Thursday, June 25, 2009

Continued adventures in Manchester and the Cotton Belt

Blogging continued with my trip over the Pennines for Ecology Building Society and Toad Lane en passant...

Where was I? Manchester Town Hall I think,

looks like a town hall

The Shelf at Equinox Housing Co-op, thankfully I did not fall off though I get the impression there are more precarious platform beds in Manky.

Photobucket is rather slow these days

My first glimpse of the Victoria Baths

Very Victorian!  Even if technically Edwardian etc

Males First Class! A splendid firm!

wonder if anyone reads these comments etc

Males Second Class! A splendid firm! Not quite so splendid as males first class, stands to reason doesn’t it. Good to have Class in the baths innit?

and what social class does he belong to?

Females! A splendid firm! No further comment.

so females are classless?

Here we are in the Female Baths awaiting the AGM. I was in Manchester for AGM of Ecology Building Society of which I am a member. Wasn’t until I was in my late 20’s I found out what a building society was. Perhaps most people don’t know or maybe I am just blonde. Anyway the Ecology was the last of the Friendly building societies due to change in the law. So well done the pious founders of the Ecology.

The Victoria Baths was built by the City of Manchester under permissive legislation empowering them to build public baths and making an opportunity for workers and peasants (male and female) to get a bath at a time when not every home had a bath or shower.

I did hear that originally the water went first to the male first class baths, then to male second class and finally to female. Perhaps the long Victorian period (including the Edwardian period) was a particularly dark era when it comes to gender equality in Britain at least. In between the social change brought about by the Industrial Revolution with the end of the family unit working together in the workplace and the slow partial emancipation of women as the nineteenth century progressed etc

oops where am I?

The Ecology. A Splendid Firm!

Have you joined yet?

Now the stained glass in the Victoria Baths is just something else.

good to have a camera!

Here is Morning.

Series morning afternoon and evening I think....

Male Baths, forget what Clarse

and what class are you?

Life the universe and everything....

42

Wrestling! Yaya!

Big Daddy he was a wrestler I think

Footie! What fun!

Football, yesterday

Stairway to Heaven!

stairway to the super's flat anyway

Cricket! Splendid!

Played in all civilised parts of the world

View from the balcony

Green terracotta fiancé or something

Brill!

where am I?

Some stained glass up in the superintendant’s flat. Seems that super was in charge of all the public baths in the City of Manchester.

nice little earner?

Running! Cue Chariots of Fire!

executive producer dodi al fayed and the rest is history

Golf!

balls!

Brain bashing! What a sensible idea!

each to their own though

Roll the drums for the Annual Assembly

powerpoint forever....

Grand tour for the visiting Ecologists of the Victoria Baths. Likesay here we are in the chill out room in the background is the angel of purity. In this room the lucky punters would be chilling after Turkish bath or whatever so the stained glass would add to the experience and all that. Possibly even meditative altered states of consciousness (ASCs).

Anyway the Victoria Baths was closed some time ago and there is some splendid firm of volunteers looking after it and even in the hope of opening it up again. In the mean time there has been lots of filming including Life on Mars and Prime Suspect.

exciting stuff

Close up of the Angel of Purity

Photobucket

In the Turkish Baths...

solid bricks so it has worn well

Or Russian baths not sure...

beats me mate

After a cracking AGM! Superb!!

The AGM experience

The mind boggles....

gotta cater for retards, literate retards anyway....

The Angel of Puritiy

and ain’t I a cracking photographer extraordinaire and some sort of demi-God!

And back to Equinox. Did pass a church that like many an old nonconformist chapel may have been converted into a carpet warehouse or Mosque but in this case possibly both.... another post this one is taking me all day......

No comments:

Post a Comment



Star Posts

Graduation Day! - br/>


Bluebell

Scarletharlot69 - Twit!

Scarletharlot69 - Youtube Channel/>
Links


Wikipedia - the fount of all knowledge and wisdom

Blogroll