Wigan Album

I remember it Ron, as I do remember going there with mum & dad as a little girl, for my dad's new suit.We used to go to Burtons menswear as well.

Thanks for the memories Ron!!

Shop windows were always dressed impeccably and usually changed weekly. Even if you weren’t buying anything it was great to look in shop windows and think maybe next pay day I’ll buy something from there I’ve seen… so many shops you couldn’t make your mind up.

Remember the jingle...it came straight into my head on seeing the photo ! Was the shop next to M&S or Pendelburys ?

A young lad in Ince when I was growing up was called John Collier and he must have been fed up of the other children singing "John Collier, John Collier, The Window to Watch"! But we all used to sing the jolly, catchy jingles from the telly adverts back then, in the days before they were all for funeral services! Bring back Captain Birdseye and Murray Mints, I say!

Helen the shop was on the opposite side of the road. You can just make out what is now the HALIFAX. on the left

I remember buying a made to measure suit from this shop in the early 60s for the princely sum of £12.

Hi RON the bank you refer to is it not the Nat West ? Also is the old john Colliers now the card shop ? just asking

Alan, it is the nat west and it is the card shop in its place.

Anyone remember the name of the store that was further down from John Collier. You could enter it from Standishgate & exit from the back into the old Market place ? I seem to think it was The British Home Stores...or maybe Bon Marche ? Thanks Ron, got my bearings now !

Helen - it was British Home Stores. The building is still there, now occupied by a B&M discount store.

It was the British Home Stores Helen. On the corner next to it was Bon March which I can vaguely remember.

It was British Home Stores, Helen. You went in at ground level from Standishgate and exited by some stairs at the far end of the store, coming out near to the old Market Hall, the fish shops and the fruit market.

Helen, it was the British Home Stores (now B &M) Bon Marche was further down on Standishgate and went around the corner with windows in Mesnes St.

My first job after leaving school was at Colliers. August 1984, on Maggie Thatcher's good old Y.T.S. scheme. Where you basically did more work than anyone else as the employer wasn't paying your wages! £25.00 a week, and I had to give my Mum £10 of that!!

A passage has been mentioned from Standishgate to the old market. Does Three Shires Opening mean anything to anyone. Presume it was a pub. Was this the passage that was there before redevelopment?

There was a passageway next to either British Home Stores or Timpson's shoe shop in the 1960s which led through to the market, ending near the BACK doors of British Home Stores and I believe there was once a pub at the other side of the passage, also on Standishgate, called The Three Crowns. I can't recall the pub but I recall the passage....it housed "Lizzie Lastic's" Haberdashery Shop at one time and I walked up there many times.

Yes the passage was a great short cut to the Market. They
(the planners) knew what they were about in those olden, golden days! Unlike now where you could be tramping round for ages to get were you’re going!

I bet you wished it was Ducketts passage Irene.