2012 Chorlton U Decide

The next  CHORLTON U DECIDE event  will take place on the evening of 17th October 2012. 

At this stage the Council are looking for project proposals to be submitted  by 21st September 2012 and residents who live in the Manchester City Council Chorltonward boundary will be eligible to vote. 

Projects must also be for the benefit of the Chorlton ward - you don't have to be a formal group to submit an application- just a group of local people who want to make a difference. 

The maximum you can bid for is £750. 

To ensure this event is as successful as last year we need as many projects put forward as possible. 

If you have any questions or want an application please contact Kirsteen Armitage on 0161 882 1324 or k.armitage@manchester.gov.uk

Blossom Florists

An advert, via You Tube, that I stumbled upon, but for local Florist Blossom, on Manchester Rd.  They have a nifty website too 

Children's Event in Beech Rd Park

Farmers Market This Saturday

Beech Rd History Walk

As a taster for his talk at the Civic society meeting in September, local historian Andrew Simpson at a recent history walk, which he does from time to time

To Find out more about the Civic Society

For further information about the Civic Society contact please feel free to contact Jenny Slee (Chair), 13 Malton Avenue, Manchester, M21 8AT
07570 879 091, or
Roland Baskeyfield (Newsletter), roland.baskeyfield@virgin.net

Matt Gallagher - Committee Member

Matt was born in Paisley, East of Glasgow on Hallowe’en 1957.  His Irish parents had moved to Scotland after the war, in the 1950s, living in a tenement, his mother worked as a bus conductress and his father was a builder. As a small child, Matt became very ill – so ill that he was given the last rites and the family gathered expecting his funeral. Fortunately he recovered and the family now with his sisters and brothers moved to a lodge house where his father took over gardening for a nunnery.
In the 1960s, the family moved to rural Ireland where they had a shop, and later Matt helped his father with the farming – mainly growing potatoes and riding to and fro on the cross bar of his father’s bicycle. Sadly for Matt school lessons were in Irish Gaelic which meant he had dropped behind. Worse was to come in the Troubles in Derry in Northern Ireland. During riots their home was destroyed by fire whilst they were at a wedding in 1971. Matt’s mother’s parents lived in Chorlton and they were able to take in the family and it was the first time Matt had been to England.

Matt stayed here and went to school at St. Mary’s Stretford and then to St. John’s College. In 1978 he joined Greater Manchester Police – his grandfather had been in the Garda – but hopes of continuing in Ireland were not to be because in Ireland Gaelic was needed again. Matt worked in Wythenshawe, gaining promotions and working in Collyhurst and then Stretford. He then serviced for six years as an Inspector in Tactical Aid – help other divisions in specialised work and major crimes, with searches and house to house investigations.
Matt was the first Senior Officer on the scene after the Manchester bomb in 1996. He searched for survivors in M&S and Boots in the devastation – in flooded areas where main pipes had burst. Matt recalled a man who lived in an apartment who somehow didn’t realised what had happened and lived for a day or two on tins of tuna.
Matt was also involved in challenging attitudes of racism and saw many changes for the better. He was involved in investigating thirty murders with one – the taking of a schoolboy by a paedophile bus driver being the most intensive of police time and effort to bring a conviction.
Happier occasions were when he guarded the Queen for the Commonwealth Games of 2002 and on his eve of retirement in 2008 when he was presented at Old Trafford with a shirt signed by the teams of Glasgow Celtic and Manchester Unity.
Matt is now the Chair of the Friends of Southern Cemetery (where over thirty family members are buried) and the Friends have worked really hard to gain the prestigious Green Flag status. They are hoping to keep up the standard to maintain it, with care for the whole area and its wildlife and peaceful tree-filled grounds.
Standing for election as Councillor in the last local elections, Matt trudged the street(and uneven pavements!) of Chorlton getting to know the inhabitants and local problems. He has hopes for economic improvement locally and for the city as a whole and we are glad to have him on the Committee. And thank you, Matt, for taking time out to talk to me on Father’s Day and just after the safe arrival of a new granddaughter!