I never knew my father's parents, said Vic Cliffe, for they had died long before I was born. Although he had sisters in Hulme and Urmston, and a brother I later knew off in Ashton, his family were a bit of a mystery.

In the 1950's we lived in Rose View, Ardwick and every Sunday my father would dress up in his trench coat and Trilby and walk with me as a young boy from Ardwick along Stockport Road and past his works at a funeral directors near Plymouth Grove where he would check the garage and chapel of rest (say hello to the nice people who are sleeping), and on towards Ardwick Green.

He would call in shops to get his Old Holborn pipe tobacco, and when we got to Mazels Radio shop on London Road we would go in to change a broken radio valve.

I was not aware of it at the time but my father had been raised in Brittain Street, which ran alongside London Road and the railway arches behind Mazels shop. This was an area he knew well.

He had a lock up under the railway arches and stored old motorbikes there to work on. He had been a speedway rider and mechanic before the war at Belle Vue and was well known in those circles.

We would walk up towards Piccadilly and then up the staircase to London Road (Now Piccadilly) Railway Station. As we entered the station the steam trains belched steam and smoke, and if you were brave enough the steam enveloped you as the train slowly moved from the platform.

My father seemed to know people there, as we were never stopped from going on to the platforms and even on to the foot plates where I could see the fires blazing away inside the engines. The drivers would haul me up and sit me on their seats on the train as the fireman stoked the fire. On a cold day it was a good place to be.

When we left the station we walked along Store Street, Ancoats to Great Ancoats Street to a small cycle shop there where the occupant sat fixing tyres and repairing bikes. There was a permanent smell of rubber solution and grease.

My father and the cycle repair man were good friends and sat gossiping for hours as I would ride around the pavement outside on a three wheeler bike from the shop. The repair man's name was probably Syd Herring, who had a cycle shop in the area at that time.

At about mid day we would walk back along Great Ancoats Street towards Nichols School on Hyde Road, and then on towards Rose View, sometimes going via the tram depot on Hyde Road to watch the trams being repaired in the workshop or watch the buses on the skid pan
near Bennett Street.

Sundays were an exciting time for me and I know my father enjoyed them too.

Vic Cliffe, 2002