Wigan Album

I'd completely forgotten we had a Mothercare on Standishgate! Now my memory's been jogged, I seem to remember a "Richard Shops" shop as well.

In the sixties, where the pedestrian is, there was a pedestrian crossing. I have some recollection that a fatal accident occurred n that location, about that time. Standishgate was a through road then, for traffic in both directions.

The benches have been and gone as well- not much stays very long!

No matter how trendy the designs for telephone boxes are, the red telephone box can never be improved on to my mind. I remember the one at Scholes Crossings in the mid sixties ( we didn't have a phone) I used to run down there with an arranged time for the phone to ring from my then boyfriend. I would be hopping from one foot to another if somebody was in there already, sometimes hovering so the occupant could see me waiting. What a thrill when it did ring - romantic or what! Telephone numbers were imprinted in the memory and the red telephone box played a huge part in our lives. I remember watching a biopic on Cilla Black before she became famous and the phone box again was so important in her life awaiting calls. We take so much for granted these days and forget how simple our lives were.

It was very easy to 'tap' the numbers in the old red phone boxes. You dialled an integer then tapped it out on the cradle and you got through. You had to be pretty fast with the high numbers. I can only offer youth as mitigation.

Albert. with regard to the accident, perhaps you are referring to the incident where an unattended lorry which was parked in Millgate suffered handbrake failure and ran downhill across Standishgate coming to rest opposite Woolworths.

DerekB. Derek. If my memory serves me right, it involved an elderly lady,
crossing the road, towards Woolworths. A lorry was involved.

Veronica. Is it a red telephone box that Tom Jones has erected on his property, that has some significant memories for him?.

Could be Albert - I wouldn't be surprised. Tom lost his wife a couple of years ago after his life of philandering... He always went home to her though....I believe she used to belt him one if she read anything in the paper about his playing away. She stuck by him though...

Albert S: Tom Jones has a red telephone box next to his green green grass of home Albert, that's down the road near that big old oak tree that he used to play on.

If it was me , I would turn Wigan into a market town , with stalls everywhere, holding every need you could think of . Except mobile phones or junk shop items . People who were out for quick profit would be banned or not even given a pitch . You would be able to buy a ball of wool , a rod and line , alongside a piece of fish , lamb cutlet , a badge or part from a treasured motorcycle. There would be pictures and paintings stalls , Pie stalls , cheese stalls , cake stalls . But done proper. No movement of shift from other towns looking for a profit. It would be done by Wigganers for Wigganers. So , if you rip them off, you are doing this to your own . The Christmas market would be extra special. But then back to the stalls again , all set in place . . Dress and clothes shops would be controlled not to upset the balance . The mind boggles . Little antique stalls, stamp stalls , hat stalls . sock stalls , . Food stalls , Jam , Honey , self made pies and cakes . Stalls for Wigan and Wigganers, what’s wrong with that ?

The blue payphone was actually a 'Mercury Payphone' and they were short-lived and gone by 1997

Julie, back in the days of yore, Wigan was a market town. It is well described in the opening pages of a book by Kathleen Fidler, The White Cockade Passes.

Presumably thats why a Market Hall was built in later years.

Of course Julie the thought had occurred to me that your comments on Wigan going back to being a market town might not have been as they seemed. But you should put the idea to the Wigan Metropolitan Council, surely they would love it, something as new as a Market Town !!

Most of the marketing was on the Market Square - nothing new there - I wonder if that's why it was called Market Square How silly!

Fleetwood has a large outdoor, and indoor market. The nearby streets are shut off also for a variety of stalls, and cooked food outlets. The inner market is exceeding clean, The inner cafeterias are very clean, and seem to be well managed. It gets very well patronised. I was in there yesterday. Open, Tues., Thurs., Fri., & Sat.

