After 77 Christmas Days, tree is looking festive
IT WAS BOUGHT FROM WOOLWORTHS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR, SO IS THIS THE OLDEST CHRISTMAS TREE IN THE REGION?
COULD this be the oldest Christmas tree in Greater Manchester?
The artificial tree was bought by a family from a Woolworths store in Ashton-under-Lyne, during the war in 1941.
After 77 years it’s still standing strong at Tameside’s Portland Basin Museum, complete with original period baubles and decorations.
It became illegal in Britain during the Second World War to cut down trees for Christmas and people didn’t want cherished decorations to be damaged in air raids.
Many households bought simple tabletop trees like it as a result.
Standing just more than a foot high, the tree’s plastic leaves are still attached to its small wire frame.
The decorations – bells and baubles – were bought at Henry Moon’s in Ashton, believed to have been a general store on Market Street near Penny Meadow. Sadly no tinsel survived and there’s no star on the top of the tree either.
According to the museum, families often bought small trees with simple decorations during the war so they could easily be moved into air-raid shelters if needed as a comfort for children.
The tree was donated to the museum by a family in Ashton.
The museum said: “The first artificial Christmas trees were made in Germany in the 1880s, mainly to reduce the impact that cutting down large numbers of fir trees was having on forests. The branches were made of goose feathers dyed green.
“In the 1930s a US company made an artificial tree with branches made from brush bristles. People did not want their favourite decorations that had often been handed down through generations to get damaged in the air raids.
“So many people bought a small table top tree, like this one, with simple decorations that could be easily moved into an air-raid shelter if necessary.”
An even older family Christmas tree – a 5ft tree also bought from a Woolworths store in the 1930s – was sold at auction earlier this month for £280, with all the money being donated to the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham’s Homelessness Fund.
The current Guinness world record for the oldest artificial Christmas tree is one said to date back to 1886.