundreds of years ago made that and sat on it, you know, you wouldn‟t want to know because there is a bit of rope on it stopping you, quite rightly so.

But I think, another thing that people don‟t know that is in the park, I don‟t think a lot of people do. And I big ambition I have got is to try and do some kind of event where they get to see the little house. Yeah so back, is it, it is near the horticultural centre and it is in the gardens at the back of there. There is a little house, it is like something you would expect from a fairy tale and it has got a grass roof and it‟s, I don‟t know how to describe it, it is like, if you have gone through the forest, that is grandma‟s house I think. And I would love to do an event or get something going where you had story telling round that because it just cries out for it and it is a little gem hidden away in the park that people don‟t know about, it is fantastic.

A Hansel and Gretel House or something. That is brilliant, fantastic. Thank you very much. Well done. We have actually used the Hall for something else. In 2006 Wythenshawe regeneration team Christmas party, yeah, in the tenants hall. My goodness, Hats never knows how to put on more tinsel than that. Yeah they have one piece of tinsel and it moves round the hall I am sure. They spoil you. No it was a fantastic venue because you drive up. It is quite dark at night, the park, but you drive up and hey you have got like this hall in the middle of a massive park to yourself. It is fantastic. I think we shared it with Benchill Community Centre who sat on a table themselves and looked a bit fed up really. But somebody came with a mobile disco and we had a fantastic time in there. It is a nice hall is that. It is a nice size and stuff for entertainment. And you get a real fire as well. So there you go. That‟s my recollection. So it is out for hire and yeah we have been there.

End of interview

* * *

30 Julie Rogers

Written memories: We were always going to the Park, especially at weekends and during school holidays. Mum was a fresh air freak and insisted that always go out and play when it wasn't raining. Some of my earliest memories was going to the Park around Easter time for a picnic day out. We were dressed in our best frocks and shoes and not allowed to splash in the lovely paddling pool. We usually ate our picnic in the area near the duck pond so we could also feed the ducks at the same time. I can distinctly remember the smell of hard boiled eggs wrapped in tin foil in our picnic bag. It was also one of the rare times we were aloud to drink fizzy pop!! The dog always came to the park with us and we used to have great fun chasing her around in the wooded areas. My main memories are of the paddling pool which was absolutely great! On a hot summers day it was always so lovely to go paddling and splashing about. I could never understand why they got rid of their most popular attraction. I always remember the tearooms/ice cream parlour next to Wythenshawe Hall. It seemed so “posh” and I loved going in and sitting down for an ice cream or tea and cake (a special treat!). We always liked to play in the garden at the back of the Hall. This was great for playing hide-and-seek and general tree climbing, and frog and newt spotting in the ponds. I also have very warm memories of the Hall itself. Whenever I went to the park I used to go in and have a good look around. I quite often imagined that I lived there and would sit for hours on the window seats in the main salon on the first floor letting my imagination run away...... I always loved the fun fair and couldn't wait for it to come to the Park. I just loved the whole atmosphere it created. The smell of candy floss, hot dogs, grease, fumes and the music they played on the rides was always really good. My favourite was the Waltzers - we didn't have as many varied and scary rides then but the waltzers and dodgems were always good for a laugh and a scream. My best friend and I met our first real boyfriends at the fair, who we went out with for about a month (which was a long time to go out with someone then!) Over the years I have been back to the park on odd occasions such as to play tennis with friends, or golf with a boyfriends and can see how much it has changed, yet in some areas it is still exactly the same!

RECORDED INTERVIEW, WFM

Hello. Can you first of all tell us your name and age and what memories you have of Wythenshawe Hall please? I am Julie Rogers and I am 49 ¾ . And my memories of Wythenshawe Hall, the earliest ones I have, are particularly the paddling pool which I am sure is a popular one and I think most of the times I went to Wythenshawe Park which would have been in the school holidays when I was younger, we went specifically on a hot summers day in the holidays to go and paddle in the paddling pool. It was always madly busy. We never went in our swimming costumes because with it being a paddling pool, it was only ankle deep. But more often than not we ended up getting soaked totally. So we quite often ended up having to come home minus various pieces of clothing an my sister Hazel remembers distinctly that she had, with great embarrassment, had to come home on the bus with no knickers on because she had wet her knickers. And that is the one time she remembers about the paddling pool. But we used to meet my aunty and cousins because they lived in Withington. We used to meet them, it was a meeting point around the paddling pool and we quite often took a picnic as well and ate the picnic. Mums sort of sat around the pool and prepared the picnics while we were all paddling and then we had the picnic and then it was more splashing about and obviously the playground. We‟d go on the playground as part of it as well. But they were just sort of general days out. Beside that we also used to have what we‟d call our posh days out which was usually either round about Easter or whit and we‟d go in our posh frilly frocks with picnics and the one thing I always. When I think of Wythenshawe Park and picnics, I always recall the smell of boiled eggs because no matter when e went we always took hard boiled eggs with us and they were wrapped in tin foil. So when you unwrapped them the first smell you got out of your picnic basket was the horrible smell of boiled eggs. So that is a distinct memory of Wythenshawe park in the early days of picnicking. But we always used to have our picnics on the posh days round by the duck pond so we could give the ducks all our bread. And then we would play hide and seek in the woods or something and then go round the gardens. And that probably happened once or twice a year and we weren‟t allowed to sort of climb trees or anything, but there were days as we got older that we could go to the park on our own as long as we took the dog with us because we had a German Shepherd who was very. She was very intelligent and she looked after us. Me mum felt we could go anywhere with this dog. And we used to go on our own with the dog. And I spent probably most of my time climbing nearly every tree within Wythenshawe Park. The best tree climbing trees were in the garden behind the house and just walking there today with my dog, I can still see they are there some of them and I am quite often tempted to start clambering up them again! But had some great fun in those trees in Wythenshawe Park. Used to even sort of even pretend in the dark corners, at the back corner of the Hall that it was like a little den as well because there‟s lots of shrubbery and it was very secretive and there were secret places.

[Pause]

A lot of the memories of when I was younger up to probably just turning into a teenager would be really picnics, duck pond, paddling pool and climbing trees, although we did also go into the farm which I don‟t think was quite as big as it is now then. I remember going into the walled garden where all the bird pens were and just walking up and down and looking at the birds, but that is really the only memory I have of any sort of animals in the farm. Because I think probably that was my favourite place in that garden because I had a very, very keen imagination. I liked to go to places where I thought were secretive and I could use my imagination and pretend I was somewhere else.

I progressed as I got a little bit older to the Hall, because I don‟t really think they allowed you to go into the Hall when you were younger and run around. But as I got to sort of 12, 10-12 or so they didn‟t mind us going in the Hall and I used to really love going round the Hall. And my favourite room was the first floor salon and I used to sit in the window seats there for hours on end just quietly sitting and imagining what it must have been like to live in the house, because I loved history even when I was younger. And I used to sit and daydream for hours on end sitting in one of those window seats in the alcoves on the first floor and imagining. I used to actually believe that I was in touch with spirits then. People used to call me odd and I think I probably must have seemed odd actually. But I used to feel I was in touch with all the old sprits that were in the house when I sat there quietly in the corner.

