Wigan Album

This takes me back to September 3rd, 1947 when I started Grammar School.This was the Girls entrance, the boys had to go up the road to get in. the classrooms to the right of the entrance were rooms 1 and 2,above was the Physics lab and to the left the Art room.Memories are made of this. I expect Irene Roberts will also make a comment.

Smashing ink-drawing! Pretty sure that it's by the artist who also devised 'The Perfect Paper Stretcher.'

Yes, Alan H, I can see the Physics Lab and the Art Room as clearly in my mind as when I was there, although I only started there in 1964. The art teacher was Miss Unsworth and I have a feeling she would have been there when you were there too. I can see the hall, corridors, cloakrooms etc. etc, as if it were yesterday. A friend from London visited me earlier in the year and took me up to the school. It was a very hot day, (yes, we did have one or two this year!), and my friend parked on Lord Street; it was very quiet and the heat had produced a bit of a haze in the air and it gave an odd, dream-like quality to the few minutes it took to walk up to the school. I felt a bit like Kathleen Turner in "Peggy Sue Got Married" when she travels back in time to her High School. Fanciful, maybe, but I always DID have a vivid imagination, and it was rather a nice experience!

I think you make an important point Irene, we all have imaginations, fanciful or not, and one of the reasons I suspect wiganworld "works" is because the photos spark that imagination.

Irene, You are correct, Mrs Unsworth was indeed Art mistress when I was there,in your articles in Past Forward you also mentioned other teachers who were there when I was so they must have been near retirement by then.Happy days I always look for your contributions to P-a-D, they are always interesting.

I was in my first year at HAGS at Christmas 1950 - does anyone remember three or four of the sixth-formers removing, as a "prank," the school's foundation stone, dating from the 1630s, which was kept in a glass case in the main corridor. The inspiration for this was the removal of the Stone of Scone from the Houses of Parliament.
The foundation stone was quickly recovered and the culprits (can't remember the names) were made to carry a large piece of concrete bearing a notice "this is not the foundation stone" round all the classrooms.

Do you remember French teacher Mr (Doggie?) Barker? He was a pupil there and on staff from 1927 till retirement c. 1951; died 1965. He was my mother's brother. My father's father was headmaster of HAGS 1882-1909. Father and his siblings were pupils, including his 3 sisters, the only girls in the boys' school! They had to go into the house during breaktime, not play with the boys.