Wigan Album

Nice row of buildings. Who owns them, are they going to be converted to something...or demolished ?

Whereabouts in Ince are they?

half way up Belle Green Lane, on the left hand side, just before the Belle Green pub

Thowsies are aif way up Bell Green lane in't thowd dairy yard. I remeber when Sutcliffe's Tripe Dressers owned them and one or two of their employees rented them for a while. The houses were infested with rats and mice.

the stone wall to the right of the picture, was part of the loading bay for the dairy.

My uncle worked at Smiths Dairy as a lorry drivers mate he would be about 15 at the time (1958) he told me that when they were delivering to a shop, more often than not the shop owner wanted the crates put in the back room, when they were bringing out the empties in a crate, the trick was to flick a packet of cigs off the shelf in the shop into the crate without the owner catching you do it.. One lady got wise to it and sellotaped all the cigs together thats how he got caught out, dragging about 15 packets of cigs behind him whilst walking out of the shop. He also reckoned that you could load the lorry in such a way that you have a couple of extra crates on without the loader realising it, these were then used to trade with other lorry drivers you met such as bread men and coal men.

Gerry, you are giving all our secrets away, I was a drivers mate, a few years before that. lol

So was it true then? Aitch. I always thought my uncle were just telling tall stories to make us laugh when we were kids

I wont belittle your uncles stories Gerry, suffice to say, I wasn't always a good lad.