Sunday Snap: Printworks Manchester

Now a bustling centre of entertainment - bars, restaurants and big bright lights. Once the Daily Mirror newspaper, where they printed and distributed from. My Dad used to work there when I was young. It seemed such a prominent part of my life; stacks of newspapers at home all through my childhood and the many a weekend at home as my Dad was working. He mostly worked nights and I remember having to be fairly quiet so as not to wake him in the daytime.

A huge building built in 1875 of Portland stone in an area of Manchester once called Withy Grove. Through the eras the building had several names but the ones that I remember being mentioned are Thomson House and then Maxwell House. My Dad started as an engineer, working on the printing machines before becoming a manager. Business operations moved to Oldham around 1985 and the building was left for a long time until snapped up to be an entertainment complex. 

Dad told me of seeing ghosts there and I could well believe him. Some men were afraid at the night time after there was an account of a young man who thought he was the only one around on the noisy printing floor,  talking to an older man. Thought nothing of it.  Later on when chatting in the 'brew room', the exchange was mentioned and the man fit no description amongst the then very few night staff.....except for one said he sounded just like a man who had been killed there several years back...............