The annual Salford Histories Festival was held today in Swinton with over 30 stalls from various local history societies at The Fletcher Hall and four talks in the nearby St Peter's Church and it proved to be a roaring success I am happy to say. In The Fletcher Hall were stalls from, Buile Hill Mansion Group, Eccles and District History Society, Swinton Lions, Salford Link, Friends of St Thomas Church, Urmston and Davyhulme Postcard heritage, Salford Victoria Theatre, FRECCLES, , Boothstown Village, MLFHS, St Augustine Church, Pendlebury, Manchester Transport Museum, WCML, Irwell Valley Mining Project, Salford Local History Group, plus stalls manned by Sue Richardson, Martin Gittings, Chris Makepeace and Tom Brown Arts to name but a few. Rebecca Long Bailey the Labour MP for Salford and Eccles presented the Frank Mullineux award to Lawrence Cassidy for his book on Cheetham Hill and Salford which was richly deserved as I have seen all the hard work he has put into this. Because of the popularity of this Festival two extra rooms in The Fletcher Hall were opened up to make room for the extra exhibitors and in one of them I was delighted to see The Merry Trotter room which was full of weird and wonderful memorabilia for times gone by and to be honest not that long ago, all of the exhibits, toys. games, kitchen utensils, tools, uniforms, books, children's annuals, radios you were encouraged to pick up and talk about, I was told they take the exhibits to schools, community groups, care homes etc, which is a wonderful thing to do. Roll on next year and there is talk of it moving to a larger venue because of it's growing popularity, but still in the same area. Finally I got the shock of my life when a lady approached me and asked if I had seen Tony Flynn in the Hall, I admitted that it was me and she told the chap with her, her Father was my Uncle Tony Yates, who I had not seen for over 60 years! and I have to admit I wouldn't have recognised him, however we are meeting up in a fortnight in Urmston for a catch up and a good chat, how good is that?