I find Julie's comments a refreshing change. We don't all wear rose tinted spectacles and live in a time warp. The downturn in town centre shopping affects the whole of the country, not just Wigan. It has come about as a result of the never changing trends in consumer demand, something we are all responsible for, not the government, not the council. Another reason is the very thing we are using right now, the Internet. The term has always been "use it or lose it" people are choosing not to in favour of easier and more convenient ways in which to shop.

So what do you suggest Mike W .. That we should stop looking at old
photos and stop posting comments just to suit you and Julie? if you and Julie are so concerned about the future of Wigan contact the Council. It has all been explained why this forum operates, harmless fun - nothing more- we are not here to change the world or the future for that matter.

I am all for looking at old photos and recalling fond memories of the past. However I accept they are just that, the past. But being a realist I also accept that change happens without becoming despondent about it and I accept its society that causes these changes, not the council, government or any other body.
After reading numerous posts on this forum over several years I have come to the concluded that not many share my way of thinking.

I don’t think anyone is against change MikeW, change is inevitable. What people want is change for the better instead of which, far to often in Wigan and I dare say other places change as been for the worse.
Buildings in Wigan are being thrown up based only on cost and with little or no regards for their surroundings.
Once Civic Buildings were a matter of pride, now any square lump of brick will do and if you want proof just take a walk around the Town and compare the old buildings with the new.

Again, all I see is yet more criticism of today's standards and a belief that things were so much better in the past. Do you really believe that back in the day the buildings you so fondly recall were all built with unlimited budgets and no planning constraints.
I really do rest my case.

Well at least you state your opinion Mike W and leave it at that, of which you are entitled to. It does get wearing from some quarters, especially when they are epistles with warnings about the future and what we should all be doing about it, issued time and time again, just for admiring a black and white photograph for instance, donated for general perusal. None on here are blockheads that need to be told over and over again about accepting change. The world revolves on change - take it or leave it. As in religion don't impose those beliefs on everybody else. That's my opinion. Like you 'I rest my case'.

Mike perhaps by giving us a few examples of the modern buildings around town that are loved and admired would allow you to rest your case more convincingly.

I'm guessing that the majority of contributors to this site are folk that are either approaching the age of retirement, or may well have already attained that illustrious status.
Could be wrong of course,...it's only a guess.
But if I'm correct , then surely nostalgia must figure prominently in many posts.
Could be right, could be wrong, but moving on apace, I wonder how much it would cost nowadays to erect the pyramids say , or the Pont du Gard ? Bearing in mind that most folk nowadays won't even contemplate the idea of being paid a bushel of wheat and a half pound of salt for seven days labour.
So there can be little doubt that labour costs are a significant factor in the equation, and I know from bitter experience that the majority of today's so called " tradesmen " can only be expected to rock up at one's Anderson shelter with little but the sole intention of extracting enough ' bunce ' in the course of one afternoon's graft to enable them to get legless in The Millstone for a fortnight and feed the Aga Khan's entire stable for a period of twelve months or more, ( including mucking out of course ).
To give just a minor example of what I'm talking about,..during a gale in the autumn of 1918 , a mature sycamore tree came down and took out one of the stone slab sections of a rather old clapper bridge over Colden water at a place named Hebble Hole, not far from Hebden Bridge.... ( Google it )....

When the bridge was originally installed , ( I'm not aware of the precise year ) , it probably involved a week's work for half a dozen blokes , a couple of donkeys , several yards of hessian rope and a wooden snatch block or two. I have no figures to which I can refer, so I'm guessing that the entire operation may have cost somewhere in the region of....err...let's see...six blokes at 24 pints each.... plus two donkeys at a bale of hay apiece,....PLUS a quart of mead for the contractor's missus,.... at 17th century rates.....so that comes to something in the region of about 50 quid by my rough reckoning.
.........The actual 2019 cost of repairing the bridge came to £ 25,000........
This could possibly be one of the reasons that municipal buildings aren't constructed in the same fashion as they used to be.
This logic could also be used as an argument against the ripping up and the pulling down of installations that would make ultimately cost millions to replace,....., that's assuming of course that their replacement were even contemplated,.. Which appears unlikely. .
During my working life, I've come into contact with various aspects of the building industry and sadly , I have to report that in the majority of these instances, I have emerged disappointed .