But I think after that the main memory once I got into teenage years was the funfair. What didn‟t happen at the funfair? Well a lot of it you probably can‟t talk about. But my main memory of the funfair was definitely when we were approaching it, it was the sound. Because they always played, funfairs always play fantastic music. And the music was sort of thumping out and you‟d sort of get all excited and you would say right this is it, this is it. Funfair then obviously consisted of about three fast rides and everything else was side stalls. I think there was the waltzes, the cyclone, the dodgems and that was about it really. But I probably spent every penny on the waltzes. And the smell of candy floss, the smell of diesel from the engines, the sound of the engines, the rides. And I think there was probably a lot of flirting going on with the guys on the rides as well because we used to flirt with them to get us to spin us faster on the waltzer as well. But I actually met my first boyfriend at the funfair and I was with my best friend, Georgina and we met these two chaps, I think Gary and Paul they were called. And we were quite excited the next day because we thought, ohhh our first boyfriend and they were coming to meet us after school one night. And we made arrangements for them to come and meet us. And when we came out of the school gates, we sort of both looked at each other and went, urrrr, they didn‟t look like that at the funfair. But we still went out with them, we went to the pictures with them and I think that was about it really. I don‟t think we saw them again after that. It didn‟t stop us going to the funfair though.

Oh yes, I think I probably had my first in Wythenshawe Park as well and I think that was at the funfair too. And I think that was a chap that I had fancied for a long time that used to go to a school near me. And I actually joined the debating society so that I could watch him. And I never opened my mouth once in all the years I was at the debating society. But I think I met him at the funfair and sort of flirted with him and got a kiss off him, I was about 15 then.

Other than that it is really now. I had a, I didn‟t. I left Wythenshawe when I was about 18 and I don‟t think I really started going back to the park except very intermittently. I had a boyfriend and we used to go playing pitch and putt on the golf range on the odd occasion. I know my auntie used to come and play bowls and her and her husband used to just wander around. I have got friends who have done horse riding here recently as well. And in fact for a friend‟s 60th birthday, he was bought a horse riding lesson in Wythenshawe Park. For the first time in his life he got on a horse and he quite enjoyed himself.

Other than that it really has just been in later life really when I became a volunteer and I have been doing volunteering work around the Hall which I really enjoy because it reminds me of when I was younger. It still smells the same. It still has that lovely warm woody sort of old smell.

The tea rooms, I forgot about the tea rooms. The tea rooms were if you were extra good, it was a special treat. And the tea rooms used to be on the side of the house I think which is now the banqueting suite for the weddings. And I can remember, it was very old fashioned and very warm and very nice. And I think the ladies used to wear little hats and pinnies as well, I am sure of it. And you could go there and have teas and scones and ice creams and if we were good, we were allowed to go in and we were treated to a scone, but we had to be on our best behaviour because it was what you would probably call, right posh them really. It wasn‟t like a café nowadays. I think you had to behave if you went in there. So I do remember that and that was nice. I remember thinking that was quite nice.

And really other than that I think it is just snatches of things, of certain areas of the park. Mostly I think around the duck pond and the woods where we used to go picnicking and climbing the trees. As I say I have probably climbed nearly every tree in Wythenshawe Park.

Pause

More recent memories as a volunteer, it was very nice. We were planning to do a secret spaces tour for the public, so part of my training was to be taking into the secret spaces of the hall. That was fascinating in that I‟d already obviously got to know the history of the Hall to be able to tell people about it when they came to do tours on a Saturday. So it was nice to be go into the fabric of the place and see the old beams with the graffiti on from when they were first built. I just felt as though as well, there was an awful lot of space in the Hall that just seemed sad and neglected because it wasn‟t used, it seemed lonely. There were some big back rooms there that had lots of storage space and there were ships in cases and pictures and frames that were all sitting there and nobody was looking at them and it was as if they should be looked at, they shouldn‟t be there hidden away. And the space itself just seemed as though it was a waste of good space really that couldn‟t be used. But the sort of even higher spaces in the hall, like the smaller spaces where you had to go through all the little low doors, I mean that was utterly fascinating to go and see some of the history of people that had used various rooms down the years. There was one wall in particular that, it must have been host to some sort of youth group of something and they had sort of plastered graffiti and posters from the 1970s over one wall and it was just fascinating to stand and read that and you know it brought memories back from the 70s for me just reading some of the posters and things. And going into the room at the top that had a huge fire place in it, an absolutely beautiful fire place and it was such a tiny, tiny room. And I think it was believed that might have been some kind of priest hole during the time of the civil war, although there are no known facts about it I don‟t think. But that was interesting. And then to go into the roof space itself. It was just fantastic to see how the house, the beams and everything was put together.

I am a bit of a sort of fan of architecture and I am one of these people that when I go into I walk round with my head up looking up to the sky and looking at all the stone work and everything. I have walked into a few lamp posts in my time because of it. But I actually like to see how buildings are put together. And I think the way they are put together you can get feelings from them. And I found that I got lots of nice feelings when I was in the roof space and you could see various bits of graffiti as well from the workers and so on. I think there is more to the house than probably even meets the eye now. I think there is still a lot to be discovered about it. And there are spaces obviously still I think may even be discovered I don‟t know. Beams and things, I think there is mystery there still which is a nice thought actually to know that we could probably find something that we didn‟t know about.

When you mention being in touch with the spirits, was there any ghost stories that you know about? There is one ghost story that we have been told as part of a volunteer. And it was, one of the maids that worked there, her fiancé actually when Cromwell‟s armies were in the Hall, sorry on the land outside the hall when they were fighting, the family stored up in the first floor salon to be safe. And I think her fiancé went out.

Interrupt

Did you hear any ghost stories when you were a child? No I don‟t think I did actually. I know people say it‟s haunted, but nobody used to say why or who.

You were never scared? No I have never been scared of anything like that, no.

Give us that story anyway? The story about one of the ghosts in the hall is the story of one of the maids there whose fiancé went out and shot the Captain of Cromwell‟s guards. And I think, we are not sure how she died, she may have run out to you know defend her fiancé or whatever. But it is believed that her spirit does roam the Hall. And when I was younger I did hear stories. People used to say the Hall is haunted, the Hall is haunted, but I didn‟t hear any specific stories about any particular ghosts. And I think that is probably what drew me to the Hall, to go and see if I could get in touch with them or find them even. I can‟t honestly say that I can remember any ghostly experiences, but then again I had such a fantastic imagination, I could well have done and just put it down to my imagination, I don‟t know. I know I have had experiences in various places, shall we say. I suppose spiritual experiences, but never there. I just used to feel very, very calm when I was in Wythenshawe Hall, very relaxed, very comfortable. It felt as though I might have even lived there before, I used to imagine what it must have been like living there and I used to feel very comfortable, quite happy sitting there for hours on end until I think they used to get fed up of me and ask me to leave, or they were closing. But they used to have security guards there or one particular chap and he always, he got to know me and he never used to bother me. When I first went in, he used to check that I wasn‟t getting up to mischief but I think eventually he realised that I was just coming to sit there and go into my own little world. But no, I can‟t honestly say I met any of the ghosts at Wythenshawe park which is a pity really.

You mentioned you are 49 ¾ . Do you have any plans for celebrating your 50th birthday at the Hall at all?

I had actually thought about it. I had actually thought of maybe hiring one of the rooms to have a dinner here. But my best friend is also 50 at the same time so it had to be a joint decision. And she wants to have it at her house, so we have decided to go there, although I think that might possibly change. But I would like to. I have got a friend who is getting married there later this year.

End of interview

* * * 31 Arthur Buckley b.1916 91 years old Interviewed at home

When I came out of the army in 1947 we were a bit overcrowded at home so I applied for a house. They gave me one at Wythenshawe Park; a prefab. It was actually in the grounds where the football fields are now. There was a stack of them, a right lot. We lived at number 111 Parklands Road; this was actually in the park. We moved to Tipton in 1952 and been here ever since.

