THE BEST OF MIDDLEWICH: NOW RE-OPEN - DRINKS & BITES AT NO. 35! (ARCHIVED)

11/1/2018

NOW RE-OPEN

After major

refurbishment!

 Drinks & Bites at No. 35

The good news for Middlewich at the start of 2018 is that the popular Drinks & Bites at No 35 is now re-open after undergoing a major refurbishment  following five successful years in business in Wheelock Street!

Congratulations to Holly and Gemma for their continuing success and for their abiding faith in Middlewich and its people.

You can find out more about the refurbishment and what Drinks & Bites has to offer by visiting...

DRINKS & BITES AT  35 ON FACEBOOK

Holly Crocker and Gemma Crocker

First published 8th January 2018
Revised and re-published 11th January 2018
Archived 11/1/18

HOOLIGANISM AT MIDDLEWICH STATION 1889!

100 years on - The remains of Middlewich Station in 1989, a century after football supporters caused mayhem on its platforms.

by Dave Roberts

Many years ago someone told me that he had read somewhere that Middlewich railway station was once 'the scene of one of the first reported football riots in history' and the information has lodged somewhere in my mind all this time.
So I thought it was time we got to the bottom of the story and recorded it for posterity in the Middlewich Diary. After all, Middlewich, and Middlewich station in particular, don't have so many claims to fame that we can afford to ignore one of them.
The information about the 'riot' originates in a book called The Roots of Football Hooliganism written by Eric Dunning, Patrick J Murphy and John Williams and published by Routledge in 1988, a time when such unsportsmanlike behaviour was a growing problem in many parts of Britain.
The book attempts, as its title implies, to get to the root causes of football violence (and, I imagine, though I haven't read the book, suggest some remedies for it).
Although this incident has been touted as an early example of such behaviour, the authors are at pains to point out that it was by no means an unusual occurrence in those days,  and probably only made it into the press because a newspaper reporter 'happened to be there at the time'.

That reporter was from the Liverpool Echo, and this is what he had to say:

Liverpool Echo 1st April 1889/The Roots Of Football Hooliganism (Routledge 1988)

You'll have spotted the immediate puzzle, of course: what were groups of Nantwich and Crewe supporters doing at Middlewich, several miles away from either of those two towns? Was the match, perhaps, held in Middlewich because it was 'neutral territory'? Did Middlewich have football facilities in 1889 good enough to host even a minor clash between the two towns? They could, of course, have been on their way back from either Crewe or Nantwich, as both had good railway connections with Middlewich at the time. But the fact that they were on opposite platforms and waiting for trains rather than a train indicates that they were travelling in opposite directions. On the other hand, the report says that after  the skirmish 'the special' then came in, which implies that they  all intended to travel on the same train. Which will have made life interesting for the guard. But if they were all going on the same train, why were they on opposite platforms? So that they could better shout and jeer and threaten each other?
Whatever the truth of the matter, it's fascinating to hear that our own humble railway station was once the stamping ground of such ne'er-do-wells.

Facebook Feedback (January 2018):

On the Memories Of Cheshire group, Pete MC Hough added this comment, which may (or may not) make the situation clearer -

'In 1889 Middlewich station was a single line; a second line was added in 1900. The station was located on the north side of Holmes Chapel Road (A54) which passed over the line on a bridge. Being a passing point Middlewich station was provided with two platforms. The down platform (Northwich direction) was on the west side of the line and was linked to Holmes Chapel Road (actually King Street - Ed) by a driveway. The up platform (Sandbach direction) had an almost identical building housing waiting rooms and toilets. The up platform was connected to from its southern End to Holmes Chapel Road by a set of steps (there were also steps on the down side - Ed). From what I can gather, one lot of supporters were transported away in one direction, and the other group had to wait for the line to be clear for their train to arrive!'

First published 10th January 2017
Amended and re-published 10th January 2018

CANAL SHOP MYSTERY PHOTO

by Dave Roberts

Here's an interesting photo which Middlewich Narrowboats have kindly given permission for us to use here, after posting it on Facebook and asking if anyone could identify the people pictured, and the approximate date.
The location is easy enough to identify and, as Middlewich Narrowboats says, looks very much the same now as it did when the picture was taken.
Its the canal shop at their premises which has, in fact looked like this for many many years.
But what's happening in the photograph, who are the people, and when was it taken?
The girl on the left has rather a look of the early 1970s about her. Does anyone recognise her?
It looks to me as if she's just presented the lady and the gentleman to her left with the things they are holding proudly for the benefit of the camera.
Have they, perhaps, won a raffle or a competition?
The gentleman looks very familiar, and he has the look of a Middlewich man, quite possibly a Middlewich boatman.
I've seen that face before, or one very like it. Does anyone know him?
And what of the lady? Is it his wife? Or is it, as has been suggested, a member of the Cliffe family, who ran the firm before the present owners?
In the background is what looks like a poster of some kind. Can anyone decipher the wording?
 I think the first word is 'The', but what's the word underneath? Could it be 'tunnel'?
If you can help with this in any way, don't hesitate to get in touch, either by posting a comment here, or on Facebook.
Alternatively, you can e-mail us on:

middlewichdiary@aol.com

Many thanks once again to Middlewich Narrowboats for permission to use the photo.

