Why is it that so many of us have a passion for the past, especially when we see images of the places of our youth? Crewe, along with most towns has undergone great changes in the years since the Second World War. A person born in 1870 and brought up in Crewe would have instantly recognised where they were if placed on the Square in 1950. Not so now as all the railway houses to the west have been demolished to be replaced by the buildings erected post 1950. We, the pensioners of today, might look back to the street scenes of our youth and consider them halcyon days realistically though many of the changes were necessary.
Our town of Crewe needed a recognisable modern shopping centre in place of a dense mass of cottage homes as no chain stores or national retailers would have entertained the idea of locating here. Granted that retailers such as Marks and Spencer, Woolworths, Boots and Burtons had set up in Crewe in the 1920s. This meant that they occupied the only sites of any commercial worth, though even then some of their entrances opened onto a narrow and dismal street of terraced houses.
One problem that did exercise the minds of local politicians in the fifties was how to cope with increasing traffic through and across the town. It is a problem that has not been fully resolved in 2013. Thankfully, buses and other vehicular traffic no longer have to negotiate the tight bends and narrow streets such as Burton’s corner as can be viewed on page 56 of this book. It is much safer now to walk in a pedestrianized town centre yet why does a town have to lose its distinctive identity. Crewe, at least retains some vestiges of railway housing, modernised yet still recognisable as nineteenth century dwellings. (see pages 64/5 & 84/5)
In the Earle street area the Municipal Buildings can be seen now in a way that was impossible in the 1950s when they were hidden in the shadows of the Mechanics Institute and associated structures. Similarly, the Market Hall still stands after over 150 years having narrowly escaped the demolition hammer when nearby buildings went.
I suppose the answer to the question with which we started is that as we get older we are filled with nostalgia for our lost youth.
Peter Ollerhead's Crewe Then & Now can be purchased from The History Press today.