CHAIRMEN IN CHESTER ROAD, CHAIRMAN'S SUNDAY 1948

© Phillip Shales 2012 All Rights Reserved
With acknowledgments to Kerry Fletcher and Dave Thompson at Middlewich Town Council

Looking very much like they mean business, and don't expect  any nonsense from anyone, this group of Council Chairmen (and one lady) stride purposefully along Chester Road on Chairman's Sunday 1948.
Originally we thought that these people were all visiting dignitaries, but the gentleman on the left could well be the Chairman of Middlewich UDC wearing the original 1897 badge of office and the 1935 badge.
 It was (and is) the custom of neighbouring Council Chairmen/Mayors to visit each other's civic services, carnivals and other town events.
Can anyone identify any of the other worthies and tell us which towns they represent?
Note the stylish motor-coach, the rear end of which can be seen on the left in front of Middlewich Motors, and the alternative Chester Road entrance to Boosey's Nurseries in the background, above the right hand Chairman's head.
Chester Road then, and for quite a few years afterwards, had an almost semi-rural air about it which has now largely gone..
At the time of writing Boosey's Garden Centre and Middlewich Autos provide a tenuous link with the area's past but even this will disappear very soon as progress, in the shape of a Morrison's supermarket, severs that link during 2012.

SEE ALSO SCOUTS AND CUBS IN CHESTER ROAD 1948
                   MIDDLEWICH GUIDES IN CHESTER ROAD 1948
                   AND ASSOCIATED ENTRIES (FOLLOW THE LINKS)

Originally published 15th March 2012
Revised and republished 1st February 2020.    t1

CHAIRMAN'S SUNDAY 1948 SCOUTS AND CUBS IN CHESTER ROAD

with thanks to Kerry Fletcher and Dave Thompson at Middlewich Town Council

In previous Middlewich Diary entries we've looked at some remarkable photographs originating in a collection owned by local photographer Phillip Shales and showing scenes from local events going back over 60 years.

This particular shot is from a file marked 'Chairman's Sunday 1948'  and shows Middlewich Scouts and Cubs posing for the camera in Chester Road.
Which straight away brings up another of those anomalies we're always coming across in our travels around Middlewich and its past.

This diary entry shows the scouts, on what is said to be the same day, marching down from their Brooks Lane HQ to the Parish Church.

So why did they end up in Chester Road? Did everyone march there after the church service?
Perhaps it's not an anomaly at all. It could be that it was the usual practice for everyone to march up to Chester Road for what would be called a 'photocall' these days.
 There was little room in the town centre at that time for such an activity and, given that the roads were a lot quieter then, perhaps Chester Road was considered the ideal place for such an activity.
We wouldn't recommend trying it now.
UPDATE (January 2017) Another theory, put forward by Geraldine Williams, has the ring of truth about it. Could it be that the Chairman of the Council that year was Mr Morris of Boosey's Nurseries, and the Scouts (and Guides) were there to form a sort of 'guard of honour' to escort him into the town for the service?
The buildings in the right background were all part of Middlewich Motors, and should be compared with the modern Middlewich Autos buildings (themselves due, we're told, for imminent demolition) shown here.
Behind the scouts on the left is the strangely evocative Boosey's Nurseries building which always looked like some kind of overgrown garden shed-cum-garage.
And just look at the faces of the scouts and cubs. Where are they all now?

Facebook Feedback (2018):

Deborah Rose The leader in the middle is Frank Hough. We think the leader on the left is Joe Stanier. The group marched down from the scout hall on Brooks Lane to the cemetery, where the parade formed up. The parade would then march from the cemetery gates to the church of the denomination of the Chairman at the time.


SEE ALSO MIDDLEWICH GUIDES IN CHESTER ROAD 1948

MIDDLEWICH SCOUTS PASSING CHALLINOR'S SHOP, CHAIRMAN'S SUNDAY 1948

© Phillip Shales 2011 All rights reserved

by Dave Roberts

Here's the second of our photographs from the Phillip Shales collection, taken on Chairman's Sunday 1948, as the Middlewich Scouts begin to turn from Leadsmithy Street into Hightown on their way to take their places with the rest of Middlewich in St Michael & All Angels church.

When the photographer took this picture he would probably have had no regard at all for its background but to us, in the second decade of the 21st Century, it holds just as much interest as the Scouts in the middle distance.

It is of course, as the sign plainly informs us, Challinor's Newsagent's shop situated just at the spot where Leadsmithy Street becomes Lewin Street.