Helen, I left Wigan , as per Ozy's donkeys, many years ago.
I have seen with my own eyes how places can be transformed.
I love Wigan as much as anyone on here and as such want it to succeed. Every mention I make about progress is shot down with a venom . The youth of the past were wonderful, but the youth of the today are condemned. There are so many people on WW who simply do not want any change whatsoever.
They want change only on their terms. Good for them, but terrible for Wigan. Because I left I can see things from different angles. If you are nailed to the floor what casn you see. The best thing a young person in Wigan can do is Leave. And people on WW should encourage them vigorously to do so . Wigan is going absolutely no where! Its just negative this and blame everything and everyone else, just to remain frozen in the past!! That's why there are no young people on here- history, what history? Pits and Cotton Mills? How many young people are bothered with that?
Young people want the future, NOT, the past. That's the reality so many on here don't even wan to begin to look at.
Old buildings, old memories and nothing else, as Wigan itself, withers and dies. It should be a thriving town, but somehow it has and is going backwards. And, worst of all, people on here, on WW, know my words are true! Young people
of Wigan , LEAVE! Don't kill your brain by staying in one place, a place with such negative and backward looking views. There is a better place out there. I found it , you will as well, I promise you. But, you need to take the first step like I did. Treasure your past, your values, where you came from, BUT, leave!!

Julie I read an item in the news about dying seaside towns...thank goodness the one I live in is not....but a young man from Scarborough commented ...When you pay 30 thousand pounds to go to university why would you go back to the place where you were born to get a job in a shop ? The educated young have always drifted away, never to return...so what have you got to build a future with ??

If there are no young people looking on here what's the point of advising them to leave? It was always thus! I would love to know these places that have been transformed. I left Wigan like many others years ago and still love to know what is happening here. It will always be my 'home'. There is nothing happening here that isn't happening anywhere else. As for the seaside towns Helen - I think the weather has been the biggest impact and cheap foreign travel to far flung places. By the way it is beautiful on the Eastern coast. I wouldn't presume to give advice to Wigan people - I'm sure they have the intelligence to find their own way in the world Julie. You are flogging a dead horse! Wigan people are a breed apart, tough, resilient and down to earth. History lovers will always be intrigued and interested in the past - that does not mean they live in the past! Why not come back and put up as MP for Wigan - failing that I don't think you even have to live in Wigan.

Can't fathom out why you're addressing your remarks to the young people of Wigan Julie, when you know as well as I do that no one under the age of 60 even looks in on here.
It's just us retrospective neatherderthal retards that you're having to deal with unfortunately , so you can probably guess how much impact your comments are likely to have on us lot .
However here's a suggestion , why not try imparting your opinions to the Terra Cotta army ?, I'm sure you'll receive a far more favourable response from that lot.
Well, once again it's been great fun chatting with you Julie, and there's nothing I'd like better than to stay on here all day and chew the fat, but I've got barges to tote and bales to lift, in fact, I've got top weight on today....so for now......à bientôt.
Regards. Ozy.

You say you left Wigan to live in London Julie - would you be as blaise if any of the old historic buildings were demolished,say the Tower for instance,or any of the other palaces. Dare I ask are you interested in the history of London? Do you think people live in the past down there , alongside those buildings? It's no different in Wigan on a lesser scale for the folk who are interested in the past and have a love of History. You underestimate Wiganers by your constant advising what they should do about the future and from such a distance, it is sheer arrogance and impertinence! I only live 5 miles away and visit Wigan 2 or 3 times a week , I wouldn't dream of insulting their intelligence. There are good and bad areas everywhere,Wigan is no exception. Beautiful areas that I would love to live in if I could afford to. You don't need to remind the young who are better equipped than you to know where they are going. You don't need to tell them to leave they have left and are leaving all the time. It's the way of the world or didn't you know. No doubt you will be back with the same 'stuck' record!