It was great in the prefab; it had a fridge, and this was after living in a house without a fridge or a bath. It was like being in heaven being in that house.

In 1947 we had June and Margaret was about 3 we all lived at Higher Ormond? Street in the centre of town. I hadn't started bowling then. When we first to the park it was marvellous. All very clean and tidy; everything was there. It was like a little road with a pathway between the houses and they had little gardens. Didn't have a garden before. Lived in a terrace house in the town, very old; they knocked it down for the university. I was a keen gardener at that time. And I'd never had a garden before and I was really keen on it.

The first time I ever saw the park I thought it was smashing, a lovely big park. Changed a bit since but it was very good.

It was very nice because we could walk into the main park from the prefab, no trouble at all; pass the bowling greens there. There was no golf course then. The little paddling pool was built when we were there, when Joan was a child, early 50s]. It was as you go down to the greenhouses - where the playground is now, only very shallow.

We used to visit the greenhouses often. Still go there now, on my scooter. I go and watch the bowls.

[NB. Hilda passed on a couple of years ago, aged 87; she had Alzheimers. ]

We left the park in 1952 but that wasn't the end of my association with the park. I got interested in bowls. I started bowling for the bowling team - all those trophies are mine. It was the evening team. I started bowling in 1963 until 2000. Then I had to have a minor operation - got MRSA was in hospital 7 months; never bowled since.

[Newspaper article on vandalism.]

Whilst I was bowling we had a lot of trouble with 'wreckers', did newspaper article.

[Photo showing Arthur receiving cup.] We had all sorts of competitions. I won Wythenshawe Bowling Club Lawton Cup - won it four times.

[I asked Arthur how the cup came to be in his possession.]

When the Friday night team finished two years ago we decided to get rid of the trophies. They gave me it as I've got my name on it four times.

Two silver plates - in recognition of service.

I was secretary, president, vice-captain, league delegate - I did everything. In 1986 I won all their trophies - the lot. I never gave in, no matter who I was playing against.

I loved it; I ways did. I still go watching them on Monday afternoons. It was always a very close knit group. I used to love my bowls. I always tried to go about 4 times a week on the green and practice. I‟d go playing on Sundays whilst went to church.

We used to go on competitions in other places, like Blackpool.

I like going in the greenhouses. They've got one greenhouse where they have a pool with goldfish and birds flying around inside. There's a form just outside that I like to sit on.

I went down to the park one day on my scooter and as I was driving round the back of the tennis courts I came to a step. I couldn't get past at all. I was stuck there on my scooter. Got back onto the main path again after a man helped me.

Any Monday afternoon if it‟s nice you'll see me sitting in the scooter on the side of the green.

We had the reception in the hall on Margaret‟s wedding [1966]. There was about 30 of us. We had a nice meal there and then a party. I had to get up and say a few words. Margaret wanted the gardens for her photos and it was nearby - easier to get to. People didn't have the transport the same.

The park means everything to me. I love going there. I love to watch the bowling. If it rains I get under the trees. Knowing the park from 1947 you can't push it aside; it's there in your head all the time.

I went to watch the fun run once. It ended up in the park, been all round Manchester.

It's got a lot of memories for me, Wythenshawe Park.

In some ways the park has improved, in others it hasn't. The gardens aren't as good but they seem to be doing a lot of work in the park at the moment. The general place has been tidied up a lot. None of the greenhouses were there at one time, so all that's improved.

The prefabs were there for quite a while. We were there six years. I don't know how long they were there after that. They were good houses but I suppose the park wanted the land back. The top end is still houses, near Altrincham Road.

I used to have a tandem and we'd go down to the park quite often it. I put a baby seat on the back so that it carried three.

There's a pathway where I can go on my scooter, right round the sportsfield. I can drive right the way round and come up at the bowling green. The only trouble is they let the horses go on there so there's the horse muck.

* * *

32 Joan Theakston [Arthur Buckley’s daughter] b.1947 Interviewed at father’s house

I remember playing out because I lived there until I was four, playing in the little passageway between the prefabs. We used to play up and down the street. We were 111 and there were quite a few of these little blocks. I remember getting lost - we must have only been about 2ish - we ended up in the main part of the park. They found me with my little friend Paul and we were ?okaying by a stream. Another time I was discovered by the bus stop on Altrincham Road. From what I remember there was a road around the edges of the prefab, so the park was separate from us, beyond it. The college and block of flats weren't there - they were parkland. I think there was some controversy about building on land that had been given to the people of Manchester.

I used to go and play on the swings. We weren‟t supposed to go on our own because mum was at work. My grandma used to come and look after us. I remember once going with my friend on our bikes. We were on the slides and she managed to break her thumb because she let go too soon. We told her mum she'd done it on her bike because we weren‟t supposed to be there. I don't know if her mum ever found out the truth. We never felt at risk there; it was ok. As teenagers we used to play the pitch and putt.

When we lived in the prefabs the area where the school is was Smiler's Field, after the horse that lived there. That's what we called it anyway,

The tandem - it was fine until I stuck my leg in it and broke it. It didn't happen in the park.

We used to walk along the woody bit with boys until somebody got murdered. I don‟t remember the details but they found her in the wooded bit along Wythenshawe Road, so there was a bit of, „avoid the park‟.

I'm glad the park is there for dad; he can't get very far. It‟s nice to know he an get there on his scooter.

It's always been there - in the background.

* * *

33 Sarah Clements The Gardeners Cottage Wythenshawe Park b. 1997 Talked to Development Officer, who typed up memories on computer.

I've lived in the park all my life. Mum's told me about one Bonfire Night she put bin bags on us to keep us dry; it rained so hard. They were jackets and pants made out of binbags. I don't remember it. I was about five or six.

I remember once there was a terrapin in the pond in the Hort[icultural] Centre and we spent ages trying to get it out. We set a trap and finally got it out; it took us about six months. We had like a cage and we had tortoise food at the end. We needed to get it out because it was eating all the fish. It came from a member of the public; they had just put it in there. We put it in the bigger outside pond - there were two other terrapins in there. It's still there. The minute it heard movement it backflipped into the water. In the end we didn't feed the fish for about ten days; it came out when we put the food in the trap.

The animals sometimes get out of the farm. One night I was out in my pyjamas because the cows had got out. My mum got a call from Security to get them back in. What was really embarrassing was a lad from school saw me running round in my pyjamas. I had to stay at the back of everyone because we were scared they were going to start charging. We chased them back from Gib Lane; we were scared they were going to go on the motorway. Kids had let them out of the field.

I remember one night mum got me and my brother up and she took us outside. I thought something was wrong and started panicking, 'What's up what's up?'. Mum took us outside and it was snowing. Me and Richard were having snowball fights.

I do like the Jungle Walk. I used to feed the fish. And I used to call the fish where the waterfall is My Fish because I used to feed them. That's how we first knew about the terrapin.

I remember when the rock climbing wall came in. Me and my brother always went on it and I could never get to the top. By the time I got half way Richard had been up and down it already. Once the guy pulled me up and I got all nervous.

I like living in the park. I'd like to see not so much building work going on; knocking down the trees, where they are clearing.

I've heard about the new wooden playground that's coming; it sounds better.

I like the farm but it‟s a bit smelly. I wish there were animals you could pick up and cuddle.

Sometimes my schoolmates think I'm trying to act like the boss because I live in the park. There's one kid who's always saying stop bossing me about just because you live in the park. But I don't think I am bossy.

