Wigan Album

I think this was taken from the PICTUREPOST magazine

I think you're right, Ron, and I'm sure I have seen this pic from the other side, showing the girls facing the camera.

No traffic jams then hundreds walking to work.

You can bet they were talking about where they were going that night. ;o ))

Still remember the smell of mams pinny when she worked there. Funny how something’s we take in as children and never forget . Let no one tell me that a smell is lost in memory. Pictures like this and it’s there, as strong as ever as a child.. Special Thanks to Ron

Irene's on the right track: She's probably likening this photo to Item 29527, the latter image evoking her thoughts of the Gracie Fields film Sing As We Go.

I remember my mother coming home covered in 'fluff'. Perhaps that's why she always had a bad chest.

My Auntie always had cotton-fluff stuck to her hair and coat; the cotton floated in the air outside The Empress Mill in Ince and, on a warm Summer's day, it had a distinctive oily, but not unpleasant, smell. Aunty Mary used to bring balls of tubular string, known as "banding", home from the mill and we children used it on our whips in games of "top-and-whip".

I worked at Trench' and Eck's in the 60s. Last thing we all did when getting ready to go home was wetting our hands and peeling the film of cotton off our clothes. I had to peel it off my eyeballs once ! Ah, the good old days.

My beloved Wallgate..thank you Ron.

So many lovely memories brought back for Maureen with this photo. I was reading the Archives of St.Joseph's Church last night and it mentions lots of people going to early Masses before going on to work.How times change.

The wet conditions doesn't appear to bother them. I mentioned this before, the good humoured banter that used to take place between the bobby on traffic control duty, where the girls' crossed the road at Miry Lane, and the girls' themselves, when they were in a hurry to catch their buses. All of them, the "Salt of the Earth."

Albert,if you haven't already seen it...have a look at a painting on google , it's by the artist"Eyre Crowe" titled The dinner Hour..it shows mill girls at the top part of Miry Lane.

Beautiful photo . You can hear the footsteps on the wet pavement slabs.

I bet those lovely pinafored Ladies would never have gone to the Supermarket, the Doctor's or The School Run in their pyjamas, even had they had the time! Hard-working, cheerful lasses, every one.

Maureen. There are certainly great photographs shown on this website "Eyre Crowe". When the girls finished their shift at both factories, it was tantamount to a female invasion, at the Miry Lane crossing of Wallgate. Happy days.

The girl in the middle looks like she's casting a sneaky, over the shoulder eye over the lad reading the paper.

Maureen, the painting you refer to is in Manchester Art Gallery.

Thank you for that information A.W..I bet it looks grand up there with all the other works of art.

Not one atom of litter . Not a single cig butt. Bring back the road sweep .