Do you see what I mean Julie - Ozy ' down to earth' as ever!
And that is without venom ....

I am just mopping my kitchen floor and am bent double laughing at Ozy's remark about the Terracotta Army! Talk about falling on deaf ears! Are they still in China ? I thought they may have advanced to somewhere else!

Julie my dear..you are so negative..if we wiganners annoy so much,why do you keep alighting on every photo of Wigan,just to put your messages across,no-one is taking any notice of you or are you so blind that you can't see it..your self opinionated views are getting you nowhere..have you ever thought of taking a hobby up that would keep you occupied..yes we accept everyone's opinion but yours are getting just a tad tedious.

Almost fifty years have passed now since I used to load back to Lancashire from a tiny place called Bletchley . If memory serves , the company I used to load out of was called Nacanco , and they manufactured aluminium and mild steel ring pull drinks cans. Lovely loads, all nice and straight and shrink wrapped and weighing in the region of about three tons maximum.

After having loaded, and having received the delivery documents ......destination , the old Lucozade factory on the A6 at Little Hulton quite often , I would set off along the country lanes and through several villages to gain the M1 motorway at junction 15.

Soon afterwards, this entire rural area became what we now know as Milton Keynes.
Now if you ignore the fact that the centre of Milton Keynes bears an uncanny resemblance to downtown LA , then it isn't altogether a bad place .

For anyone who has never been fortunate enough to visit MK , the place is built on a grid pattern , with North / South roads designated V1, V2 , V3 etc., the V representing the word vertical , whilst the East / West , or horizontal roads are designated H1 , H2 etc. etc.......very Teutonic and extremely logical. I have no problem with this , although H5 doesn't have quite the same ring to it as Swan Meadow road I feel , and neither does the name V2 have the same appeal as say , Fourteen Meadows . But aesthetics aside, I'm perfectly willing to accept the fact that Teutonic efficiency comes with its own price tag . That said, providing you can count to ten and have the ability to differentiate between up and down, then you'd struggle to get lost in Milton Keynes .
Furthermore, cyclists and pedestrians are almost entirely segregated from vehicular traffic.
It's actually possible for a pedestrian or a cyclist to get from one side of the place to the other without once ever having to negotiate traffic , due to a well thought out network of cycle lanes and footpaths , bridges and underpasses.

Some of these bridges and underpasses unfortunately have become no go areas at certain times of the day , but no matter.

I used to park there for the night quite often in the 80s. I'd park near the Sainsbury's, fire up the chip pan, then after tea, take the dogs for a run in Campbell Park.....brilliant.... and on top of all this , I would only be 50 miles from London and with an early start I could be in the capital long before the lunatics hit the tarmac around Luton, or Hemel Hempstead , ( the place where hurricanes hardly ever happen incidentally ).
So I feel reasonably confident here that I've provided a fairly accurate and balanced outline picture of what a modern forward thinking town constitutes,......but would I want to live in a place like this ?...........well thousands of people do, and quite happily it seems, but as for myself.....

Well, a quick search on Google has failed to reveal the exact number of orifices that the human body possesses , nevertheless, whatever that exact figure may be , I think I would prefer to have every last one of mine injected with boiling mercury in preference to living in Milton Keynes , or Skelmersdale , or Runcorn New Town, or any other bloody new town for that matter. So don't talk to me about progress.

Some people in Runcorn live in perpetual darkness under those flyovers. Progress ! What the hell is it? . I'm sure Julie's Panglossianism will enlighten us (if not the townsfolk of Runcorn).

New York is built on a grid but far more exciting than Milton Keynes I would say...the dogs would love Central Park

Central Park Veronica. That must be where a lot of water changes it’s formula from H2O, and becomes K9P.

I have no scientific knowledge at all Albert - so I will take your word for it. I was on my way to Vermont and only stayed 2 days in New York - I loved it though- and the people were so nice and friendly. I had to go in St Patrick's Cathedral - it was beautiful. Many Irish descendants there too.