Once I went with my mum to pick up Richard and we were coming down the drive and we saw a fox and its cubs. One of them ,the little baby one, stopped dead in the road. It just sat there staring at us. I'm not sure if the was the same night or another that we saw one of them eating something near the car park. The fox shot through a hedge and my mum put the car headlights on it; and we saw it eating.

Once we had a hedgehog and we used to put out meat and milk for it. My dad used to say that the mother fox used to come in and sit next to me on the window sill but I really don't believe that one.

Once I went horseriding. I think the horse was called Nana or something. She started galloping and I was dead nervous but the guy who was holding onto it to made sure it was all right. I was scared I was going to fall off the horse. That was with my friend Clare. We used to get in for free because we groomed them. One of the owners showed us what to do on a big massive horse. Then I tried it on the horse I was with and found it really easy. Since then I've wanted to work with horses.

I'm all into recycling and everything. I've got a compost bin in the garden. I'm more of a nature person for living here.

We might have to move in two or five years. I don't want to go because I don‟t know any different. The only neighbours I've got is Mr Squirrel. I don't really know what it would be like to live on a street. It would be a lot noisier. I like waking up to the birds.

A couple of times birds have got into the fan in the bathroom; nesting in there but when anyone flushes the toilets they all start tweeting as if to say, why are you making that noise?

I remember in the pond where the birds are, there used to be baby fish in there. We'd catch them out of there and put them in the other pond. It was my job, carrying the fish to the other pond.

I vaguely remember a teddy bear picnic. I threw up. I'd caught a bug but was determined to go.

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34 Mary Clements Gardener’s Cottage,Wythenshawe Park b. 1961 Talked to Development Officer, who typed up memories on computer.

My dad used to bring us as a child. We were born and bred in Moss Side but Sunday outings were Wythenshawe Park. And where Mere Wood is now opposite the playground, as kids we used to call it the Secret Garden because there was all informal beds in there and little pathways with wooden steps. It was like a little maze. So we used to play paper chase trails in there. Then there was the playground. The only thing I can remember is the paddling pool. It was always freezing and it was always full. You could never get in it. We used to have the old picnics with jam butties and Corporation pop. And if we were really really good, if we'd behaved all week, dad would buy us an icecream from the cafe at the back of the hall. We were posh; we came by car, it was a luxury item that my dad had. It never came out of the garage all week; only on Sundays. It was a Hillman Hunter. There were no windows in the back but there were seats.

The greenhouses that were at Alec Park, our local park; two big cacti houses from there were moved here. They got vandalised although there are still cacti from those original ones.

My next connection with the park is February 1990 when I started working here. The park then was all about horticulture and recreation facilities. I moved into the house in the park in 1994. We were living in one of the park houses in north Manchester; it was easier for work to live here; it came up.

It's a very safe environment to live here. You actually feel very secure at night, daft as that sounds.

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35 Susan Horton b. 1951 Talked to Development Officer, who typed up memories on computer.

I was about 10 years old and we used to come every Saturday morning with a group of friends. We used to come into the old kitchen here, where the new cafe is. There was a little old kitchen and we used to sit in front of the iron range and wait for the others to arrive. In the winter we used to make toast in front of that fire and have hot drinks with the gentleman who ran the nature club. His name was Mr Blezard. He was a lovely old gentleman. We used to do all kind of activities in the park. We used to go inside the old hall. And he took us to all the places in the house that weren't open to the public.

I can remember that in the cafe there used to be an old stagecoach. We used to have film shows about the history of the park and Manchester, about the family who lived here. I also remember that after three months you got a beautiful enamelled badge, red and green, and we used to receive monthly newsletters. I must have come for quite a few years. I'm the eldest of five and I used to bring my younger brothers and sisters. I mush have come for at least three or four years. There was a large group of children used to come. We used to have picnics; rambling; he taught us all about the plants and birds. We used to collect pondlife.

It was absolutely great. It was somewhere to come every Saturday mornig. It was safe; you met different people. There used to be park police here; I remember the dogs. We used to have talks from them about safety and looking after each other and the park. They used to have another tearoom over the other side and we occasionally helped out in there.

I lived in Northern Moor, just ten minutes away. I live in Sale now; not far away. Never have lived far away. My sister had her engagement party here and twentyfirst or eighteenth; we've had various family functions here.

I bring my grandchildren now; they live in Urmston. It's their favourite park, and their mum and dad‟s favourite park. We found some frog spawn this morning.

I've lots of happy memories. There‟s always something to do here. I brought my children here and now I bring my grandchildren. Robin's favourite place is the cactus house; we‟ve just been there. We always buy our plants here. Bought our Christmas tree here last Christmas. Lucas likes the woods and the walks; he calls it the Secret Garden.

I've shown them where the dogs graves are. I was shown them when I was ten. Mr Blezard explained they were dogs that belonged to the family that lived here.

There was a big gang of us used to come together; lots of neighbours children.

I remember the children's playground. There used to be a little wooden hut and there was a park keeper there. We used to call him Parkie. He used to just in there and watch over the children. He had a first aid box so if you fell over or got injured he'd clean your knee or whatever and put a plaster on it.

The park police were really strict. They were always your friend but there were quite strict about going on things like the grass in the gardens. You kept to the pathways.

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36 Lucas Horton b.1997 Talked to Development Officer, who typed up memories on computer.

I have been loads of times but we don't come as much anymore because we live in Urmston. When I was small my favourite part was the farm. I liked the animals; the smells. My favourite bit now is the gardens; you know, where you park, where the greenhouses are. They're good to play in and they are always empty and I like the small pond.

I like the Safari Walk because of all the different things in there like the cactuses and things like that.

In the pond this morning in there, that's where we saw the frogspawn.

I like the playpark . It's a good park, it's quite big too. My favourite thing is probably the climbing frame.

The first time we actually came and saw the gardens, we came across them by accident. Thought they were good. I was about five. I thought the park was massive compared to the one in Urmston that we live near.

I did used to want to go in the house; the one that is all locked up - the hall. It's such a really big old building. Sometimes you find good things in them.

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37 Gavin Evans WFM interview

Hello. Can you first of all tell us your name and age and your memories of Wythenshawe Park and Wythenshawe Hall? Yeah I‟m Gavin Evans, I am 31 years old. My memories go back quite far because I have lived in Wythenshawe nearly all my life and always lived quite close to Wythenshawe Park and remember going to the fairs and mostly playing football and making dens really. So there are plenty of stories there. And a lot of time when we used to go to Wythenshawe Hall when it was open quite a lot, going in there and thinking where all the tunnels were supposed to go to and stuff like that. Always kept us guessing.

Did these tunnels actually exist? Well actually, I ended up working at Wythenshawe park for 7 years as a park warden so I ended up telling younger children about the history of the hall and where the tunnels were supposed to be and I used to let them keep guessing. But no there is supposed to be one passage to where the kitchen area was, but we were never able to see it so that was the best bit really.

What about ghost stories associated with the park? Well I didn‟t see any ghosts myself, but I certainly enjoyed telling primary school children about the ghost of Mary Webb and Mary Webb was the lady who was killed by the Roundheads during the Civil War. So Mary Webb was supposed to haunt the hall and the gardens. So I used to make up extra spooky stories for young children.

So what was the story of Mary Webb? Well Mary Webb was in love with one of the soldiers. He was a Royalist and she was…her fiancé was killed by one of Oliver Cromwell‟s troops. So in a moment of sheer madness should I say, in her love for the soldier she went out and she shot the person who killed her fiancé. She was later in the war; she was killed by Oliver Cromwell‟s troops. So the story that went after that was that she still haunted the hall. That was the story I used to tell the children anyway.

