Wigan Album

In the 1950s Fr John Johnson of St Johns and St Marys Wigan worked at that Butchers shop before he went into the Ministry

father john is my cousin and a great man

There must have been a very artistic assistant working in the shop if the drawing of the pig is anything to go by!
Cordy : I did speak to our Terry and he remembers you well from that meeting on the bike ride.

Remember it well and can still smell the sawdust on the floor!

Father John and his twin Brother Jimmy went to my School..St Josephs.

The lost art of sign writing. It is incredible that axe wielding butchers were so adept with the calligraphic brush.

Yes Veronica I saw your other comment.
Fr John, a good chap as mentioned previously; has a twin brother James

When John and me were Altar boys at Saint Josephs he got me to join the Third Order. We had to wear a cord around our waist -- can't remember the reason

A fantastic picture, I remember having whitewash writing on the windows like that.

Cordy, it was worn as a token of penance.

I would love to have had a chance to draw and write on a shop-window like that! I remember whitewash writing in the butcher's window in Ince, always very neat and it was done free-hand, as I've watched the butcher doing it and longed to have a go!

The writing on the windows reminds me of Granville in 'Open All Hours' it seemed to be his job! Arkwright would say "Granville get your cccccloth"!

Should have said "Granville ...'.ffffetch a cccloth"! Poor Granville!

There was a painted add on a house side Preston Road Standish just before Primrose Lane, some of it can still be seen, Three Pigs and I am sure it said, Mark Williams Wigan and Pemberton.

A bit further up Paul was Hodgson's and Noel Chadwick's. Three butchers on the same road just a few 100yards apart, and each could have put a medieval monk to shame.

Paul, I too have seen the advertisement for Mark Williams on the house gable on Preston Rd Standish, underneath the pigs it did say 'So That's Where We Go', this logo was also printed on their paper bags they put your products in.

My dad and I used to love cooked pigs 🐷 tails in jelly from that shop. 😋

Poet, don't forget Lawson's Butchers at the side of add next to Bobby Scholes shop on Preston Road.

Was there a Mark Williams shop in Pemberton ?

There was a Mark Williams Shop at the Bottom of Makinson Arcade, now Thornton's, I used to get 2 pork pies on way to match Saturday in those days one for me and one for Alex Murphy.

The second great butcher's art was the dazzling balancing of the pencil behind the ear.

My First job was there at the tender age of 14 in 1969 aprentice slaugheter man.

did 28 years at mark williams some great work mates there

I remember as a boy going into this shop with my mum and marvelling at the big mirror set above the counter at an angle that reflected all the customers in the shop. It was like being in a painting. I gazed up at the reflection for ages trying to see myself in the sea of faces, making subtle gestures to identify myself.

This was when meat was meat Kings, Ben Turner, Greens est. you did not need to put it in a curry then to give it taste.

I think one of the best window sign writers I ever came across was Tom Sutch the manager of Latimers on market Street Wigan. His writing was like a work of art. It went on first thing in the morning, wiped of last thing at night before shutting and put back on on the following day.