Doug’s Memories of Macc

Above: The year is 1926 and Macclesfield had two local newspapers, the Courier and the Times. The Courier’s printworks were at the corner of Westminster Street and Cumberland Street.

Doug Pickford commenced his journalistic career in Macclesfield in 1962. He was editor of the Macclesfield Express from 1972 – 1995. Here he takes a brief look back at Macclesfield’s illustrious newspaper history.

Every day of every week memories are made in Macclesfield. Like elsewhere in this country, people’s everyday lives are the stuff nostalgia is made of. When something unusual happens – that which is not part of everyday life – then it becomes news; and in Macclesfield we have been fortune for more than 200 years to have been blessed with some excellent newspapers. And, it has to be said, some not so good.

Macclesfield’s glorious newspaper history began at the turn of the nineteenth century when some satirical papers were circulated in the borough, lampooning politicians and townsfolk alike. One was called Macclesfield Fun and Frolic, and another was named Judy….in deference to the well-known Punch.

Then, in 1811, everything changed. In the first week of February a grocer, printer and bookseller whose premises were at the corner of the Market Place and King Edward Street, launched the town’s very first weekly newspaper. It had the grand title of the Macclesfield Courier and Stockport Express with the added intimation that it was “also for the Counties of Lancaster, Derby, Stafford and Salop” and it had the motto “Be just, and fear not. Let all the ends thy aim’st at be thy country’s”.

The proprietor was 27-years-old Jonathan Wilson. He had the backing of two lawyers, a cotton spinner, an ironmonger and a printer. The first week’s circulation was 1,000 copies – all subscribers – and just one was sold in Prestbury. That is, of course, after a snow storm had laid siege to the town.

Jonathan had a short life. He died in 1821 and during the following six years the ownership changed five times until a James Swinnerton purchased the Courier and a rival paper the Macclesfield Herald.

The rest, as they say, is history. Papers have come and papers have gone but within recent memory the Courier (known as the posh one) and the Times (which was the Courier’s biggest rival in the 1940s and 50s until it was purchased by its main competitor) and then the County Express and the Macclesfield Advertiser.

Apart from reading the local papers at my grandparents’ home in Hibel Road in the 1950s, my first real association with them was when I applied for a position as a trainee reporter with the Macclesfield Advertiser at number 54 Chestergate, then on the corner of Derby Street which became Churchhill Way.  I was to meet the editor, the late T H ‘Harry’ Hayes in his office and when I arrived, shortly before he was to attend a council meeting at the Town Hall, I was taken to a tiny room at the top of the stairs. My first impression was the amount of paper on his desk. There was so much in fact that he had to peer above it to see me. Everyone knew him as Harry – unless you were a junior such as I, then it was ‘Mr’. He was of the old school. He once saw me walking down Mill Street with my future wife and the following day I was called into his office and reprimanded because I was on the inside of the pavement. A gentleman, I was told in no uncertain terms, always walked with a lady on the road side of the pavement. He also had cause to reprimand me on other occasions; perhaps a veil should be placed over those. Harry came from a family of tea-totallers and his parents ran a temperance hotel in Jordangate. Eric Oliver from Henbury was the advertising manager, Di Ridgeway the daughter of the manager of Riley’s Stores in Chestergate was a reporter and Tony Bex, son of then Alderman and Mayor J F Bex, was news editor. The main photographer was Charlie Berrisford.

As time progressed I went to the opposition – the County Express – in Castle Street. There the editor was the legendary Clifford Rathbone, well-known for his articles written under the pen name “The Stroller”. One of my proudest moments was unveiling a plaque to him in the Dane Valley and another was taken over the reigns as editor upon his retirement.

Time marches on, and new technology has taken over from the old ways of printing. No longer are there queues at newsagents of folk one hundred or more strong waiting for the local papers to arrive; or when a popular phrase was “You’re not dead until your funeral report has been in th’ Courier” but Macclesfield can look forward to be served news in a distinguished manner.