Street Vendors

The rag and bone carts used to come round every day shouting, "Rags, bones, any old iron?" The villagers would come out with old clothes or jam-jars which would be bartered for donkey stones. These were used for cleaning your doorstep. The rag and bone man would hire the donkey and cart from Stockport and at the end of the day would sell the scrap to the scrap merchants. Some of the stuff thrown away would be worth a fortune today!

Another common sight was the man with the big hessian sack filled with watercress. He would go from door to door selling it, often passing the cockle and mussel man coming the other way. Everyone liked cockles and mussels, they would have them for their supper. You had to boil them first and they would burst open. They were delicious, but somehow they don't seem to taste the same nowadays.

You would often see a man in a white apron pushing a one-wheeled cart. He was the knife-grinder and he would sharpen all your knives and scissors. It had a big grindstone on the top and all the village kids would stand round and watch the sparks flying off the wheel when it was sharpening anything.

The best person who came round was the organ grinder! He would push his organ all the way from Stockport and play outside the few shops and houses in Church Road. The kids would turn the handle to play all the tunes and the monkey would hold out the tin cup for the money.

A man would come round with a clothes basket on his head full of pots and pans. He sold them to all the farms and cottages where Wythenshawe is now. Greengrocers carts came regularly, usually in the evening and lit by paraffin lamps. Where nowadays people are used to going to the shops to get anything they need in those days people would come to your door. Most of the houses were lit by oil lamps and the lamp man would come and sell you lamp-oil, blacklead for your grates and various pots and pans.

If you wanted a hair cut the barber would come to you! On a Friday night a man would come round with two large baskets full of cakes and muffins, oatcakes and crumpets. Piano tuners would come from Stockport or Manchester to tune your piano. Insurance men would come to collect your insurance premiums, sometimes only about 1d or 2d a week! You could have a twenty-year endowment policy for 1/- a week!
There were quite a few window cleaners in those days, as many as six or seven. They would clean all your windows once a fortnight for a couple of bob!