Wigan Album

This is a brilliant photo of Wigan past, and what Wigan World is all about. The Internet has a lot to answer for, but this is our past, and something most of us would never have seen but for this medium. Thankyou, Keith.

Thank you Irene, that's very gracious of you and much appreciated.

A Wigan tradition: working men drinking on Sunday lunch. I remember my dad coming home from the Club after drinking with his brother (my uncle Cedric). It was a sunlit touched dining room: my mother would serve the Sunday roast beef; the smells of meat and apple pie baking...My dad would be in high spirits. The sound of Billy Cotton on the wireless as we sat down to eat...And my mum, forever the pessimist: "Not won on the bingo then?" Happy, but monochrome days with only the early afternoon sun as a touching memory...

Long John's caught my attention. Perhaps he had a hound not a whippet!

A moment in time captured, and all the better for the subjects apparently not being aware the camera.
Wonderful photo, Keith.

I don't know of the man called "Long John", ( I was born in 1952), but I do vaguely remember The Lodging House. However, I do remember a man called "Long Tommy", (or "Lung Tommy" in our Ince dialect), who lived in Ince in my childhood, (late fifties/early sixties), and wonder if anyone else remembers him? There were so many "characters" in those days; they were part of our lives and deserve to be remembered.

I didn't know Long John, but there was a "Long Tommy", (known in our Ince dialect as "Lung Tommy") in my childhood, (late 1950s/early 60s......I was born in 1952). He was one of the many "characters" who enriched our lives; I wonder if any other Wigan World "Incers" remember him?

My apologies for TWO comments re "Long Tommy".....I thought I hadn't successfully submitted the first one. Sorry!

Irene,I've done that myself a couple of times...it's easily done.

lung tommy i think his name was tommy pennington am sure they use to call him that

Yes, you're right, cs. Tommy Pennington it was! I'd forgotten that.

I remember Mr Gannon

We used to live next door to the Crispin Arms and I remember yhe noise when it was closing time and all the men were coming out.

The shop next door to the crisp in arms was run by my mother who was a dressmaker and Tailoress. I remember when they were knocking down the pub probably around 1952/3 we had so many mice coming from the pub during t hat time. It got so bad that we actually moved to Wrightington St in 1953 and instead of running the shop and making clothes my mother Florence Carrington began to teach at Bolton Technical College.

Cs and Irene my grandad was called Tommy Pennington and my dad maned after him, he had a brother Jimmy and I think they lived at the end of the Grove? My dad said he and his brother used to slide down the bridge steps on a tin tea tray, which I picture every time I pass there, lucky he made it to become a father!