We have recently been contacted by Christopher Monkhouse whose grandfather was a member of Lindow LTC in the initial years.  He has very kindly shared with us some interesting information and photos from the early days of the club.  Many of us over the years would have had our tennis rackets re-strung at ‘Monkhouse’ in Cheadle Hulme, never realising the connection which Chris Monkhouse reveals below:

Francis Robert Monkhouse (Frank), b.1909 d.1978 grew up around Lindow L.T.C and tennis.   His mother and father, Emma and Ernest were possibly founder members.   Frank won the Gents Singles Championship 6 times during the period 1928 to 1937 and also played for the County.   Whilst holding a degree in textile structure, he chose to open a sports shop focussing upon the racket sports, and general store in Cheadle Hulme in the mid 1930’s.   This was closed whilst he was away in the army during the war years.   He did however, manage to play tennis for the army in Italy at the FIAT Sports Club in Turin !  He was in his later years, elected to the Veteran’s Section of the All England Club, Wimbledon.

Frank used to string his own rackets and those of his friends.   This evolved into purchasing most of the better rackets from the makers as unstrung frames.   He then strung them to the individual players own preferences.  This was followed by our appointment as Tournament Stringers to both Dunlop and Slazenger for their sponsored international players.  A local prep school asked him to put in a range of their schoolwear, and schoolwear eventually grew to become the largest part of the business.   His son Chris joined the business in 1962 taking over the sports side, then Chris’s wife Mary, with grandchildren Peter and Suzanne joining in the late 1980’s.  The business grew to 25 shops over the north.   In 2019 the sports side of the business was sadly relinquished to concentrate upon schoolwear, nationally.  

It all started, I suppose, 110 years ago at Lindow.....

Ernest Monkhouse (c1908)

Frank Monkhouse (c1930)

The Singles Trophy won by Frank six times between 1928 and 1937.