From some dark , rarely visited recess , way , way off in the farthest extremities of my convoluted brain tissue , right up there somewhere near my hair follicles, the idea that the grid pattern of city design actually originated in Edinburgh has surfaced.
The brain cell next door is also telling me that Birkenhead copied the idea .

A couple of brain cells farther along the street , just beyond the vacant and boarded up tenements are even suggesting that Birkenhead may also have been planned by the same bloke that laid out the streets of Auld Reekie .

My mischievous brain cells could be mixing me a bottle here , and I could be completely wrong of course , but that doesn't matter , I just like to live life on the edge periodically , that's all.

I haven't actually Googled it , but that's precisely what I'm about to do now.....ooh ! how exciting is this ?

No!..... I'm going to wait for a while just to savour the excitement.

Blimey ! , is this what it's come to ?

Ozy, I think you've reached the stage when the thought of cutting your toenails after a hot bath fills you with unimaginable, pleasurable expectation.

That's very perceptive of you DTease , but you're perfectly correct .
Over the years , I've learned to categorise and prioritise what to most people would seem trivial activities , and then turn them into calendar events.
For instance , nose hair trimming at Whizzer Mansions occurs bi-annually , usually at Halloween and Good Friday , whilst for the hacking back of the lush growth that insists on continually sprouting from my earholes , I normally get the contractors in around about the autumn equinox and then again on shrove Tuesday.
They're good lads ... A little pricy , but I've been using them for years , and I'm not really one for shopping around .

Everything else also has its own little slot and is anticipated eagerly.
It may seem a little odd to some folk , but then , they do say that we're all somewhere on the autistic spectrum don't they ?

Regards. Ozy.

Incidentally Albert , I've been drinking that K9P of yours in The Bellingham for years. It doesn't go under that name of course , as they prefer to call it beer . But they're not kidding me ...., no sir !
There is an upside to the situation however,....I do possess a nice shiny coat . The downside being , I tend to moult quite a lot at certain times of the year .

All the best mate.

Ozy, what’s your view when it comes to nose picking? And why is it that every time I stop at the traffic lights the guy in the car alongside me invariably as his index finger stuck halfway up his nose? I often wonder what the heck he his hoping to find up there.
When I was little my old Mam used to tell me that one day I would pull my finger out and my brain would come out with it.
I eventually trained myself out of the habit, mainly because I never knew what to do with the stuff I had raked out of there!

DTease: Nose picking is like a box of chocolates, you never know what centre your going to get.
And when you got one, ya don't want it.

Well we do appear to be straying farther and farther away from the topic of the origins of town street patterns here DTease , but since you ask , and to be honest I was half expecting it .....
For the greater part of my childhood years , I always thought that this was the reason for having been born with fingers , but like yourself , having been convinced that it would ultimately make my eyes bleed , I learned to desist in the practice.
In later life however , I've discovered that nose picking can prove to be quite advantageous .
When on a crowded train for instance , when the 20 stone lady with six bags off shopping is seen approaching , her beady eyes fixed on the seat next to mine , a good old root around in the ventilation shaft soon has her scuttling for the far end of the carriage.
Another useful trick that I've learned is that of flicking and rolling ones dentures around incessantly whilst at the same time drooling a bit , that 's another little humdinger that is virtually guaranteed to ensure a solitary ride home all the way from Manchester Victoria.
I also have other underhand tactics which I often deploy in order to deter interlopers from invading my private space , although I prefer to keep quiet about these little gems on the off chance that they may be used against me at some future date..... and apart from this..... one or two of them may even contravene the rules of the Geneva convention.
So, if you ever find yourself on a packed train DTease and see a bloke surrounded by empty seats , that'll most likely be me.

Regards. The Whizzer.

That's gross - worse than poking about in ear holes! I don't know how we have got from Standishgate to here - let's hope it's the terminus!