What about the park itself and the various seasons, do you remember changes in the park during the various seasons? For me it was mostly summer that I remember, purely because that was the best time for making dens in the woodlands, particularly in the Nan Nook Woods which were really hidden and you could get a real feel for being out in the wilds, somewhere where nobody could find you. You could create a den and after two hours building it, you would spend five minutes kicking it in once you had made it. They were the good bits I remember.

What was your role as a warden? I did a lot of stuff with the community; a lot of stuff with local primary school children. That was the best bit about the job and a lot of other fun stuff; building the bonfire, putting on huge events. Some of the other stuff we did was looking after play areas in the smaller parks, putting on events for children and all sorts of stuff like that.

How about memories of the fairground? My earliest memories were when arcade games were really rubbish, but they were a lot of fun in them days and always going to the fair with hardly any money. All of, me and me mates used to walk right from sort of near the Cringle Wood Pub right up to the fair and we would spend 2-3 hours always, always walking down and discussing with our friends who could get a job on the fair. You know because we wanted to stay there and have as much fun as possible, but there was never that chance. But you would end up spending 30 pence probably for the whole evening. Getting a go on one arcade game and then the rest of time just standing at the walls looking to see if there was any nice girls about. And I never got anywhere though.

What are your memories of playing football as a child? A lot of memories. I mean I still play there now. I actually ran a team there last year. I just play for a team at the moment, a local team, Northern Moor. But my memories go right back playing for Northern under elevens. We played Rackhouse School, but had a lot of games in Wythenshawe Park as well. They were the days when we thought we were super stars, but we wasn‟t. That is why I am still a Sunday league player now.

In the early days did you have nets? Yeah we did, only for games. I mean you would go over and do training. Our manager at the time, he used to make us run all the way round the brook round to sort of Altrincham Road entrance there and all the way back and as an 11 year old it seemed like miles. I still struggle to do it now for me own team and I am 31. But yeah it goes back a long way, rubbish football kits as well, that is what I remember.

What was the pitch itself like? Okay. They are still exactly the same now. I think now they have got drainage on them so they are not as muddy. But I do remember mucking about training and you know once you had done a bit of serious training, it was time to pick up a bit of mud to throw at somebody who was passing and sometimes it would turn out into an all out war with the manager going absolutely berserk while we were there wiping mud on each other and doing you know, Ronaldinio dives into the muddy water, I can remember all that.

Do you remember even younger? Yeah I do remember actually. I think I must have been about four years old. I was football mad then and me Nan used to look after me while my mum was at work and she used to buy me a ball every other day. Just one of those horrible fly-away ones from Northenden and she would take me to the park and I would probably kick it around a few metres even though it probably felt like thousands of metres then. But I also remember as well my mum taking me to watch my dad playing football, but I must have been 3 possibly 4 then. Actually me Nan would have been probably about 70 then, trying to kick a ball about; quite funny. I still remember that to this day.

Can you tell us about Spooky Night and Halloween? Yeah they picked up over the last four years actually. When we originally started the Spooky nights we had a couple of hundred people that turned up and we had a basic walk round the hall gardens in the dark. And the warden would lead you round and even did a bit of dressing up then as well. Very basic and it was okay, it was a bit of fun. And then we started to advertise it a bit more and more people started turning up. So the last couple of years we have had a good couple of thousand that turned up. But we have gone all out, dressed up, make up and we have also had like almost like a village settlement at the back of the hall gardens. People hidden in bushes, dressed up. We have had cauldrons, huge lanterns. Of course at the end of the tour you went through part of the clock tower where we had all sort of smoke machines, we had a coffin that was open and someone hid in this coffin. It was pretty scary with a lot of girls coming through screaming. I think we even managed to scare some young skinhead who was walking past and I remember his wife and all his family all laughing because we scared the death out of him. And his kids were laughing as well. I think he had seen the funny side. That was the best bit, the scary bit at the end.

He lost his hard man image? Oh aye it went right down there.

Was there a story about some wire? That was in the hall. The warden who taught me most of the stuff to teach to the children, Colin Evans. Colin was really good at winding people up and he knew how to go as far as he could as possible. So I think he hid some wire on the cradle in the hall. You know some of that extremely thin wire that you can‟t see and he rocked the cradle which these kids probably still tell their children about now. So yeah he was a bit more sneaky than me, Colin.

Your input into the Park and the changes since you have been there? One of the things that we always tried to improve was the woodland walks around the park. There‟s a lot of areas that you couldn‟t really walk through and there was a lot of areas that people wanted to. So we originally started using the trees that had been cut down where woodland management was going on and we started to create path edges using woodchip, you know a lot of recycle stuff. So once we had done one walk we started to create them in other places and we had other groups coming in. We had community service working, we had Duke of Edinburgh, the Healthy Strollers were starting to use these walks. And the original idea was to create a walkway all the way round the park that you could walk round through wooded areas, through areas of nice scenery with flowers and stuff and we had a lot of primary school children that came in from Year 6, Newall Green, Benchill and . They did projects every year as part of their transition to going to secondary school. They certainly did a lot of work there as well and they used to come back on their bikes and stuff during their six week holidays to see me and the other wardens and then to go and look at all the work they had created and also bringing mum and dad. They are the biggest improvements we have seen and certainly the hardest work I have probably done as well, carrying logs about; got a bit of backache doing that, but I was never off sick though!

So in conclusion what does the park mean to you?

For me, I know any open space is important in a built up area. For me though Wythenshawe Park being as huge as it is gives a lot of people in a hard area, it is hard to come up as a youngster and the park is a place where you can do a lot from sport to having fun, to coming together for event. It sort of brings everybody together. And working there as well as also made me extremely passionate about improving it and I have spent a lot of my times there. That is when I would like to see sort of; kids making dens and climbing trees. I wasn‟t the usual parky you know telling them to get down and get out. I used to sort of let them get on with it but just tell them to be careful. So I would probably take my own kids there eventually when I get to have some; take them playing football and stuff. But hopefully they will be better footballers than me whether they are boys or girls.

Well if you are passionate about the park, it won’t be too long!

Have you got any courting stories? I have got some stories that would blow your mind, I am telling you. I remember getting drunk in the park. Also a lot of things with my friends in the park. Getting drunk for starters. We used to do all nighters in the park. We‟d climb the fence of the running track, sleep on the crash mats. I remember going home and feeding my dad a load of lies about where we‟d been. It didn‟t take him long; two minutes to realise I had stayed in Wythenshawe Park when I was covered in mud and dirt. Yeah I think I spent the rest of the week painting fences in the garden for staying out all night. But yeah there are stories I probably can‟t say on radio that we got up to. I also remember lighting fires in the woodlands to burn marshmallows. Sat there with my mates, a couple of beers late at night, having a sneaky cigarette. Yeah I do remember that. Yeah that was a lot of fun.

And there’s more? What about romance in the Park? Can‟t really. I probably smooched with a few girls in the park. If my wife is to be is listening she won‟t be very happy about that so I am not going to go on about too much about that. But we used to meet up with friends from school in the park, sometimes there would be hundreds of us all sat about, most of them meeting up for a drink and stuff like that, and just getting up to no good really. Probably being a pain in the backside for the local police. And if the fires got out of hand, the fire brigade. And it just seems uncanny that stories of damage to bowling greens and things………[tape cuts out]

END OF INTERVIEW

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37 Doris North Interview undertaken by North West Sound Archive

Tell me where you were born? I was born at Ewe Tree Lane in Northenden. My father worked at this park, is that right? And so that is how we came to be so involved with Wythenshawe because he worked for the Tatton‟s.

