The first Saturday of July has been International Co-operators Day since 1923. Sometimes it is marked with events, in more recent years a family fun day in Morcambe, though i do remember a big event in The Lowry and in front of it a few years ago. Picture is for the 1945 celebrations in Wythenshawe Park which was also used as a Victory Celebration. All the usual timetable of events with speeches, children's sports and brass band.
Note the presenter of the prizes was to be Councillor Alf Robens who would have just been elected MP for Wansbeck, Northumberland two days earlier. Alf was born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy in 1910 and is best remembered for his days as Chairman of the National Coal Board (1960-1971).
The official opening was to be conducted by Councillor Elizabeth Yarwood, a Labour & Co-operative Party member, later to become a director of the Manchester & Salford Co-op, Lord Mayor of Manchester and awarded a Damehood in 1967.There is an Elizabeth Slinger Court, an appartement block in Wythenshawe. One year you are opening a festival in the park and thirty years later they name a nearby building after you.
There is a lot of history attached to the CWS (Manchester) Band which started out as the Tobacco Factory band but this is outside my field.
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