As this is a Sunday, and an old-fashioned Sunday at that, the shop is firmly closed, but the signs on the front speak elequently of their time: PLAYERS PLEASE and GOLD FLAKE bear testimony to the then almost universal habit of smoking at every available opportunity. My Mother often used to tell me that in her younger days people used to consider her 'peculiar' because she didn't smoke.
Also advertised is PICTURE POST a photo news magazine published from 1938 to 1957, which numbered among its contributors such distinguished writers as J B Priestley, James Cameron and Fyfe Robertson.

Photo: Museum of London

Next to the Picture Post ad is another ad, or inscription, which is almost impossible to make out in the shadows under the shop's sun blind.  It's very indistinct, but looks something like E HADER. Has anyone any ideas?  

The scouts themselves are very much of their time with, as Geraldine Williams points out, the original, classic, scout hats on their heads. Their leader, who is supervising them as they make the turn into Hightown, is everyone's idea of what a Scout Leader ought to look like.

But it's the shop itself which is a revelation. Who knew that there was a cottage tacked onto the end of it at one time? In actual fact, there does seem to be a difference in the brickwork between the cottage and the shop.

Could it have been that the cottage was built on the end of the shop, and then taken down again?

This photo, which shows the 2nd Middlewich Guides about to pass the shop (which by that time belonged to Les Gibbins) in the 1970s, shows the different brickwork at the end of the shop after the cottage had been demolished.

That shop, against all odds, is still with us today, but has been empty for many years.


UPDATE: I've been doing some twiddling with the relevant section of the photograph to see if I could tease out what that other advert (or inscription) might be.
The second word is definitely 'Magazine'. Would it be TRADER Magazine?
Anyone heard of it?

MIDDLEWICH SCOUTS IN LEADSMITHY STREET, CHAIRMAN'S SUNDAY 1948

© Phillip Shales 2011 All rights reserved

by Dave Roberts

Today we're pleased to be able to bring you a photograph from 1948 which we're sure not many people will have seen before. It comes from the collection of Middlewich photographer Phillip Shales, who was a keen collector of old Middlewich photographs and took many pictures of the town himself over the years. 

We're grateful, too, to Kerry Fletcher  of Middlewich Town Council for bringing these photos to our attention.

The picture above comes from a collection which was given to Phillip by the widow of the original photographer, complete with all the negatives, and it's a rare privilege for us to be able to share it with you. 

It shows the Middlewich Scouts marching down from their base at the Scout Hall in Brooks Lane on their way to join the rest of the people of the town for the Chairman's Sunday service at St Michael & All Angels in 1948.

This explains the uncommon sight of a procession using Kinderton Street. Before publishing this particular shot, we gave Geraldine Williams a preview of it, and this is what she had to say.

(Note that Geraldine's query about the unusual route of the procession was  answered by Phillip when I called to ask his permission to publish the photo. Geraldine's reference to the street lamps goes back to a couple of slides we published showing unusual swan-necked concrete lamps in Seabank and Lawrence Avenue. The ones in this photo,though, really are wonderful. Does anyone remember them?)


It certainly is an amazing pic. I hadn't realised the scouts were still wearing proper hats in 1948. Wonder what the event was and why they were marching down from Kinderton Street? I don't think it can have been a Civic Sunday service at St Mary's because I think Clarence Costello would have been the first Catholic chairman. The only other event for 1948 would have been the London Olympics! A local Middlewich character - Mrs something double-barrelled (maybe Cooper) - used to live in the house to the right of The Talbot. The lamp posts are very grand but seem to have lost their glass. Are they bigger than that one on Seabank? I've lost track of where that picture appeared in the Diary. I always thought that the public toilets on the Town Bridge were a comparatively recent structure so I was surprised to see them featuring on a 1948 photo. GW


The picture shows Leadsmithy Street as it was 63 years ago and yet, like so many parts of the town, it has changed so little as to be instantly recognisable. 
The main difference between the scene then and now is the loss of the buildings in Kinderton Street.

The Talbot Hotel was demolished as part of the Kinderton Street redevelopment in the 1970s, but the houses next door to it disappeared many years before that.

I certainly don't remember them, and I lived in King Street from the 1950s to the 1980s and used Kinderton Street almost every day.

They must have been pulled down not too long after this picture was taken.The little alley way between The Talbot and the houses was called 'Flag Alley' and led up some steps to a terrace of houses running at right angles to the pub. 

Note the wonderful 1940s vintage car. 'Middlewich Diary' readers are getting quite good at identifying the old cars which crop up occasionally, so I'm wondering if anyone knows what this is.

The earliest car I can recollect is the Ford Prefect which my Aunt Evelyn (Ridgway) drove in the 1950s. This car looks a bit similar, but I think the bonnet's slightly different.

Returning to the main photo, note the 'Just William' types watching the procession from the Churchyard on the left. About ten years later myself and my contemporaries were still dressed  in a remarkable similar fashion. 

If 'fashion' is the appropriate word.