Facebook feedback:

Diane Russell: I think the man is Mr Bunn. He was a boater, and his son lived in Rosemount. His daughter-in-law worked at RHM. I think his son was called Bill and the daughter-in-law was Phylis I think. She was quite a tall lady with black hair, and they owned a boat.

Robert Sheckleston: Yes, that is Mr Bunn, His daughter-in-law Phylis worked on the salt floor at RHM

Stephen Dent: It is Fred Bunn that lives up Rosemount. The young lady looks very much like Chris Cliffe's partner but if it is she has never aged as she still looks like this. She is American (or Canadian, I can't remember).

Diane Russell: I think you might be right about him being called Fred, not Bill. The young lady is Brenda Cliffe. The Cliffe's bought the boatyard from Willow Wren Kearns in 1982, so it must have been taken shortly after. I recently talked to Raymond Kearns and he told me that was when they sold it, and that Brenda Cliffe was Canadian. He also confirmed that the Bunn's were a boating family.

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SEE ALSO: MNB BOATBUILDING (Link now defunct 9/1/2018)
                    MIDDLEWICH NARROWBOATS (Link now defunct 9/1/2018)
                    MIDDLEWICH NARROWBOATS/WILLOW WREN KEARNS 
                    (Middlewich Diary entry about the early days of the pleasure boat operation)
                    THE MIDDLEWICH DIRECTORY - MIDDLEWICH NARROWBOATS 

(Please note that Middlewich Narrowboats ceased trading in early 2017)

                   (FEATURES A PHOTO OF THE CANAL SHOP AS IT IS TODAY)

First published 9th January 2013
Re-published 9th January 2018

WILLOW WREN KEARNS 1972

Now better known under its trading name of Middlewich Narrowboats, Willow Wren (Kearns) Ltd. is seen here in 1972, just one year after the company was established in Middlewich.
Our photograph is taken from Brooks Lane bridge and shows the company's base at Canal Terrace on the Trent & Mersey Canal.
The building in the centre of the photograph with the single chimney is a toll office, and you may just be able to make out the bow-fronted window which enabled toll collectors to see boats approaching from both directions. The whole complex of buildings at Canal Terrace is very historic, and includes stables in which canal horses were kept overnight.The low white building to the left of the toll office is the shop where maps, canal souvenirs, ice-creams, soft drinks etc. can be obtained.
Willow Wren, of course, is a well-known name in the canal carrying trade. They set up a hire cruiser company, Willow Wren Hire Cruisers Ltd, at Rugby in 1964, but, as far as can be ascertained, Willow Wren (Kearns) was always a separate company established here in 1971 and using converted working boats in the early years as well as boats based on custom built steel hulls.
The company's boats have always borne the names of trees: Ash, Beech, Oak, Larch etc.
Beyond the bend in the canal is a lock (the first of the 'Big Three' in Brooks Lane) and beyond it the canal makes an abrupt ninety-degree turn to the left before descending  into the town centre at Wych House Lane and heading in the direction of the Town Bridge, the Big Lock and Northwich. Next to this first lock is a dry-dock which was also at one time run by Willow Wren (Kearns) Ltd. Contrary to popular belief, this was not always a dry-dock, but was, originally, a loading bay for Seddon's Salt in Brooks Lane, served by a tramway which ran across the road into the salt works.
These were early days for Willow Wren (Kearns) Ltd and nowadays there are many more boats in evidence than shown in our 1972 picture.
One welcome enhancement which has appeared since those days is a picturesque Victorian style canopy, very reminiscent of something from an old-fashioned railway station, in front of the canal shop where boats are serviced, and cleaned.
Most of the information about the company in this posting comes from the internet. We welcome any additional information, especially about the relationship between the original Willow Wren Company and Middlewich Narrowboats.

