Wigan Album

I loved going in this shop..writing pads,fountain pens,erasers,pencil,pencil sharpeners..envelopes..it was like looking in a sweet shop..to me anyway.I couldn't even find a pencil sharpener in Asda last week..we seem to have lost some finesse in goods somewhere along the way.

This was Starr's when I was a little girl and, like Maureen. I loved it. I spent hours in there buying little packets of gold stars like the teachers stuck in our books for good work...they weren't self-adhesive in those days, you had to lick them! I also used to buy daft things like Telephone Memo Pads when nobody I knew possessed a telephone. I still have a fascination for stationery as does my grand-daughter Edie, but WH Smith, Ryman's and Smiggle will never have the atmosphere that Starr's had.

We had some very 'select' shops in Wigan - I don't think we realised how lucky we were really, back in the day and they were quite posh! You could buy anything at all at one time.

Irene, in the 1950s this was Wildings bookshop, roughly opposite the post office. The upstairs windows are still the same today but it's a pub/bar nowadays, if Google street view is up-to-date. Starr's was a much smaller shop on the opposite side just above Ashton's tobacconist's (on the left as you go up Wallgate).

I bought a French / English Dictionary from here in 1960 and I still have it.
My address then was 40 John St, I have written in it- Veronique Catterall,
40 , Rue de Jean, Scholes, Wigan, Angleterre. Aged 131/2. The pages are yellow it cost 9 shillings and 6 pence and I wouldn't part with it for the world!

This was definitely Wildings...sorry Irene.

I worked at Platt's printers in Dorning Street in the 60's.

John. I remember both Starr's AND Wilding's well but I had them opposite to your description in my mind, With Starr's at 17, Wallgate and Wilding's across the road near Joan Barrie's. This was in the 1960s. I'm not contradicting you at all, but just wondering if they changed premises at some point? This is just a "friendly", John, not an argument....I know the memory plays tricks. Anyway, wherever they were, I'm glad we both had the pleasure of knowing those atmospheric shops. xx

I thought this was still Platt's when I left Wigan in 1951,though iy was then owned by another family.My William books came from their & the most superb stationery & paint boxes.Wigan Grammar School prizes were supplied by them.Starr;s was a more cramped upper room near Makinson's cafe.I do agree about the quality of Wigan shops.Three locally owned Department stores & a wide choice of high class grocersUntil Marks & Woolworth everything was owned by local people

Irene, I would never dream of having an argument with you! It's just that that's how I remember the two bookshops. Wildings went a long way back from the street inside. Starr's was a relatively small shop.
As you say they may well have swapped sides later but my memories are from the fifties. And they were both locally owned independent businesses unlike most of today's bookshops.

I used to in there every morning on the way to school,mum used to work there,this was in the seventies,my mum was Doreen marshall,and my auntie Eileen Halsal also worked there,

I bought my foreign stamps from Stars, for my stamp collection and as l remember most of them were Magar Posta I think you as Hungry!

Was Mr. Platt the head of the Boy Scout movement in Wigan.

I remember the inscription well, Peter; Magyar Posta. Belgique, Suid-Afrika, Norge and many other countries lower denomination stamps were also offered in Stanley Gibbons' Approvals during the late fifties. Norway's SG 380 (the 'green' King Haaken Vii 1 Krone) was an almost certainty for inclusion.

Yes he was Albert, bit of a scandal.

A nice post Veronique.

Nice of you to say Philip- must say I like the French version of my name better!!!

I remember Wildings being the go-to place for less run-of-the-mill stationery requirements.

Blotters, ink eradicator, drawing instruments, Linsen Fabric and such like.

Also Text Books, though usually to order, if not reading for a course running locally.