Wigan Album

And that's the way the town centre is heading. Desolate! They will build apartments with no shops in sight. No people about not even a milkman. I don't recognise modern Scholes only the Scholes of old with throngs of people. I see myself running up and down the Amy Lane of my youth and even that path has gone along with the cobbles. Sliding down on a Winter's icy night or trudging up in the fog after a night at the 'pictures'. But Que Sera Sera.

It looks like the pic was taken from the multi storey car park that used to be at the bottom of Millgate.
The tower blocks replacing old Victorian houses that were definitely in need of modernization, but to turn it into the demolition of everything old, in favour of everything new was probably not a good idea.
So we are left with high rise buildings where families living close to each other haven't a clue who their neighbours are.
The 1960s housing solution worked well, didn't it.

Why does everyone seem to look at the Scholes of old through rose tinted glasses? I was brought up in Whelley and remember Scholes as it was in the forties and fifties very well. As a society we have tremendous problems which were undreamed of then, but life then was no bed of roses for ordinary working people and, on balance, the quality our lives is much better now than then. Admittedly the architecture of the 50s/60s and up to the present time is not to everyone's taste but surely it is far pleasanter aesthetically than the back to back streets of sub standard housing of the past?

It was the whole community spirit of Scholes not so much the bricks and mortar Derek. It looks so isolated now - I don't even think what replaced the old Scholes is aesthetically pleasing, even if the folk had a bathroom for the first time. I feel sympathy for those who do not have a backyard/garden to call their own.

I can't guess the date of this photograph, probably taken up to 20 years ago from the first multistorey car park in Wigan that was demolished for the Grand Arcade development, and the silver car is a Citroen AX that is hardly seen today.The two blocks of flats are Derby and Woodcock House (Woodcock was the first of the five identical blocks to be built, with Derby, Crompton, Mannion and Brook House that followed in the late 1960s). St Catherine's church spire is visible but not Lowes House maisonette flats that were demolished in 1998. In 2006 I saw magician Paul Daniels entering Derby House to visit one of his sons who lived there and had a shop in Mesnes Street.