WHEELOCK STREET 1989

by Dave Roberts
This photo, taken in 1989 by Daniel Preston, is a good example of a picture which captures a moment in time and illustrates how small changes can 'creep up' on us almost without our noticing.
It's one of those photos where everything  looks familiar and yet, somehow, not quite the same.
Daniel took the picture because he was interested in that unusual red and white car (described by him as a 'pram car') and in the process captured, in the background, a little piece of Wheelock Street which has altered over the years, but not beyond recognition.
On the left is Cynthia's Patisserie, at that time simply that. A cake and pie shop.Always very popular and serving high quality food to passing customers
In 2013 Cynthia's is still going strong and many of those customers now linger awhile and take advantage of the tables and chairs on the pavement outside, allowing them to have a snack and a coffee and pass the time of day.
Next door is  Prudential Property Services, now a branch of Reeds Rains and fulfilling the same function in 2013.
This shop has a long history, dating back at least to Victorian times and can be seen in this classic Middlewich scene with ornate gas lamps attached to its walls.
And then comes the Alhambra, dating back to 1920.
Originally a cinema (universally acknowledged to be one of the best in Mid-Cheshire throughout its 40-odd years of service to the town) and now a Chinese Restaurant with a Spanish name.
The ornate art-deco frontage has survived intact throughout the changes the building has seen over the years.
At the time of the photograph the front section of The Alhambra was, controversially, the home to an amusement arcade (the building also catered for bingo and snooker players) and, long before the term 'anti-social behaviour' was invented, people were expressing alarm at the 'great harm' this was doing to the young people of the town, who were liable to run amok because of the licentiousness and decadence brought about by habitual playing of Pinball and Space Invaders.
One councillor felt constrained to point out that Wheelock Street was 'not Blackpool Prom'.
Which, of course, it isn't.
Apparently, playing on slot machines and video games automatically turns any young person into a hardened criminal overnight, meaning that we all run the risk of being murdered in our beds.
Somehow the town survived this threat to our safety and well-being and now the slot machines and video games have been replaced by the entrance to the Alhambra Chinese Restaurant, memorably captured in this night scene by Bill Armsden.
Why don't you take a look through your own photo albums and see if you have. perhaps unintentionally, captured a similar background scene showing Middlewich as it used to be?

SEE ALSO: CYNTHIA'S PATISSERIE 1987

MIDDLEWICH TALES: TALES OF SHREDDED NEWSPAPERS by Daniel Preston and Cliff Astles

THE TALE OF THE SHREDDED NEWSPAPER
by Daniel Preston

This  incident took place around 1964 when I was a newspaper boy.  I was still at school in those days. and  worked part-time for Reg Taylor, who had a newsagents shop in Wheelock Street where  the Choklat Bar is in the present day.

I took the round over from Ian Sant and  had morning and evening deliveries which paid ten shillings each (50p in decimal currency). I also had Sunday morning deliveries, which paid four shillings (20p).

Thursday evening was the hardest round, as that is when the Middlewich Guardian and Middlewich Chronicle came out. 

Also the Radio Times  (which had the listings for B.B.C. TV and radio) and the T.V. Times (which had the listings for ITV - in our area Granada TV during the week, and ABC Television at weekends). Everybody and his dog wanted the extra tonnage of papers on Thursday evening - one dog especially.

On

St. Anns Road

, just before where the Lily Works was then and the Newton Court care home is now, there is a fork in the road. 

One house  I made deliveries to was on Newton Heath, the street that angled off to the right from

St. Ann's Road

. On my evening rounds, I would come along

Wheelock Street

, then up

Darlington Street

, then turn left at the top and go to this particular house. 

There was a dog that lived there, not a big dog, but one well trained by his master. Every evening when I slid the paper into the letterbox, the dog would grab it in his jaws and snatch it from my hands and the letterbox would slam shut with a loud clap.

Meanwhile, the dog would be scampering off, presumably to lay the newspaper dutifully into his master’s lap. I can just see said master, sitting back in his armchair, smoking his pipe and sipping a snifter of brandy.