UPDATE: As from the end of 2011 Middlewich Narrowboats is under new management.
UPDATE (January 2018) Middlewich Narrowboats ceased trading during 2017

See also MIDDLEWICH NARROWBOATS (link now defunct)

First published 15th October 2011
Revised and re-published 9th January 2018

WINSFORD MAYOR'S CHARITY VARIETY SHOW 2018

DIRECT LINK

WINSFORD TOWN COUNCIL ON FACEBOOK

CEREBOS SALT SHAKER AND PEPPER SHAKER

If you own the copyright on this photo, please let us know

by Dave Roberts

Sometimes the most poignant reminders of our town's long salt town history are the simplest and the most mundane. 

Salt and pepper shakers like this were at one time so commonplace as to pass almost unnoticed.
Millions of kitchen and dining room tables were once graced by them, though not all of them were used as promotional items. 

Plain glass ones with no logo on them were ten a penny.

And most of them, of course, didn't have  the word 'salt' (or 'pepper') on them, either - their glass construction and distinctive metal tops making it very difficult to get them mixed up.

All the different brands of salt had their own versions of these items (I used a 'Sifta' salt shaker just like this one at a Methodist church in Elworth only last year) but there's something very nostalgic about this particular set, and for a very personal reason.

It reminds me so much of childhood days when my Dad was foreman electrician at the works in Booth Lane  and the Cerebos name ran through all our days like Blackpool runs through rock.

And that classy blue Cerebos logo was all part of the mystique (though, it goes without saying, we wouldn't have known a 'mystique' if one fell on us).

The word 'salt' doesn't appear on the salt shaker to distinguish it from the pepper.
It's a simple advert for Cerebos Salt.

Presumably the pepper is just labelled 'pepper' because, to many people, any old pepper would do.

But don't run away with the idea that there was (and is) no such thing as Cerebos Pepper.

It's still on the market today. Here's a rather upmarket  version of it...

...using the classic Cerebos trade-mark and even, somewhat disconcertingly, the
See How It Runs catch-line which, you'd have thought might be reserved exclusively for that free-running table salt.

In fact, next time you need to buy a gift for that special person in your life,  you might consider  buying a complete Cerebos gift set...

THE 'FLOWER OF GLOSTER' ON DVD

Illustration: Amazon

By Dave Roberts

Britain's canal system is now so much a part of the 'leisure industry' that many people alive today have never known it in any other way.

In the 1960s the whole network was in transition from an industrial carrying facility to the system we know today, largely given over to pleasure cruising and holiday-making.

In fact if the 'leisure boom' had never happened our canal system might now be just a memory, and the courses of old canals given over to nature trails and country walks in the same way that many - too many, some would say - old railway lines have.

In 1967 Granada Television in Manchester made a children's drama documentary on colour film.

In fact this was the first colour programme made by Granada. Colour TV came to BBC2 that same year, but it would be 1969 before BBC1 and ITV moved to colour. So the programme makers obviously had an eye on the future, though, ironically, to my knowledge this programme has never been seen again on any TV channel.

The Flower Of Gloster tells the tale of a group of youngsters moving an old narrowboat, converted for cruising use, from a boatyard in Wales to London.

Many people will have fond memories of watching the series on 405 lines in black and white the year it was made.

Almost inevitably the boat's journey along the network brings it to Middlewich, where the Shropshire Union meets the Trent & Mersey, or as producer and narrator Bill Grundy (long before his Sex Pistols encounter) puts it, 'where the Welsh canal meets the Trent & Mersey'.
There's a memorable encounter with the one of the legends of the waterways, 'Chocolate Charlie', who boasts of his boat being 'twenty years old', giving it a birth date of around 1947. Now, of course it's seventy years old. A reminder of just how long ago this series was made.

We have a vague memory of  the youngsters getting into trouble with a lock-keeper  for trying to get the boat through a lock during the hours of darkness. Seemingly moving boats in the dark is a serious transgression of the rules, or was in working days at least.

They should be grateful that Auntie Maureen never caught them at it.

The Flower Of Gloster is a precious record of Britain's canals in the 1960s and we can heartily recommend that you order your copy now!

ORDER YOUR COPY FROM AMAZON

Middlewich canal country, mid-sixties

For a full description of this photo see this diary entry

P.S. There's a real life mystery surrounding the NB Flower of Gloster, of the kind which we love here at the Middlewich Diary. Canal enthusiasts have, apparently, argued long and hard for decades about the boat's true identity, and whether or not she still exists. Some say she was originally a horse-boat called  Vulture,  others that she was nothing of the sort.

 Did she later become a hotel boat? Was she broken up in the 1990s? We'll probably never know. 

And there's a subsidiary mystery about the original films which, like most of Granada's archive, ended up with ITN and lay abandoned there for decades. As recently as 2011 canal aficionados were mourning what was then thought to be the almost total loss of this iconic series. Rumours abounded that only two episodes had survived and that copies of those episodes could only be obtained 'at a cost of £4000'. Thankfully those rumours proved groundless and we can now enjoy the entire series in colour at a fraction of that extortionate price.

