THE PARK
The nearest large area of green was, and still is, Heaton Park, the largest municipal park in Europe and the largest park with a wall all the way around.
The park covers an area of approximately one square mile and the wall where it still exists is some ten feet high. The tram ran all the way into the park, the terminus being inside the Middleton Road entrance and at the week-end in the summer the tram would disgorge hundreds of families intent on having a few hours away from the dingy back-streets and breathing fresh clean air.
We often spent all day Sunday in the park during the spring and summer months if the weather was kind. We used to take a "brew" of tea and for two pence we could get a jug of hot water to make tea to have with the sandwiches Mother had made.
Not far from the entrance was a natural amphitheatre with a building we called the "Bandstand", used as an open-air theatre. The building was in the shape of a small theatre with a proscenium arch. The charge for a seat in the enclosure was threepence and sixpence, but as money was always scarce we used to sit on the grassy slope and be entertained for nothing. It was there that I learned to love the sound of a brass band. Those now well known names in the world of brass bands like Besses o'th' Barn, Foden's, and the pit bands, I heard them in Heaton Park.
Whenever I hear a brass band play I am reminded of those halcyon days, lying in the sun with the music washing over me. At other times there would be a show put on by a local theatrical group or a seaside variety show with clowns, tumblers and jugglers, dancers and singers. So a good day was had by all and we went home by tram having had a day in the fresh air away from the polluted atmosphere created by all those chimneys belching smoke from the hundreds of coal fires used for heating and cooking.
Holidays were not possible, as there was never enough money, so the park was important to us.In the first twenty years of my life I saw the sea twice, once when I stayed with an aunt who lived in Blackpool, and when I went to camp with the Jewish Lads Brigade.
The first time my Mother and I had both been in hospital at the same time. I had my appendix removed and I believe Mother had a hysterectomy. We went to stay with my aunt in Blackpool to recuperate. I was 15 at the time and still remember the operation. I don't know if it was usual at that time but I was not given a general anaesthetic but a local was injected into my back and I was awake throughout the whole operation with the anaesthetist talking to me throughout the operation. I remember the injection felt as though an elephant had kicked me. The only other holiday I can recall was when I was about ten years old.
There was a charitable organisation called "White Heather" which was connected to the Manchester Evening News in some way. They took children from poor families to spend a week in Heaton Park living in tents. So I have many happy memories of the park. We wandered all over the public areas in the park and one of our favourite places was at the front of the Hall, which was the home of the Earl of Wilton's family who owned the park before it was bought by Manchester City Council in March 1902. It had been offered to the City in 1896 for a sum of £250,000 but the committee of the Council that considered the offer thought the price too high and it was rejected.
There was a strong feeling in the community that the land should be bought for the City and it was re-considered. Negotiations re-opened and after some haggling over the price and the amount of land a deal was reached and the former home of the Earls of Wilton became the property of the people of Manchester. The park is to the north of the city and the main entrance, known as Grand Lodge, is on Bury Old Road, some three and a half miles from the city centre.
The park was only a small part of the estate belonging to the Wilton family who at that time owned practically the whole of the parish of Prestwich.
The front of the house faces on to a drive and a grassy area backed by masses of trees and shrubs. The grassed part was home to a colony of rabbits and we loved to stand and watch them play. Unfortunately they became victims of the Second World War. The park was used during the war by the Royal Air Force as a transit camp for aspiring aircrew. Young recruits, attracted by the "glamour" of becoming fighter pilots were assembled in the park before being sent overseas to training camps in Canada, South Africa and elsewhere. The Hall was used as quarters for the officers and the rabbits soon found their way into the pot to supplement the rations.
So my life as a young Jewish boy in the twenties and thirties was typical of the children of immigrant families of those days, as it would be of the black and Asian families of today. In fact the areas where we lived, like Strangeways and Cheetham Hill, are now populated by the incoming immigrants from the Commonwealth. In many ways history is repeating itself. The many small workshops set up in back rooms by the early Jewish immigrants, and the corner shops selling produce aimed specifically at the Jewish community, are now mirrored by the Asian and black community.
We suffered racial attacks but personally I can't recall being physically attacked but certainly suffered verbal abuse, name calling such as 'Jew boy' or 'sheeny' and of course being told to go back to Palestine, an impossibility, as I had never been there.