I hope you're not blaming me Veronica.....and I hope also that you don't take every word that I utter as being gospel .
Take that bit about me having a nice shiny coat for example . In reality my coat is really quite dull , so there's an untruth for a start ....... I'm hoping that a strict regime of Bob Martin's and a course of halibut oil capsules will restore it to its former glory however.

Regards. Ozy.
p.s. Keep a lookout for me on the train.

Afraid it's pot luck getting a train at the moment Ozy, ( due to hot weather!!) I intended going to Southport today - bought the ticket and low and behold, It was cancelled 5 minutes before it was due. I wasn't prepared to wait an hour for another train so demanded a refund, and got it...

Ah! Now here's where you went wrong Veronica , if you'd have taken the 715 Diamond into Wigan , then hopped onto the 375 Arriva , you'd have been in Southport in , ooh , let's see , in about three hours or so.
You'd have enjoyed a leisurely tour of the UNESCO listed site of Skelmersdale Garden City , including a visit to that magnificent edifice by Sir Edwin Lutyens , referred to locally as " the Connee " , and still been in Southport before the shops closed.....just about.
An opportunity missed I would call that.
I'm prompted at this juncture to wonder what Sir John Betjeman would have had to say about Skem . He didn't have much favourable to say about Slough did he ? And he lived there , probably not too far from Julie.

Ozy, you are right about Birkenhead,as the shipbuilder William Laird planned part of the central part of the town as a grid following his design in Edinburgh. Incidentally, Central Park (New York) is modelled on BIrkenhead Park. Getting back to the demise of Wigan shops & market, can any Standish folk remember back in the 1950's when a mobile greengrocer came round the streets (we didn't have a market from memory). I can't remember the persons name but as children (7/8 year old) we used to help him with his round and got paid! 6d or a shilling. That was around 1954/ 6, but my sister remembers him with a pair of horses pulling the cart around Standish before then.

I did that route once Ozy NEVER again! When I first retired I thought I must go everywhere I can with all this lovely time on my hands and my bus pass. Jolting backwards and forwards, pain in the neck and back, all those ring roads, it was a nightmare on wheels On reaching Lord St I stopped for a cuppa and straight on the train back home. I could hardly walk! How people can stand that journey is beyond me.

I too made that trip Veronica and, like you, I bit the bullet and bought a ticket for the train to get back home.
I have done many long Bus trips since but that trip from Wigan to Southport is not one I would care to repeat.

Purely as an experiment Veronica , a few years ago at 0930 one summer's morning, armed with my bus pass , a tent and a folding bike, I boarded the 360 bus near Britannia bridge just to see where I would end up.

After changing buses at Warrington, Northwich, Crewe, God knows where else, and Newcastle, and stopping at every intermediate gas lamp along the route, I finally rocked up in Stafford town centre just short of seven hours later at 1625.
I could probably have shaved an hour off that time had I set off with the sole intention of cycling there.

I pretty much gave up the idea of free bus travel at this point and continued my journey by cycling alongside the Staffs & Worcs, Gloucester & Sharpness and the Kennet & Avon canals, camping along the way, and fetching up a few days later in Reading.
At which point , with forecast inclement weather imminent , and also feeling a bit knackered, I decided to get the train back to Wigan.

At Reading station, the price quoted for a single ticket to Wigan was £92.00 and as my protests that I merely wanted to purchase a ticket and not the actual train seemed to be having little effect on the young lady selling the damn things , this was the price that I was grudgingly forced to stump up.

Leaving Reading at around 1615 however to go to Paddington, then via the tube to King's Cross to catch the Virgin Glasgow train, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself back in Wigan somewhat less than four hours later.

The moral of this tale being.....if your just nipping down to Lidl, then by all means jump on a bus, but if you intend covering any serious distance, then take the train........either that or get yourself a pushbike.

Ozy.

There was a dog on the bus that day Dtease and even that was whining! I went to Clitheroe one day with two friends from Bolton and one was quite a bit older - she was nearly fainting, it was a hot day though! That ended my excursions on buses! It was the novelty of having a bus pass I think.

