Manchester Then and Now: a photographic guide to Manchester past and present

My Dad’s 81st Birthday, what to get him? He was brought up in Didsbury, Manchester, married Mum, also from Manchester, and soon after I was born, we moved out of Manchester to Rochdale. Dad worked all of his working life in Manchester and knew it well. He’s not a great reader, but loves local history. On a trip back to Manchester he said he didn’t recognise the place it’s changed so much, a bit disappointing for him.On looking at Amazon’s offerings on the subject I selected this book and thought my Dad might get a bit of pleasure from it. That’s what I thought. The front cover has a picture showing Smithfield Market, where my mum started her working life as a florist. Every page turned gave him such memories, where he started his first job, where his brother worked... and so on, even the waterwheel that my uncle helped to excavate in the 70’s.It was his birthday yesterday, and Mum’s been in touch this morning to say that he was up early, head in his new book, happy as a kid with a new toy!

Bought this for my 85 year old mum , who originated from manchester , takes her back to growing up and around manchester , well pleased ..

This book is great for browsing and reminiscing. I am old enough to remember some of the locations in the book from the 'before' shots as well as current views and enjoyed the trip down memory lane. The photographs from current times have been taken with care to replicate, as far as possible, the same angle and location as a snapshot from days gone by, some of the days very long gone by. The text is a good balance of fact and comment and with a minimum of wasted words and points to the ways of life, commercial or private, which have changed considerably over time. Similarly, some things endure and it is interesting to make such strong connections to people, now long gone, through common locations. Perhaps the book will be of little interest to people who have not lived in or visited Manchester, but there is much here which will apply to many cities, not just in the UK. It is a book I will put on my shelf, having read and browsed, but will no doubt come back to many time in the future.

Xmas gift for a Mancunian friend. Loved it. Passed around the family and great to reminisce

I bought this book as a gift but unfortunately it has arrived damaged with marks on several pages, almost as if it’s second hand. It’s a good book but the condition it arrived in is disappointing.

Being a Lancashire born Manchester man from way back found the book very interesting with a lot of the locations and comparisons striking bells with me. Nostalgia the order of the day with lots of memories rekindled.

Bought this book for a friend who is emigrating to Australia, we had a look through it ourselves and were really impressed with it and better still our friend was so pleased its a great reminder of Manchester both past and present.

my 71 year old dad is from manchester but hasn't lived there since he was in his 30's . this brought back lots of lovely memories and we had some laughs with him telling some stories from his youth .