For half of the decade the country was at war and the Luftwaffe blitzed Manchester.

But crime did not stop, with black market smuggling, shop-lifting, especially by women, and burglary , as much a part of the city’s life as air raids.

Outside the walls of Strangeways Prison the population was escaping austerity and the gloom of global conflict with big band music at dance halls like The Ritz and Plaza.

At the Stretford Trades and Labour Club Hughie Gibb’s dance band was packing them in in 1941. His sons, Barry, Robin, and Maurice, would create even greater hysteria in the mid 60s and late 70s.

In Moss Side, jazz and calypso clubs sprung up. As well as informal shebeens, venues like the Astoria - later the International II in the 90s - thrived in Plymouth Grove.

But inside the ‘big house’ there was no escape through walls said to be 16ft thick.

(Image: Getty/Bert Hardy)

The bleakness of the Victorian jail in the 1940s is captured in black and white pictures taken by Bert Hardy.

One of the elements of the then regime, which did not cease until 1964 , was the death penalty.

(Image: Getty/Bert Hardy)

During the 1940s seven prisoners were executed at the prison, including Margaret Allen, 42, from Rawtenstall, who worked as a bus conductor.

On January 12th 1949 Allen became the first woman to be executed in Britain for 12 years.

She had battered an elderly widow to death with a hammer. Strangeways did not become a male only prison until 1963.

Another notorious inmate was Brendan Behan, the Irish Republican poet and novelist.

He was jailed in 1947 for his part in trying to spring a fellow IRA member from Strangeways.

(Image: Getty/Bert Hardy)

Manchester forger Herbert Winstanley was also active - making £20,000 in counterfeit notes between 1939-45 - the equivalent of £1m today. He received a ten year jail sentence.

Records held by the Greater Manchester Police Museum give an indication of the crimes that were putting offenders behind Strangeways bars.

In 1943 police in the City of Manchester recorded 7,217 crimes which were indictable offences.

Of these 3,864 were detected. They included three murders, three attempted murders, and two manslaughters.

There was also one case of the abandoning of a child under two years; one of child stealing; and one of abortion.

Four rapes and 39 indecent assaults were reported.

(Image: Getty/Bert Hardy)

Fifteen cases of bigamy and 953 of housebreaking and larceny were reported.

There were 373 thefts from shops and stalls which led to the conviction of 60 men and 274 women.

Forgery was a major issue with 109 cases. Tragically, during such a torrid time of war, 73 cases of attempted suicide were recorded - an offence at the time.

Reports also mention that indictable offences (those that can only be heard at crown court) goes up considerably between 1942 and 1943 from 5990 to 7217

Notable in a list of 8798 non-indictable offences were 17 cases of cruelty to animals and 88 of cruelty to children.

Chief Constable John Maxwell noted that juvenile crime increased substantially in the 1940s.

(Image: Getty/Bert Hardy)

Hardy’s pictures show Prison Officer Davidson talking to a group of visiting wives and children in a spartan waiting room.

Today the jail’s prisoners have educational classes, including maths and English, the gym, printing and textile workshops, and a bakery, laundry, and kitchen, where inmates can work. Prisoners are also employed as cleaners, painters, and can work in the prison store and library.

But 75 years ago mind-numbing toil like sewing mail bags and unravelling knots in Royal Mail string was part of daily life inside.

Lags marching around the prison yard did so against a backdrop of blackened walls of grim cell blocks and along paths between flower beds.

Today Spice is rife and the use of other drugs a constant problem inside Strangeways.

Makeshift, potentially lethal weapons are also an issue.

But frisking for contraband was part of the officers’ jobs in the 1940s as captured by Hardy. A line of cons in prison issue jacket and trousers are seen getting a ‘rub-down’.

Opened in 1868 and costing £170,000 the fabric of the prison remained virtually unchanged other than a new visitors centre until it was wrecked by the riot of 1990.

The riot left 147 staff and 47 inmates injured - one prisoner died.

It erupted on April 1st as 1,647 inmates occupied a prison with space for just 970 men.

In his report six months later Lord Justice Woolf said the conditions in the prison in the months leading up to the riot were ‘intolerable’. His report was the foundation of prison reform in the UK.

Yet in October 2015 a damning report by the Independent Monitoring Board revealed staff, prisoners, and even inspectors, were not safe.

It claimed reductions in staffing had ‘created a number of tensions and unease’ and a week later Stuart Horner staged a one-man protest on the roof.

Strangeways, now, officially, HMP Manchester, has capacity for 1,136 prisoners and its current population is 1,017.