How things change.

 Yesterday my iPad kept giving me messages to the effect that it needed to install an upgraded operating system. So I duly plugged my machine into its charger and left it to chug away happily overnight. Consequently nothing works quite as it did before and I am having to learn how do some things all over again.  Comments about old dogs and new tricks spring to mind!

My progress towards normality (my personal normality, nothing to do with the rest of the world) took another step today as I donned my running gear and set off at a moderate pace around the village. This is the first time since before Christmas. Once again it is less cold, rather than warmer. The day is dull and grey and rather damp.

I came across a set of photos of Manchester trams through the ages with accompanying information:

The first picture below shows a horse-drawn tram in Manchester in the 1890s. To keep just one horse-drawn bus or tram on the road for a day usually required a team of between 6 and 12 horses.  Two or three horses were harnessed to the tram for 3 to 4 hours and would often do about 15 miles before changing over horses. The horses needed to be fed, watered, stabled and groomed. They also had to be tended to by blacksmiths and vets. This all meant that the fares on horse-drawn trams were generally too expensive for most ordinary working-class Mancunians to use on any regular basis.  Because of the high fares, horse-drawn buses and trams were used mostly by the middle classes. Plus, they were not that fast – the walking pace of a horse.

The second picture shows an electric tram on Oxford Street.  Electric trams were introduced in Manchester in 1901 and they quickly replaced the horse-drawn trams and buses. Here's the thing with electric trams: you went twice as fast for half the price. This meant that, for the first time in history, ordinary working people had access to cheap, regular, quick transport.  Working people no longer had to rely just on local firms for work; they could take a tram to work much further afield. The electric tram changed shopping and leisure - you could go into town more easily for the “big shops” and the new “picture palaces”. Attendances at sporting events like football matches began to rise. At the weekend, in summer, you could go out for the day to the White City, Belle Vue or Heaton Park. It’s estimated that by 1915, 200 million passenger journeys a year were being made on Manchester trams.  The electric tram even changed the shape of our city. People could live further out, away from the factories and smoke. It’s no coincidence that once the electric tram came along, connecting the suburbs to the city, places like Blackley, Moston, Didsbury and Burnage began to grow more rapidly. 

The Manchester tram system reached its peak in the late-1920s, with 950 trams and 163 miles of track, making it the third largest system in the country.  The trams would have been quite a sight, in their distinctive red & white, clattering around the city and in nice weather, those old open-top ones must have been a joy to ride. 

After the 2nd World War, the trams were quickly replaced by motor buses and electric trolley-buses. The last of the old trams ran on 10th January, 1949.  By then, just a few miles of track were left. After they were “retired”, the tram cars were taken to Hyde Road depot and set ablaze in a huge bonfire. The metal was sent for scrap. 

In 1992 the first phase of the new Metrolink system saw the re-introduction of the tram on Manchester’s streets. Picture number three. It now has 8 lines and 64 miles of track. In 2024-25, 46 million passenger journeys were made on Manchester trams. 

There you go: a bit of Manchester history. Things change and sometimes they change back in a new, improved fashion. On the whole the Greater Manchester trams seem to have been a good thing.

Less good is the tendency around here, quite a long-standing one now, in the Saddleworth villages for perfectly ordinary shops to be replaced by trendy cafes. This is not entirely a bad thing except that often these are not the independent little cafes that they appear to be at first. Frequently they are part of a chain, accentuating the modern thing of all places looking the same, city centres all with the same shops, village centres all with the same cafes and eateries. Sometimes only the charity shops maintain some independent spirit. In Uppermill, the largest of the Saddleworth villages, we also have trendy clothes shops and several rather twee gift shops. Having said that, Uppermill does also sport a couple of genuine butcher’s shops, an Italian greengrocery, and an independent pharmacy, as well as the Co-op store! Anyway, here is a link to an article in which Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett mourns the loss of her local independent cafe.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!