My father worked for the Tatton‟s and then he died in 1924 which left us with five children, one wasn‟t quite born, was born after. He left us with five children. But it was alright, we did manage selling flowers and that.

When were you born? I was born in 1914.

How did you father manage to get a job here? I don‟t know really, but what I think was, he was in the army and he got taken out because he had Pneumonia and he got out and I think he must have wrote for a job here because we lived at [?]Bank you see so he must have got a job here and I don‟t remember. We first lived in those cottages in Gibb Lane until this one was ready in Ewe Tree lane and the cottages belonged to the Tatton‟s

What was his actual job when he came here? He was a gardener.

Did he have to serve an apprenticeship? No he was already a farmer you see before he came. He new a lot I think.

And your mum? Well she helped in the gardens growing flowers and that. And she was growing flowers. She helped him and did that. And we sold a lot of flowers. We used to sell the flowers to get more money. We couldn‟t sell them when Lady Tatton was around because she didn‟t us selling flowers.

Why didn’t she like you selling flowers? My father was working so she felt that was enough wage and we lived rent free. And so that was really enough really. But in our way of life, we wanted more so my mother sold flowers.

Where was the first cottage? The first cottage was Gibb Lane, but we were only there for about three weeks. And then we moved to this one at Ewe Tree Lane. Do you know next door to Ewe Tree. It still stands there. But now there were three cottages there when I was there. And now they have knocked them down and made them into two. They put a bathroom in and a toilet.

Not posh when you were there? No it was not posh.

Did you have running water? Yes we had running water, yes.

How were the rooms lit? Lamps because I used to have to go for the oil for the paraffin.

You had brothers and sisters, how many? Well at the beginning there was three sisters and two brothers.

Were they all in this cottage? Yes they were all in the cottage.

How many bedrooms? Only two bedrooms. Mother and father had one bedroom and we all in the other one.

How was the house heated? There were the lamps and the coal fire.

Where did the coal come from? We had to buy the coal. We used to buy a big load at a time, bags. We had a big coal house.

What was your father’s job? He was a gardener and in the greenhouses around. They are not here now. But he used to grow peaches and grapes, black and green grapes. Good.

Who were they for? They were for the Hall.

What about vegetables and things like that? We grew our own because we had a big garden with the cottages you had a big garden so you grew your own and you grew potatoes and then you used to hog them for the winter.

What does that mean? Put them in a big hog. Like a house. With straw so they would keep. [hard to hear] Yes you would put straw around them.

To protect them from the frost? Yeah.

I wondered, if you did that at home, if the family also got their vegetables in the similar way. Was there a vegetable garden on the estate? Oh yes they had gardeners there. The greenhouse.

I was thinking of the family? The Tatton‟s they had their own, all them peaches and that didn‟t they. All in the greenhouses. Cucumbers and tomatoes and everything.

What was your earliest memory? The earliest memory was my dad saying, I am just going to stoke the boilers up and do you want to come for a ride? So I got on the crossbar and we rode over here to the park. And then I was nosing around and he gave me a peach. I didn‟t like it very much I remember, it was a bit sour.

Were you allowed to wonder round as a child? Yeah we just went to school, had to go into Northenden to school and then wondered around yeah.

The school in Northenden, was there a link to the Tatton family? I don‟t know about the school. The church was.

In what way? The school was built in 1910, it got overcrowded I believe with children and they build this school. It was a council school. They called it Northenden Council School.

But the church? That was. We used to see the servants with their own pew you know on a Sunday morning.

Were they forced to go to church? I don‟t know. Used to ask me dad, had we been to church. And we had to curtsey when we saw her.

How did you feel? Never bothered, we were brought up with it weren‟t we.

Tell me about this lady, what was she called? We called her Lady Tatton. And she used to walk around just like, with long dresses and she used to walk around. She used to come and see whether the house was clean.

Like an annual inspection? An inspection yeah.

Would you know when she was coming? [Difficult to hear]

Do you think she knew about the flowers? I don‟t know we used to put the flowers behind the hedge quick, throw the buckets behind.

She never said anything? No she was in the car passing. She never stopped.

What about the inspection? Oh she came in special then for inspection. There were three more cottages there.

Would she come on her own then? You were allowed to go and get your own paint. They gave you paints and lime to do your house with and paid for your paper as well. And I always remember my mother always getting chocolate paint and I didn‟t like it and she would get it. And we used to go and get it and bring it up and decorate it.

Who would come into your house and inspect? Lady Tatton.

Herself, on her own? Yeah

How would your parents greet her? They made a big fuss and everything was just so. I think we had an idea when she was coming. Don‟t know how.

Did you have to be seen and not heard? All the grate was polished.

Were you there? Yeah we had to be seen and not heard, yeah.

You could go anywhere you wanted? Yeah

Was there anywhere you weren’t allowed to go? There wasn‟t many places to go really. We couldn‟t go in the big park, through the big gates where the lodge is, you couldn‟t go through there. We had to go the back way round, this way round.

What would have happened had you have done? I don‟t know and me dad said, you mustn‟t let the gates bang. She doesn‟t like the gates banging.

We talked about the greenhouses, can you remember who was head gardener? Yes, a man named Mr Dunnimore?. He lived not far from here.

Did he live on the Estate? Yeah and had big boilers where he had to fill them up at night. Me Dad had to get up and fill the boilers you know. Took it in turns. He had to get up and do them.

How many gardeners are we talking about? Oh we are talking about as far as I know there was four.

Did they have apprentice gardeners? Yes and they had these apprentice gardeners that lived in the bothy. They used to come across and have their meals here.

What is the bothy? It is like little bedrooms, three little bedrooms next to one and other. And all the bed clothes and things and frying pans and things. We have had one or two. They used to bring them home.

So they used to live there? Yes sleep there, but they come over to the Hall for their meals.

The kitchens? Yes they would go in the kitchens.

Where would these lads come from, I assume they were lads? I don‟t know where they came from. Perhaps not gone into the war or something like that.

How many are we talking about? Three

Do you remember any of their names? No I don‟t remember the names.

The family must have had other members of staff there? They had servants

How many are we talking about? Must have been about a dozen servants and chamber maids and that, yeah.

Who would answer the door? I don‟t know who would answer the door really. The servants would answer it. But while you are in there you could see all bells up there and they used to ring and then they would say, oh that‟s Mr So and So‟s room.

Did they have a butler? Oh they did have a butler yeah. And an under butler

And a chauffeur? Oh they had a chauffeur yeah.

Where was he? He had a house up onto the gates of park. And he used to take this big car out what they had. What would it be? But we had the horse and carts really as well, you know the horse and trap and different things.

Would the family use the horse and trap? Yeah and they had big horse and trap that took a few at the back and the front, two or three on the front.

How would you get about? We got about on the bike or walked.

Did you ever go on holiday? No never went on holiday.

Did you ever go into Manchester? Sometimes yes. We used to go into Sale more than anywhere.

How would you get there? We would have to go on the bus or we would walk it.

The chauffeur I gather was a bit of a character wasn’t he? Oh he used to cut all our hair when dad took us there.

Was that a sideline? Yes a sideline yes.

Did you ever go into the hall itself? Yes we went in. We went in this day and we went, and then I saw these bells ringing and then they‟d talk and wonder who it is you know. And then they went up to somebody‟s room to see what they wanted. And then all this food, food on the table. Big hams cut and everything in slices.

