I love this photograph, which surfaced during the ache of clearing the family home. My mother would have been looking on, protective, proud; my father on duty, unable to attend the 1945 children’s Christmas party at London Road fire station, Manchester.
It was the first Christmas after the war and four firemen and one uniformed woman – one of the “girls” from the call centre at the heart of the station – tend the children, smiles caring, touch gentle as they whisper the secrets of their new postwar toys.
Ten children squeeze into the frame, their faces revealing wonder at their presents: the horses, probably handmade by the firefighters during their waiting hours in the duty room, a wooden rattle for a rapt toddler, dolls and teddy bears clutched by the youngest while the eldest boy, left, grasps at an indistinguishable object on the floor – the only one to acknowledge the photographer’s presence.
I believe this is a press photograph, most probably taken for the Manchester Evening News. I don’t remember – holding my new brown bear, I was too busy gazing at an older girl’s new doll. Will any of the other not-quite-baby-boomers, well into their 70s by now remember this special occasion?
I recently visited Manchester after a long absence and saw to my horror that the once magnificent Edwardian building, home to generations of fire-fighting families, is now in a shameful state of neglect and decay.
Here lived a vibrant community. They met in the laundry for washing and gossiping, in its gym for fitness without a fee, in its huge yard for parades and displays before Manchester’s great and good, in the recreation room for whist drives, dancing, birthdays, Christmas parties. Growing up there with my mother, my father and my little brown bear – I remember it all very well.
Culled from guardian.co.uk
