Wigan Album

Nice pic DTease
Many a summer Sunday afternoon was spent here with my paramour at the time. Drink in the cafe and a leisurely stroll around the gardens deciding where to go that evening......it had to be the Casino club !!!

I bet that's why there are dry patches on the grass...any grassy hillock in Wigan was fair game for roly- polying.

Mesnes Park in 1996 and the flower bed below the steps is no longer there replaced with a fountain. The grass on the slopes is bare and scorched and it was only May not high summer in July. Not many people know that there is another Mesnes park seven miles away in Newton le Willows.

Oh for a vimto with ice cream on top,
oh for the summer show in the park you once got,
The metal up the steps, I'm sure its still there,
funny what you remember when a child without care.
The soldier on the plinth I just passed to the pop
the smell on the inside the vimto the lot,
the excitement with straws, remains to this day,
The buzz of once Wigan that won't go away.
So all of you children remember to do,
small hands go shining on Wigan's own shoe..

I remember the slopes. We would hard boil eggs at Easter, go to the park & roll them down a slope which was further round on the right of the photo. They usually cracked when they hit the path at the bottom...then we ate them !

Although May is still an early summer month, the state of the grass suggests that it had been quite warm and dry. The summer of 1995 was a long dry one and but not quite the hottest in comparison with 2018. I left school in 1996 and I started work in July and I remember walking through Mesnes Park quite frequently during those first few months wearing just my shirt sleeves. Sadly parts of the park are now looking badly neglected & its about time Wigan Council pulled their finger out to really bring the park back up to its former glory.

Has the soldier’s statue been dismantled?. I believe it related to the Boar War. It was in a state of disrepair. The arm that carried the flag was broken off just after the war. 1945/46. A sailor that had had a few too many, broke the arm off. It was reported in the Observer that when asked by the magistrates’ why he had done it. His reply was. “ He looked as though he was fed up of holding it”.

Albert - the vandalism which eventually led to the original Boer War statue being taken down and disposed of, began as early as September 19i9. A wounded veteran in his cups, broke off the pistol and a finger, shouting, ' I'll pull the *** down. It's a *** disgrace'. He was jailed.
Entries for the two memorials (the original and its replacement) may be found on the War Memorials Register - ref. nos. WMR 18517 and 78317.