He would, of course, be wearing a heavy duty bathrobe and slippers, feet up on a stool.

“Good boy!” he would say, picking up the papers, “now let’s see what’s on the bally telly tonight.” 

Meanwhile, said ‘Good boy’ would settle in to lie comfortably at his master’s feet while  a roaring fire in the ornate fireplace would bathe the pair in its ruddy glow.

Meanwhile I would be still be out in the pouring rain, on my bike with a ton weight of papers hanging off my shoulder in a great, soggy canvas bag.

After several weeks of the dog grabbing the paper and me not being able to get it through the letterbox before he showed up, I hit on a strategy. 

I would keep hold of the paper until I was good and ready to let go of it and  see how long the dog could hang on. 

You see, I wanted to deliver the paper. 

That meant putting the paper through the letterbox and hearing it hit the mat on the other side of the door with a satisfying thud, not have some mongrel snatch it out of my hands. 

I wasn’t bothered about what the dog did with it afterwards, just as long as he would let me do my job first.

Which brings us to one rainy Thursday night in November 1964.

My bag was full to overloading, already heavy with all the newspapers and TV magazines and made heavier by the rain. 

I had loaded them up in the back of Reg Taylor’s shop and made my way along

Wheelock Street, delivered

 papers on

Darlington Street

 and then  pushed my bike the short distance to the house with the frantic dog.

I leaned my bike by the front gate, opened it,  squelched my way up the path and  pulled out the papers for this house - one of the evening national newspapers, the Middlewich Guardian, the Middlewich Chronicle, the T.V. Times and the Radio Times.

I folded them together with the local papers on the outside. The evening national papers weren’t too thick, but the local ones were and this made a very thick bundle… and the papers were damp, very damp.

I could hear the frantic dog scamper up to the door, eager to retrieve the papers for his master. The papers, all folded together like that, were a tight squeeze for the letterbox at the best of times. Now I had a job to get them through. As soon as they did poke through though, the dog grabbed hold and snatched them in.

However, I did not let go. I snatched them back. The dog didn’t let go either so he snatched them back to his side. I wasn’t having that, not on a night like this. Wet through and letting a dog in carpet slippers have its way? No way! 

I kept hold and snatched the papers back to my side. The dog started to turn nasty, I could hear him  growling. 

He pulled hard, I pulled hard, we both pulled hard together. 

The bundled up newspapers went see-sawing in and out of the letterbox. Of course, the papers on the outside, being wet anyway, were soon torn to sodden shreds. 

I  noticed the mess they were in, so I decided to let the dog have them now. He could trot off to his master while I trotted off down the path.

As I got back on my bike to pedal off to the next house on my rounds, I thought I heard a bewildered, “What the bally ‘ell is this?” from the house of the frantic dog.

It was one of those affairs. By the time I got back to the newsagents, the shredded newspapers were there waiting for me. They were not a pretty sight. A bit like papier-mâché that isn’t quite ready. 

Of course, I blamed it on the dog. “He wouldn’t let go,” I said. “Kept pulling on the papers and wouldn’t let me deliver them.”

 I was told that, in future, maybe I could consider putting the newspapers through the letterbox one at a time.

This would save Mr Taylor from having to consider sacking me. 

No more trouble with the frantic dog after that. First paper in, he snatched it and off he’d go. Before he got back, I’d have the rest through the letterbox and on the mat with a satisfying thunk. 

So we were all happy then and besides, Christmas was coming and I might get a chance to see Carnegie’s daughter.

 Ian Sant had told me that she was a cracker and usually gave the Christmas box to the paper lad.

