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A nice 'bombsite'

Harold Cunliffe
3/ 7/2008

READER David Harwood contacted Bygone Days following recent features chronicling Alkrington estate’s development.

His message said his parents, Colin and Pat Harwood, had bought a house in Ruthin Avenue in 1958, and that he had photographs of the house, and neighbouring properties, under construction.

David spent the first eight years of his life in the avenue and offered the photographs for publication if we were interested. Fantastic, this is just the type of letter we like to receive here at Bygone days. We wasted no time in contacting him at his Heywood home.

At the time the photos were taken many of the new homes were being bought by newlyweds. David’s mother, Pat, said: "Many people were getting married and moving in during 1958. The road was like a ‘bombsite’ for over a year. Everyone had wooden planks in their front gardens, and when wedding cars became bogged down we all got our planks to help to extract them."

She also related a practice that could not be repeated today, "Front doors were left open and at the New Year’s Eve party someone would do an impression of the ‘Grand National’ every so often and leg it around all the houses to check on the sleeping children."

Our aerial photograph shows the line of the proposed Mainway in the centre of the image, on the left is Kirkway under construction. Just to the right of Kirkway the new school at Manor Road is visible, also under construction.

The school was officially opened on 11 December 1940 by Councillor Gradwell. Among the 300 people who went along on the day was the Mayor, Cllr Tom Heywood. The school cost £24,000 to build and could accommodate 380 children with sufficient inbuilt services, ie lavatories, cloakrooms, heating etc so it could be extended to take a total of 680 pupils should the war determine that the town should require additional educational places.

Built on just under eight acres of land the new school was dedicated and blessed by the Right Rev Thomas Sherwood-Jones. In his opening speech Cllr Gradwell commented on the quality of the new building, ‘with a light in every room and every corner’. He added:

Cllr Gradwell, who thought speechmaking was something that had to be endured before the business of the day could be attended to had sought the advice of a friend on how to make the spoken word more interesting. He was told: "I will give you three pieces of advice, first tell them a story and put them into a good humour, secondly be witty and third, be brief. If you have not 'struck oil' in the first two minutes stop because you are boring."

Gradwell fell at the first hurdle, he was hopeless at telling stories.

Cllr Gradwell compared the new school to the school he attended as a child. "I was almost propelled up the school steps by my sister," he said. Cllr Gradwell, who had left school more than 50 years before, added: "My school was like many others all those years ago, it was more like entering prison compared to this new bright and airy school. It was dominated by a headmaster who never walked around without his cane."

Something Cllr Gradwell felt once or twice during his time at the school.

The architect, Mr Howard made a formal presentation to Cllr Gradwell. It was customary when handing over a new civic building to present a gold key complete in its fitted case. But as it is was wartime they had to be practical, so he was presented with a suitcase.

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