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Ashton

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Wallace and Gromit.
Wallace and Gromit.
Photo: . Ozymandias .
Views: 3,090
Item #: 29072
My friend Bob Grundy, a.k.a Wallace, rides his Velocette combination TRR 29 along Low Bank road in Ashton in April 1965. In the sidecar is William Towey. a.k.a Gromit. They are just about at the point where the Pit Pony public house now stands. The picture is a little blurred owing to the fact that the photographer was at the time riding backwards on the pillion of a 650 Triumph thunderbird. RBG archive.

Comment by: GW. on 22nd February 2017 at 02:28

Nice one Ozzy.

Comment by: Ashton Lad on 22nd February 2017 at 03:24

I prefer a three wheeler car than these, cold and wet things. The combination is going past Jubilee park and not pit pony.

Comment by: Keith Beckett on 22nd February 2017 at 09:20

It is Lowbank Road. Wentworth Road is opposite the street lamp behind the bike. At the top of the picture there's a kink in the road as it nears Old Road.

Comment by: . Ozymandias. on 22nd February 2017 at 09:21

So if we're going past Jubilee park, where's the entrance to Alexandra road and Cansfield road ? I'll admit I don't know where I am half of the time nowadays, but I did back then.

Comment by: atlas on 22nd February 2017 at 09:54

ashton lad its defo lowbank rd great pic

Comment by: Arthur on 22nd February 2017 at 11:36

Ozy. Thanks for posting Bob's pics. I was in the same class at school as Mr Grundy, so please pass on my fondest regards to him. Not seen him for more than half a Century now. Last time I did, he had just restored a pre-war Jag. Very pleased to see he has turned the passion he had in childhood into a thriving business.

Oddly enough, also my late father was also a buddy of Bill Ratciffe (cross ref to other picture) whose gateway the riders are just about to pass.

I can still feel the pain in my feet as I plodded along that stretch on final return to school, following cross country run through the skitters!

Comment by: Maurice on 22nd February 2017 at 11:50

I had a combination in the very early 60s Ozy,I can't remember the make of the sidecar,but the bike was a single cylinder Panther.

Comment by: . Ozymandias. on 22nd February 2017 at 16:08

I remember that Jag actually Arthur, at least if it's the same one I'm thinking of. It used to have a clock that folded down from behind the front passenger seat, so that the passengers in the back knew what time it was. I think someone broke it. It may even have been me. We used to go to the dances at the Padgate teacher training college in it on Saturday evenings, then down to the Hogey Wagon in Warrington. There would usually be about half a dozen of us crammed into it, plus a couple of drums of red diesel on the back seat for good measure quite often. In fact, I'm not sure if he didn't shove a Perkins P6 Diesel engine into the Jag, I know he did that with a couple of Humbers that he owned. I could be wrong about that though, no doubt he'll be letting me know. He's owned that many cars over the years that I stopped counting way back. Some of them were absolute classics as well. If he'd have had the foresight to have mothballed them all in a barn in the south of France, he'd have no doubt been a multi millionaire now, instead of being just an everyday ordinary millionaire.
Regarding the single pot Panther Maurice, I have a photo of one that I took up at Tan Hill years ago. But as there is no Wigan connection, I'm afraid that precludes me from putting it on here.

Regards. Ozy.

Comment by: Ab on 23rd February 2017 at 13:04

Great photo. Not much changed in this scene, except the housing estate to the right and behind the Pit Pony. I bet there was no little there like there is today. I walk along this road often and the hedge rows opposite the fields are littered with rubbish, and the old Skitters road is a dumping ground for lazy fly tippers.

I wonder model of cars they are on the left?. Does anyone not remember the business that was next to the Pit Pony?, can't recall name off hand but my dad recalls in the late 60s or early 70s of seeing a Jaguar Xk120 in the yard that was almost completely rusted away half buried in the ground. Why, whoever owned the place, would leave a car like that rotting away I don't know.

Comment by: Ab on 24th February 2017 at 13:03

You don't happen to know what these other classic cars were that Bob owned by any chance?. I believe the place I was referring to where my dad saw a rotting Jag XK120 was called Ratcliffes, where the Pit Pony now stands. He assures me that it wasn't a MK2 Jag or Daimler 420 because of the longer bonnet and different grill. Anyone know if the owner/s of the place had such a car?.

Comment by: . Ozymandias . on 25th February 2017 at 10:42

I'm not particularly well up on cars if I'm being honest Ab, so even if I could remember them all, and there's been loads, I wouldn't have been able to give an accurate account of them. One in particular that I do remember though was a Humber Pullman. I'm not sure where it came from, but he bunged the Perkins P6 Diesel engine into into it and five of us, myself, Bob Grundy, Bob Sankey, Chrissy Robbo and John Heaton, the late co-owner of Heaton's coaches in Leigh, drove it down to the French Riviera and back. The year would have been 1970. The car was long and black and looked like one of those motors out of the Chicago gangster movies. All the French kids in the villages that we stopped at thought we were Yanks, and kept mythering us for chewing gum.

Comment by: Cromp on 26th February 2017 at 10:53

Oz
I remember the Padgate Saturdays very well. First stop Bay Horse at 6:30 for couple of pints. The 'Monkees' were always on the TV in the Tap Room.Then it was off to Padgate where we all gained entrance using only two Student Union cards, owned by Mark and me. We would pass them out through the toilet window for the next two to gain entrance. Then it was a few hours of Newcastle Brown and dance. Was the Jag the car which required people in the back seats to hold the doors, to stop them flying open on bends? Happy days my friend!

Comment by: . Ozymandias . on 26th February 2017 at 15:38

Yeah, I distinctly remember the student union cards being a bit thin on the ground Lyn, but we always seemed to manage to get in there somehow didn't we ? I think one of my tactics was getting pally with that caretaker type bloke that guarded the place jealously, I forget his name, then breezing in as if I owned the place. I think that one worked a couple of times. You could be right about the car doors, it does seem eminently possible. I recall that we had to manually push one or two of Bob's cars off the Dover to Calais ferry on occasions owing to his failure to observe strict maintenance schedules. i.e. none.

Comment by: Ab on 27th February 2017 at 21:42

Pity there's no petrol station there now, used to be quite convenient. Now it's a car wash full of BMW and 4x4s being washed in the pouring rain.

Comment by: derek evans on 28th February 2017 at 19:03

Could this be the same Bob Grundy that had some military stuff. If so I havnt seen him for 30 years along with most of the others from ASM.

Comment by: BBJ on 27th March 2017 at 04:09

Ab, it was Bill Ratcliffe's yard to the right. I used to live in one of the terraces on the left of the photo. Bill had lots of jags and I guess he might have dumped them in the yard on rhs of photo amongst all the HGV's . I remember someone else mentioning one too.

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