First published 6th May 2015
Amended and re-published 7th January 2018

FRED DODD'S GENTS OUTFITTERS SHOP LEWIN STREET, EARLY 1970s

We believe this image to be out of copyright. If you own the copyright, or know who does, please let us know

by Dave Roberts

Sometimes the most ordinary and mundane subjects are the most evocative, as in this picture from the Paul Hough collection taken in the early 1970s.
It shows the long-vanished block of shops and houses which once stood in Lewin Street opposite Middlewich D.I.Y and the entrance to Wych House Lane.
The fact that the picture is in black and white gives something of a false impression and, if it were not for the brand new Middlewich Library on the right, you might almost take this for a picture from the 50s or even earlier. The other giveaway, of course, is the UHF TV aerial on the first cottage's chimney, which dates the photo to no earlier than 1967.

What is it about that F.DODD sign which induces so much nostalgia?

It's the simplest of shop signs, yet very typical, somehow, of Middlewich. Simple, unpretentious and unassuming.  In later years the shop became Yearsleys, who simply adapted the same sign to show their name.

The house at the other end of the block also appears to have been a shop at one time, but I have no memory of it ever having been used as such.
You'll note that the County Council originally, and very optimistically, placed the plastic letters saying MIDDLEWICH LIBRARY at a much lower level than they are now, making them an easy target for vandals. The inevitable happened, and that's why the letters are now very high up on the wall, underneath the eaves.

Our best guess for the actual year this photo was taken is 1971, as that was the year the new library was completed, replacing the one in the old Town Hall.
(UPDATE: Correspondence from Daniel Preston (see Facebook feedback, below) suggests that 1971 is a bit early. Given that the lettering on the library was only in that lower position for a very short time, we've revised the year to 1972).
 Middlewich's new library was a surprisingly early addition to the Lewin Street scene, pre-dating the demolition of the C of E school and Wesleyan Chapel by a few years

Out of shot to the left is The Crown public House (now The Narrowboat), and the whole block of shops and houses seen here has been demolished to make way for a housing development built around a central 'courtyard' (car park) called Longcross Court.

'Longcross', apparently relates to a type of halfpenny coin dating back to the reign of Richard III. I wonder if there is any connection with 'Half Penny Hill' which is just a short distance away?

UPDATE (January 5th 2018)

Photo: Paul Hough

Here, from the Paul Hough Collection, is a later view showing that the terraced houses were demolished before Dodd's/Yearsley's shop.You may just be able to make out the 'Yearsley' version of the old F Dodd sign over the door. In fact the terraced houses had been demolished so long before the shop  that there was time for the area to be grassed over before the entire plot was cleared and  space made for the future Longcross Court. The shop, however, does not look long for this world, and must have disappeared not too long after this photo was taken. We have ascertained elsewhere that The Narrowboat (after its years as The Danes and The Crown) was established in 1992, so this photo can be dated as no earlier than that year. Was it, though, as late as 2000? We think the year shown on this photo is probably the year it was archived rather than the year it was taken.
Note, on the far left, part of the pharmacy, probably in the days when it was owned by Mr Mistry and before the Post Office branch moved in. We would,as always, appreciate any help in dating this photo more precisely.

Here's the somewhat uninspiring roadside elevation of Longcross Court, which replaced the shop and houses. The library can just be seen on the extreme right. Although this modern development somehow lacks the charm of what was there in former days, it did manage to get Middlewich into the news in May 2015 after an unfortunate error by an ambulance crew.

YAHOO NEWS UK 11th MAY 2015

Facebook feedback:


Robert Sheckleston: The Harvey Nicks of Middlewich. My Mum used to get my school uniform from Fred Dodd's.


Michael Tully: Love the 'Harvey Nicks', Rob. I got my first penny round collar there! Not sure anyone should ever share that...


Daniel Preston: In November 1971 I returned from a stint in the Far East to find Lower Street demolished and a new by-pass (St Michael's Way) carving its way through Middlewich.
The coin of the realm had been replaced by pence and an school friend, Peter Britland, was working on the building site for the new library. 
He said he hadn't seen me around for a while. I told him where I'd been.
He said he thought my neck was a bit red.
Just some of the things I recall from November 1971.
If my recollections about the building of the new library are correct, then this photo must have been taken some time after that date.


Dave Roberts: Thanks, Daniel. That would seem to push the date of this picture back to sometime during 1972.


Geraldine Williams: I'm pretty certain that all our menfolk hired their wedding gear from Fred Dodd's for our wedding in 1961.

First published 4th January 2012
Revised, amended and re-published 5th January 2018

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