I took this photograph with my Kodak brownie camera of Grandad and my Brother Les playing cricket on Greenbank playing fields, Manchester, circa 1958

My Grandad Gleave was a very polite clean-shaven slightly balding man with spectacles who smoked heavily, he was always particular about his appearance and most of the time wore a tie.

Nana and Grandad had an off licence shop on Broom Lane in Levenshulme, they sold draught and bottled beers, wines and spirits along with cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco in half of the shop and patent medicines and soft drinks in the other half.

My brother Les and I helped them in the shop, restocking the shelves and helping to tidy the cellar and get the empty bottles ready for the delivery men to collect, in those days there was a returnable deposit on the glass bottles, a system that worked very well, apart from when the local youths decided to steal empty bottles from the yard of a local pub the Polygon Inn and brought them to the shop to get the 3d but Grandad realized what was going on when he was suddenly overrun with empty bottles, so he got a small stamp and an ink pad and we had to stamp all the labels on the bottles before they were sold and then he would only accept the ones with the stamp on back for money.

Near to the shop in Highfield Road, Levenshulme was the UCP tripe factory and I remember all the workers coming into the shop, I think mainly around lunch time, in their work cloths, aprons and pinny’s and clonking along in their wooden clogs, to buy cigarettes, Grandad sold lots of brands that are not on sale any more such as Woodbines, Park Drive, Senior Service, Capstan, Capstan Full Strength, Players Weights, Strand, Craven A, Players Navy Cut, Bristol, Kensitas, Chesterfield, Richmond, Du Maurier, Gold Leaf, Piccadilly, Cadets, Gold Flake, Peter Stuyvesant, Consulate Menthol, to name a few I can remember.

Near Christmas I would help them with the Christmas orders, I would pick the orders and put them in cardboard boxes, which were then stored all over the house, then when the customers came to collect them I would have the job of finding the boxes for them. If I remember correctly one of the favorite ladies drinks at the time were snowballs, made up with Advocaat and lemonade, also cherry b and babysham were very popular, in those days they did not sell very much wine as we know it, but they did sell a lot of V P Wine, again if I remember correctly VP Rich Ruby was very popular.

The other quite vivid memory of Christmas was that on Christmas morning we would come downstairs and find (much to our amazement and disappointment I might add, although it happened every year) that all the presents were tied to the clothes rack that hung from the ceiling above the fireplace in the big dining kitchen and the whole lot was pulled right high up to the ceiling, we then had to sit and eat our breakfast’s looking at them all hanging there before they were handed out.

I remember that they always had quite a big dog I think that this was because they lived at the shop and remember with particular affection a large German Sheppard called Neco who we would play with in the park.

I remember on a Saturday morning going along Broom Lane shopping for Nana to Standbys the bakers to collect the bread and then going across the road to McKenzie’s the grocers, where amongst other things I had to get was always Lurpack butter and 1lb of Danish ‘Flitch’ bacon, I think cut on No 6.

During the summer if we stayed at the weekend we would go for a ride in the car on a Sunday afternoon after the shop closed at 2pm. Uncle Eric or my Dad would drive and we would quite often go out in the countryside around Pickmere, they would regularly stop and buy fresh free-range eggs from one of the many farms and we would then have boiled eggs for tea when we got home, before opening the shop at 7pm.

I remember that on the way home we would listen to the car radio and to a programme called Sing Something Simple, with the Adams singers.

It was Nana and Grandad that introduced me and Les to the delight’s of ice cream ‘Knickerbocker Glories’ at an ice cream parlour on Red Bank Road, when they took us on holiday to a guesthouse just off the sea front in Cliff Place, Bispham. I also recall that one year the record being played every time we walked past the amusement arcade was Craig Douglas’s ‘Only Sixteen’ which when I looked it up was No1 for 4 weeks in September 1959, and was in the charts for 15 weeks.

I remember when they moved to Edgeley they had a small greenhouse in the back garden and a black poodle dog called Toby.

Whilst writing my reminiscences and researching this website I came across some old newspaper and magazine adverts, these are advertising some of the products that were sold in the shop, some products are still available today but a lot are no longer produced, the adverts are on a fascinating historical website whom I would like to thank for there use, the details of the site are on the link page.

I will update the site as I unearth any details and photographs,

if anybody is able to help fill in any gaps dates or have any photographs etc,

or if you would just like to contact me for a chat.

I am particularly looking for any details and photographs of the

POW camp at Templeux-La-Fosse in France

 were my Grandad was posted after being injured in1918.

He spent 12 months there mainly as the company clerk,

I know he got on well the the German prisoners,

I have some mementos they made for him.

I would be very pleased to hear from you,

please get in touch with me at:-

keithmaloneyemail (at) gmail.com

also visit my Grandad Maloney and my Dad's website's-

http://thomasmaloney.yolasite.com

http://cyrilfrankmaloney.yolasite.com

also my Great Uncle Bill (my Grandad Maloney's brothers) website-

http://williammaloney.yolasite.com

Thank you for visiting my website’s

I hope that you find them interesting.

Keith Maloney.

Copyright © Keith Maloney 2010 - 2022