That, though, is another story...  
© Daniel Preston 2011
......................................................................................................
...and so's this, albeit a somewhat similar one from Cliff Astles. Not really all that surprising, really. Dogs will be dogs. -ed
ANOTHER TALE OF ANOTHER SHREDDED NEWSPAPER
by Cliff Astles
Interestingly Daniel's story is almost identical to one of my own.
I was also a Reg Taylor paper boy!
In 1954, when I was 14 years old, I was also delivering papers along St. Ann's Road, where at the house at the bottom of Hannah's Walk I would place the morning papers through the letter box.
At the time the family living at this house had a white terrirer dog which, when he heared me delivering papers, would wait until I placed them into the letter box, take a running leap and tear at the papers.
This went on for some time, and, like Daniel in his  tale I was slighty miffed that the owner would allow his dog to do this.
Therefore, at times I would hold onto the papers until the dog had had his fun, and then put the ripped-to-shreds paper through the letter box so that the dog's owner could try to find anything that might be still readable.
Finally, the dog owner got the message and stopped the dog from being able to do this each day. 
Two satisfied customers - me and the dog owner!
© Cliff Astles 2011

The St Ann's Road house which was home to the1950s  newspaper loving dog
Photo: Cliff Astles

Facebook feedback:

Geraldine Williams There's a definite thread coming through these Tales Daniel. Obviously the Meadow Dairy hadn't asked Reg Taylor for references.......!! haha

A MEADOW DAIRY TALE: THE TALE OF THE MANGLED GROCERIES by Daniel Preston

THE TALE OF THE MANGLED GROCERIES

This event took place sometime around 1965 or 1966. 

At that time I delivered groceries for Meadow Dairy, which was on Wheelock Street opposite to the ‘White Bear’.
The shop and the row of buildings it was part of have long since gone. Some of the buildings in the same row were terraced houses, their front doors opening directly onto the street. I suspect that the Meadow Dairy was at one time a house too as, like the other buildings in the row, it had a garden at the back.
The space where the buildings were is now empty and, at the back, where the gardens were, there is now a row of newer shops.

Back to the Meadow Dairy then.
The Manager was a red-faced portly man by the name of Mister Rolly.
He was a pretty good manager and treated his staff, all women apart from me, well.
I was about sixteen at the time and had this job part-time at  weekends. 
I can’t remember if I was still at school or working at Foden’s in the training school.
I do remember that Nicholas Silver was still winning horse races and that, that year, What a Myth was a favourite in the Grand National (The Grand National, for the benefit of overseas readers, is a four mile steeplechase held at Aintree in Liverpool. Almost everyone in the country has a bet on the race). In fact, I think I had a shilling each way on What A Myth.

My duties included keeping the stock room tidy, taking the rubbish out, burning it in a firepit in the garden at the back and replenishing the stock room.
I also had to clean some of the paraphernalia associated with running a grocery shop.
My main job, however, involved delivering groceries on one of those bikes with a great basket on the front. 
The rear wheel was twenty-six inches in diameter, very robust, and had one small gear; the front wheel was of similar construction. but much smaller in diameter, so as to make room for the basket. 
The seat had big springs under it and the handlebars were of the sit-up and beg type. 
The bike, unlike butcher’s bikes which were black, was painted green.
If you took it on a cyclo-cross race, you wouldn’t be lifting it over too many five bar gates, I can tell you.

In those days, near what is now Long Lane South was a dirt track across a football field. It was used as a short cut from Sutton Lane to Cledford. 
The track was rough and, near the centre of the path, was a big pothole. This would fill with muddy water when it rained (which was quite often).
 Groceries were ordered by ladies who came to the shop on Saturday mornings, for delivery the same afternoon, and the orders were packed into boxes with the purchaser's name on them. I then packed the boxes into the basket, which was separate from the frame on the bike that carried it. I had several trips to make as the basket would only carry so many boxes of groceries.
On this particular Saturday afternoon I had made some of my deliveries and then had to go up to the  Cledford end of town.
It was a wet day, the dirt track was very muddy and very bumpy and I had the bike going as fast as it reasonably would with the one gear at my command.
The bike and I were bouncing along jauntily and  the groceries, including some  sliced meat wrapped in that waxed white paper, were bouncing along with us. 
Suddenly the front wheel went into the aforementioned pothole. 
The basket leapt up, taking the groceries with it, then slapped back down into the frame.
The groceries, however, were not content to stay in their place.
Some fell into the muddy puddle in a soggy heap and one nicely wrapped package of sliced meat got caught in the spinning spokes of the front wheel, went round past the front forks and got kind of mangled up.