In the kitchen? In the kitchen of the Hall.

Were the family away at the time? No they was there. And she was there, she was talking to me, lady Tatton.

Did you ever go into the House when they were away? No I don‟t think we went when they was away. We went on this day when she was and we used to go round the back and sit in the Hall like you know. We didn‟t right in the Hall like we did this day. Because you could see all the, you could see, over there it wasn‟t Princess [?] but you can see right across. It was nice.

Must have been, not busy roads? No it wasn‟t busy. No footpaths. One day Lady Tatton was out. They had something on, some function on and she lost her pearls. So she got all the gardeners out, everybody out looking. And in the end my dad found them. So she gave him two pound for finding the pearls and said, you can go home for the day. She was ever so good to him. My mother was going mad over the two pound she got.

You mentioned a lot of servants and house maids. Where did they live? Well they lived in the Hall most of them I think and they used to come now and again to the cottage for some supper you know. Only one or two of them.

You mentioned Lady Tatton, you have not mentioned Lord Tatton?

No we didn‟t see him very much. He was there. I just said. I read it in a book. I didn‟t believe. He only died a month before me father, I didn‟t know that until I read it. So they mustn‟t have talked about it much.

We were talking about the Hall pre Manchester days before it was a park. What were there in the grounds or the park then, I know you weren’t allowed in? No, we just heard me dad talking about the people that minded the babies, the nurses. They had a few babies at the Hall didn‟t they and they used to say, they let them cry and he didn‟t like that. They used to let them cry and cry.

Did he ever mention the famous ghost? No he didn‟t mention the ghost. No.

I wondered if they ever held social events? Oh they did yeah.

What kind of social events? We don‟t know where they went, but dad used to say. Browning has got to pick them up a such a time you know, they had been out for so long and he‟d have to go and pick them up.

Did they ever hold anything here? Yeah they have things here.

Who would come to those? Well none of us. None of us would go.

You wouldn’t see the people arriving? No we wouldn‟t see them where we lived.

We are reaching the point where the park is about to be sold. How did you know and hear about it? Well my mother heard about it and she was wondering what was going to happen to us. And we heard that it was going to be sold. And their brother came over from Jodrel Bank and he wanted us to go back to live at her mother‟s, but she wouldn‟t. She said, we‟re not going back there.

Why was she so anti going back to Jodrell Bank? Well my mother had a cottage there and he wanted her to go back and live with her mother and take all us there you see. But she said no.

How did it develop from there? We heard it was sold and Lord Simon was buying it and everybody seemed very happy about it. And he was having this big opening day. So my mother said to me it would be a good day to sell flowers if you take them down there.

When did your dad die? „24

This is ‘26 Yeah

So your mother was paying the rent? I don‟t know if she paid rent then. But when Lord Simon took it, she was told she had to pay three and six a week.

I am trying to work out, there must have been an arrangement when your father died for you to stay on? There must have been yeah. He must have let us stay on yeah. But she was very edgy. You know didn‟t know what was coming next.

Can you remember anything at all about the opening?

Yeah she said about the opening and Lord Simon was buying it and it would be alright you know and was quite happy about it yeah.

Do you remember the opening? Yeah I went there and I happen to be already there selling flowers, but I kept leaving them and going across to see what was going on myself. Soldiers there.

What soldiers? They were doing a

Re-enactment? Yeah. Everybody was going mad and singing and dancing and picnics was going.

Are we talking a lot? A lot of people yeah. Coach loads of people he used to bring. And people was coming on tandems and bicycles.

Where were they coming from? From Manchester. Princess Royal wasn‟t open then. You used to have to come right along Parson Road.

What sort of day was it? Oh it was a nice day yeah.

All these people coming in, there must have been something to attract them there? Oh there was, there was the food and the other park. It was a big thing to be able to go to the park.

Were they allowed in the Hall? No I don‟t think so no.

The hall was still? Still closed up

I wondered if they had things like funfairs? They had a big dinner, what was it called? A banquet for all attendants and they all went to that yeah. And my mother got a special dress for that and she went. A big do over it. And then when I was ready for her to come home, she went on.

How did she afford a dress? Oh I think we got it on the weekly.

And shoes? Yeah

But on the night, she wouldn’t be allowed to go on her own would she? Oh she went, all her sisters on the other, the three cottages where the sister lived in one and she was a tenant. And they went.

What do you remember of that at all? Do you remember her going? Oh I do remember it was on for days dressing up and putting things on. And she said she was the best dressed there when she come back.

I was wondering if she was apprehensive about what would happen when she got there? She was yeah.

Did she tell you what happened? I don‟t remember them going.

Do you remember people going to it? Oh yeah people going to it, yeah. Yeah went round about all of the neighbours and that. The banquet that was a posh do. Yeah. They had a dance there.

When this happened, was there anything for the children? Oh there was nothing for children no.

What about Christmas before the Hall and grounds were taken over. How did they celebrate Christmas at the Hall? Oh they celebrated yeah. They brought people in form all over.

They sent the car out for them? Sent the car out for them. But they was all posh people wasn‟t there.

They had a celebration of sorts? They didn‟t do anything for their tenants.

You were in the wrong place. Whereabouts was the bothy? Just here, just a bit away.

When the men were working in the gardens, what would he take with him to eat? I don‟t think he took anything. I think he took from the servants.

He didn’t come he went to the kitchen? That‟s it.

How did he keep dry in winter? Nothing, I don‟t think they bothered very much.

Was there any game in the park? Yeah they had a gamekeeper.

Did he live on the Estate? Yeah they had one or two I think. One was Mr Aylesbury, he did the game keeping and he also did all the paint and all the joinery. He did a lot. And he lived in the Lodge.

Did they have poachers? They had poachers, yeah. It was rabbits we used to be after.

What happened if they were caught? I don‟t remember if anybody was caught, no.

Was there an ice house or ice store? No I don‟t

You mentioned a pony and trap so there were still horses about? Oh plenty of horses yeah.

Where were they stabled? In the yard outside in the yard. And lately they did teas in there.

Who would look after the horses? The farmhands, the people who worked on the farm.

Did they have a stable man? Yeah.

I was just thinking more about the lodge keeper? We had two lodges, one at each side of the park and one is pulled down now.

What would have been the job of the lodge keeper? To open the gates any time they came in and they would have to open them and you open the gates for them.

Was there a lake? Yes that was at this side, Altringham Road end.

I was just wondering if in the winter they skated on it? No. We used to more or less go down to the river.

What did you do there in the winter? Skating if there was any ice there. It was a risky thing, but we did come out of school and go down there.

You are saying it was much more of a village when you were a girl? Yeah

So when Manchester had taken over, you mentioned these dinners, what improvements were there? How did it alter things? To tell you the truth, I thought it was better off before.

Why? Well we got things and the Tatton‟s looked after us and they sent me dad to Southport once for convalescence.

What was wrong with your dad? He used to have pneumonia and she sent him off there. He was only 34 when he died.

But Manchester would have made changes. Did they have events in the park? Oh yes they did make changes yeah.

What events did they have? They used to have events at weekend, picnics and games in there yeah. And they had a band in the park.

Was there a band site? No there was no band site.

Where would they perform? They would perform near the hall.

In front of the hall? Yes in front yeah.

That was a brass band? Yeah

What sort of music did they play? What was going that day I suppose. It wouldn‟t be what we have now. Rock‟n‟roll and stuff.