Indeed Ozy , Look , I am fully aware I am highly unpopular on here because I touch raw nerves of many people set in their ways . But at least I always seem to trigger debate , the fact it may turn hostile towards me is neither here nor there , it’s the discussion that matters . Yes Maureen , I realise you and others would like me to go away as I am a very unpleasant and unsavoury invader to a secure nest . Unfortunately, I can’t do that . One , because I follow the rules of WW and have a right to my opinion. Secondly , I will never cower to group mentality which is so obvious on WW . So , unfortunately, Maureen , you and others ,will have to get used to me , no matter how excruciatingly irritating or horrible you may find me . You could have course group together and get me banned from WW , which would entail looking at all my posts , which I am more than happy for the administrators of WW to do with every single one of my postings .
My love for Wigan is as much as any on here on WW . I care immensely about the place I was born . My values are born and bred from Wigan .
I will continue to challenge , argue , discuss, debate , every minute detail of the direction of Wigan , as every Wigganer has a right to do , under the rules and guidance laid down by the administrators of WW

There was a train to Derbyshire from Wigan/ Daisy Hill a few years ago it didn't cost anything and you could catch a bus with pass to Bakewell - but like all good things it came to an end.

Veronica, I have found that the best way to get from A to B is by a combination of Bus and Train. If I can get there by Train I will use the Train but I don’t mind using the Bus if necessary. The main thing for me is to get there and back without dipping into my hard earned.
I sleep so much better if I can go to bed knowing that I have recovered just a little bit of all the money that the Government purloined from me during my working life.

I have no knowledge or understanding of psychotic irregularities Julie, but surely paranoia must be easily treatable in this day and age.
You say you're unpopular on here , I don't believe that's true , but if you do believe that it's true, then it is . It's that simple really .
You're as popular , or as unpopular as you think you are ,... end of .

I'm quite sure that there are a number of people on here that like neither my views nor my style of airing those views , but that doesn't prevent me from airing them , as I do it as a form of entertainment for myself , not for others, and If other people find my posts interesting or entertaining , then all well and good, and If they find them boring or irritating,.....well tough !

I've been criticised for employing lengthy dialogue , but do you suppose that criticism has served to shorten my posts ? ....quite the contrary in fact .

Your views are equally as valid as anyone else's on here , just as my right to disagree with them are equally as valid as your right to voice them , and vice versa of course .

One of the fundamental errors that you make though is in assuming that we all go around blaming all the woes of the world on someone else , and that is merely a generalisation , which in common with most generalisations is destined ultimately to be proven wrong.

Another fundamental error that you make , and it's been pointed out to you often enough , is that we're all just a bunch of semi - geriatric , retired wagon drivers , bomb fillers and pram polishers in the main. We're not politicians , and I for one couldn't give a flying fadge about the future of the Wigan you supposedly love so passionately . Whatever happens to Wigan in the future will happen with or without my assistance , in fact , pretty much like it always did in the past .

So there you have it , for now at least. I'm sure it'll all go in one ear and come straight out t'other , just as it has previously .

But anyway , I've had enough for now and besides , the oil in the chip pan is beginning to exude blue smoke,....so best of luck for the future Julie , and give my regards to Sir John the next time you bump into him.

Regards. Ozy.

Bloody hell, I feel as though I've just gone fifteen rounds with Mike Tyson.

And yet travelling by coach is no problem at all for me. In fact going by coach overland in Europe ( stopping overnight) as far as Southern Italy is as nothing compared to Southport on the 375 ?! I wonder why, even in America! In fact I can quite easily drop off every time the coach moves! Unbelievable! I suppose it's the way the coaches are built.

I haven't seen a chip pan for years Ozy - I make my own wedges and roast them in the oven. Don't even peel them....the grandkids love 'em - especially with all the seasonings sprinkled on them. Apart from the wedges they love my mash potatoes.