There was only one thing I could do.

I stopped the bike, got off and picked the spilled groceries up. I couldn't deliver them in that state, and so I wiped them off on the front of my coat, and put them back into the basket. 

I gave the mangled up sliced meat the same treatment and tossed that back in with the rest.  Some tomatoes in a bag had got mangled and muddy as well, but they didn’t look too bad once I’d cleaned them up a bit.
Pureed tomatoes? Well, what the ‘eck?

So, groceries back in their place and I was ready to go again.

I carried on with my rounds and delivered the groceries, nicely packed in their respective boxes, to the ladies eagerly awaiting them.
Up the path, knock on the door, big smile… 
“Good afternoon, Madam. Here’s your groceries!” and back down the path and on the bike again, peddling like crazy to get back to the Meadow Dairy and pick up my next deliveries.

I don’t really know how this could be, because in those days not many people had cars, but by the time I got back to the Meadow Dairy, the mangled up groceries in their hastily cleaned-up wrapping paper were there in the shop waiting for me. 
Mister Rolly himself presented them for my inspection upon my arrival.
 “You can’t deliver groceries in this state, lad!” he said. 
I can’t remember if he asked for an explanation or not. He just told me that, in future, instead of taking spoiled goods to the customers, I should take them back to the shop for replacement.
I think he did say something about the ladies concerned not looking too pleased when they entered the shop with their battered groceries but he was quite lenient with me.
As I said, he was a good man was Mister Rolly!
© Daniel Preston 2011

    Editor's note: We tried hard to find a suitable photograph to illustrate the anecdote which Daniel has kindly allowed us to publish here. These pictures were the only ones we could find which include the shop in question and neither of them are of the time the incident took place. The one on the left shows the row looking rather attractive in the early 20th century but, as the right hand picture shows, not too long after Daniel's escapade took place the Meadow Dairy and the row that contained it was in a state of terminal decline.

Here's what Daniel had to say when I showed him the photographs:


 Looking at the photo of the 'Meadow Dairy' row of buildings in the early 'Seventies, it is hard to believe that they really did look like that. I never thought of them as being in such a state of dilapitation.
I worked at 'Meadow Dairy' in 1966 as far as I recall. I know I was doing my apprenticeship at Foden's; three pound ten a week when I first started there, so no wonder I had to work Saturdays at 'Meadow Dairy'. I had to pay me share at home as well, as I'm sure was the case with yourself.
That being said, those buildings can't have looked much better when I worked there.
As I recall then, the 'Meadow Dairy' was the first shop with the flat-fronted window. Neddy Bunn lived in one of the houses between 'Meadow Dairy' and Luther Walton's shop. My wife says she came across a reference to Neddy Bunn in 'Middlewich Diary'. He lived next door to us in the Turnpike Cottages and I'm sure you know where they were. Next to Jubilee Terrace anyway. Me and my oldest sister were born in the middle cottage. My Great Grandparents (I never met them) lived in one of the houses in Jubilee Terrace.
I would say then that it may be a good idea to use both of the 'Meadow Dairy' photos, explaining that the time of my story took place some years before the second photo was taken.
I can't recall what the other shops along that row were.
If you are interested, I have a few tales of when I worked as a paper boy for Reg Taylor, none of them incriminatory. DP


(of course it goes without saying that we'd be pleased to hear more of Daniel's tales. We'd also welcome contributions from anyone else who can help us bring the town's past back to life in a similar way -ed)


Facebook feedback:
Geraldine Williams 

Brilliant account Daniel. I remember the Meadow Dairy with the big blocks of butter and the butter pats and the assistants' unique way of totting up your bill verbally by stating the cost of the first item, then adding on the cost of the next item, repeating that total, then adding on the next item and so on until they arrived at the final total. All done at breakneck speed! My husband used to deliver groceries for Pegram's as a lad Daniel and agrees with everything you say about the bike. He delivered as far as Wimboldsley, Warmingham and Byley and made a bread delivery to Kraft Dairies every day.