I was thinking about Wakes Week and Easter if they had special events? In Northenden we had a fair, a big fair in Northenden and the boats was on the river, it was very good.

What do you meant, boats on the river? They had boats, rowing boats on the river and they had a big boat to take you up and down.

How long were you there in that cottage, when did you leave? Me mother died in that cottage. She died in 1961. I remember my brother was still there, he hadn‟t married, so he stayed on there.

Were you there during the 2nd War? Yeah

I was wondering how they might have used the farm during the war? No I don‟t think so.

No training exercises? Oh they might have had that yeah.

Lady Tatton, how do you remember her? She was very slim, tall.

Was she strict? Personable? Oh no, she was straight, very straight yeah because once I had, I brought our dog in the park and then it got onto her dog and she was very nasty about it all. „Don‟t ever bring that dog in here again‟.

The bottom one shows?

I‟nt it round here.

The hay cart. I must have been getting hay from somewhere? Yeah the farm.

They had a whole farm did they? This farm yeah and where they lay bowls, they had chippings there for the cows.

How far away were the fields for these? They would have been right over, where they had the, they have running now haven‟t they and a stadium or something.

This is a picture of the staff. Anybody you can remember? That looks like Mr Browning.

That is the extreme bottom left? Yeah, I can‟t see the others. I remember he was the chauffeur.

The gentleman seated with a hat next to him. Yeah.

They are servants.

This picture shows the soldiers for the re-enactment? Yeah, just like that.

Did they have explosives and battles and things? Oh they did yeah.

You remember that? Yeah I can remember that.

There were a lot of trees in the park weren’t there? Oh there was yes.

Just looking at another of the pictures here, of the staff? That‟s one, where is the other one. Here it is.

She is centre, second row from the bottom with the hat on? Yeah.

What was she called? Her name was Derbyshire and she lived in the other cottage. There were three cottages. They lived on one side and we lived on the other side. And her father worked for the farm here.

You were saying she used to go and clean there? Yeah, half past five in the morning, she would go across.

[Move to outside]

Tell me that again now? We used to get these hams and when Lady Tatton came, we used to go and put in this big grid, square grid under the fire. Put it down there.

So you used to get a lot of food? Otherwise she would…… the food.

This way. Would you have been allowed in here? Never, wouldn‟t be allowed here. Used to have a bit conservatory

You don’t remember the conservatory? No. The conservatory, but they pulled it down now. It was beautiful.

A lot of that was rebuilt according to the plaque. We are now standing outside the hall itself. Do you remember looking out from here Yes I was in the house in there. Just like this, all green and how nice it was.

Not as noisy? No, you‟d never have thought they would have a road around here.

A motorway, rather sad now isn’t it? It is sad. Can‟t live for ever this kind. Though it has done well. Somebody said it was only 8,000 acre. That was on this side, the conservatory.

It was on this side as well was it? Yes a very big one, it used to be lovely. Me dad used to look after. He used to look after this part.

Did he have to cut all the lawns? No not himself. They would only have the ordinary lawnmowers then.

I was going to ask how they cut it? Yeah with ordinary lawnmowers.

Would they use a horse? Oh I think they did yeah. They had a horse and cart. It must have been like painting the Forth bridge, as soon as he had finished, he have to start all over again.

If they had horses that would have kept the grass down? Well they did have animals yeah.

On the farm? On the farm and the sheep and that yeah.

Did they have any deer? No I don‟t think so. I know there were a lot of foxes around, we still have them. The security lights go on and we jump out and it is this fox sniffing all around you. It‟s terrible that. Foxes and squirrels. Nice here for foxes.

Did they ever hunt them, the foxes? Yeah they did. Go and hunt them yeah. They were quite pleased when you know. Couldn‟t tell you how many they had done. Round there.

When the huntsmen came, did they have red coats and tally ho and all that? Oh yeah.

In Wythenshawe? Yeah, I don‟t know where they got them from.

The hunt? Oh they used to have the hunt yeah.

Did you see the hunt? Oh we used to see that yes. Always used to run to the gate and watch them.

Where the bothy was? Yeah.

An odd name? It‟s a Scottish term.

Do you remember any of this? Yeah this is where the bothy was. Where‟s the windows? There they are.

So this is a single storey building? Yeah this is where they were sleeping yeah.

Were the stables here then? No that was were the bails was for the heat, for the greenhouses.

What was the building at the far end? That is St…hedge cottage, the head gardener lived there.

Were you allowed to just come down here? Yeah you could come down here, we used to love it down here. Not a blade of grass out of place, it was lovely.

Were the trees as big as this? Yeah just like this.

What was it like in springtime? It was nice in springtime yeah. All growing down there. On the other side the greenhouses. This is where all the greenhouses were lined up.

Back to the bothy? That is [?] cottage on the other side.

Did you have a cottage garden? Yeah.

This side here? This was called the kitchen gardens of the hall.

What was grown here? Vegetables. And they had loads of apple trees round there. These. I don‟t remember these.

The fruits? Yeah the peaches and the grapes

Did they ever show you how they fertilised these? No they didn‟t. I was too young I think.

Where would they get the water from? Under the greenhouses it was all flowing water, so I don‟t know where that come from, but it was all flowing and grids over the top you know. That wasn‟t there.

So walking back towards the Hall Yes all the [?] on here for the cows and this side as well. You can see in there stood waiting to go in, loads of them. And then there was all cans of milk on the windowsills waiting for the men to take up.

How do you mean? Milk them here? The workers milk and they left them on the windowsill.

What happened to the rest of the milk? I don‟t know where that went.

Sounds like it was a big herd? Yes they must have sold it.

End

IMAGES

1 Ann Hilary Lloyd

 Hilary on a horse  In the Horticultural Centre with Sheri

8 Graham Sant

 George Henry Sant, about 12 years old, at Twemlow Hall – Holmes Chapel  At house in Saltersford, c. 1907

9 Roy Ashworth

 Father‟s bowling team, 1947  Mother‟s bowling team

10 Mary Thomas

 Photograph shows Mary outside prefab, waiting to go on the Whit Walks.

11 Hilda Nicholls

 Girl in red jacket on horse in yard, Imogen with daughter  Granddaughters  Eloise and Imogen on slide  Hilda and Oliver by swings

20 Donna Cunneen

 Her father with Donna as a baby 1968,about 6 wks old [William Booth]  Nephew, Scott Booth and his sister Amy Booth on table at back of farm, early 1980s  Kerri Booth, daughter, in the Horticultural Centre  Katie, daughter, on ride at Easter fair

21 Joe Hogan

 Plaque to his mother  Photograph of his mother in the Horticultural Centre  Village Day  Simon‟s Day  Joe by the plaque, 2008

23 Jean Belluz

 Aunty Gert and Jean, John, Zena, Arthur, 1940-41  The four children in front of the air-raid shelter eating apples, 1940-41  Aunty Gert at Wythenshawe Cottage, 1961

24 Ron Green

 Charles Browning, chauffeur to the Tattons, with Grey and Betty Tatton  With his wife, Lucy  Ron and his wife playing tennis in the Park

25 Maureen Donnelly

 Maureen‟s daughter, photographed in the Park on her wedding day

Figure 1

31 Arthur Buckley

 Outside prefab  “ “  Bowling  Cups won, 1985  Arthur in his 90s with the cup that was presented to him

32 Joan Theakston (Arthur Buckley’s daughter)

 Outside the prefab with her sister  Joan‟s wedding

33 Sarah Clements

 As a toddler in the Park  Sarah‟s brother, Richard, in the snow  With Richard in the back garden of the house