FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS RELATED TO ETHEL WEEKS

The donor was born Ethel Wilkinson in 1902 in Hulme. She had a brother, Jack (b.1908) and sister Elsie (b.1903). During her early years she suffered badly from asthma and so rarely attended school. Her father, John William Wilkinson, was a postman and so considered to have a steady job. He was earning 27/- a week in 1916 when the rent was 6/- per week. He had one brother and three sisters. The donor's mother, Selina Ann Morley (b.1873) had been apprenticed to Kendal Milnes to learn millinery (she had to pay for this apprenticeship) and was later a bookbinder at John Heywoods (printers) of Manchester. She was also the woman who dealt with deaths, illnesses confinements etc. in the street. The donor's maternal grandfather was a craftsman and ran his own business, working in wrought iron. He made the main gates at Alexandra Park. The donor's maternal grandmother originally came from Macclesfield. Her father gave up his inheritance in the silk mills and became a preacher. Grandmother Wilkinson was left a widow and took a sweet shop in Medlock Street. The parents of the donor married in 1900 and moved into a new house in Crystal Street, Hulme, behind Rowlands Bakery, then later into Chorlton Road, Whalley Range. Her father bought a house in Old Trafford (Duke Street) then another two nearby. All 3 were destroyed during the 1940 blitz when her parents were also injured. One of these houses destroyed in Cornbrook Grove, Old Trafford, was then the home of the donor and her family and she too was injured.

The donor met her husband, Reg. Weeks in 1925, was engaged in 1926 and married him in 1927. They married at St. Margarets Church, Whalley Range. They spent their honeymoon in Ilfracombe and Bath (husband's grandmother lived here and they spent 3 days with her). They had one son, Norman William Weeks, who was born in 1929. After their marriage they lived at 157 Chorlton Road, with the donor's father-in-law, then moved to Cornbrook Grove, and after its destruction to their present address.

The donor had worked for 11 years after school, as a shipping clerk in the cotton trade (she started at 6/- a week and ended at £2.10s.0d a week), then she went to work at a paper manufacturers and by 1934 she had become the only female waste-paper buyer in the country. She left and worked later at Lewis' and at John Nobles' Mail Order firm in Princess St, Manchester. Her husband Reg was an underbuyer for a Belgian cotton firm in Granby Row, Manchester, which closed down in 1930. For 4 years Reg had no work and lived on 25/- a week dole (including a 1/- allowance for their son, Norman). To make ends meet the donor made and sold jam and cakes to people, for instance, the Stretford Wheelers' Club who met locally every Monday. She also went to nightschool to learn dressmaking. She remembers everyone fighting to get a lodger and she got one, a policeman, who paid 25/- a week, all in. Later she took in her cousin Marion, who had been deserted by her husband. She paid 2/6 a week because she only earned 11/- a week at the C.W.S. diningroom of which some had to go to support a child in Rochdale. The donor remembers they lived a lot on fishcakes at this time. The donor's father-in-law had been a master-joiner and was also made redundant (with 3 grown sons to support, all unemployed).