Wigan Album

Looks like Kevin at the back, he was based at Ashton Town Hall later when he was a sweeper, and even then in the 1990s he still looked very much the same as in this photo. I can imagine the lifting of the galvanised bins put many a back out as they were heavy even without refuse in them, the plastic ones though lighter than the metal bins still had a fair weight of refuse in them, I always thought 'bin men' having a thankless job, both by the public and management alike. "I don't think so - you do a grand job lads, and turning out in all weathers too."

When young a gang of us lads would run through those Bank Chambers when going to The Prince's cinema and have a shout because it was very echoey.

You don’t see today’s bin men heaving the bins on their shoulders and wearing their own work clothes.

You're right Veronica, I agree at least some things have changed for the better.

Veronica it's called progress, which would you sooner work with, the old fashioned dust bins or the wheels bins.
I think k that's a no brainner.

How many have had dog bites entering gardens. This is one job that definitely improved for the better, even if they don't put the bins back where they got them from. Sometimes ours is across the street.

I have seen this photo before and was going to comment that the man on the left was someone I knew called Adrian....I have always thought it was him but Cyril is probably right. However, the man I knew WAS a bin-man and was from the Platt Bridge area, and was uncannily like the man in the photo so I could just have got his name wrong. The old bins were so much smaller than the wheelie-bins but we burned rubbish on our coal fires back in the sixties so less rubbish went in the bins. The bin-men were unsung heroes, carrying those heavy, smelly bins in all weathers and I remember people giving them a "Christmas Box" of a few shillings each year in gratitude.

Yes I agree it’s much better for the refuse collectors. These men would not have expected anything else with regard to working conditions, the same for the men who worked down the mines. It’s a valued job these days working ‘’ on the bins” in fact they seem to enjoy themselves especially in Summer. A different generation and breed in those days.

I remember earlier days in the fifties the
‘dust men’ as they were called all wore the same long brown leather aprons over brown coloured overalls. I was surprised to see them wearing ordinary clothes on this photo.

It seems weird now, but I doubt if anyone then thought there'd ever be any other way of handling domestic rubbish.

Irene I noticed 10 minutes after I posted this photo it was on the other site!
To go back to working conditions what about coalmen delivering the bags of coal? I haven’t seen a ‘coalman’ for years and years. I wonder how that is delivered these days. Some people we know still have coal fires and drinks copious amounts of sherry. I wonder if the price for coal has gone up.

Veronica - you might be recalling the night-soil shifters....

I remember Michael Parkinson, him off the telly, saying that he and some others wouldn't be having a wheelie bins block the country lane where they lived

They were the ‘ordinary’ bin men Rev. David
I remember them quite distinctly rolling the bins down the entry between our house and next doors. I can’t remember what the contents of the bins went into though - strangely. We had like most people an outside toilet at that time. Perhaps they still wore that type of clothing that ‘ night soil’ workers had worn or still wore.

Veronica, you do still get the odd coal-lorry. Someone who lives on the estate behind me used to have a coal fire and it was odd seeing the smoke from the chimney and occasionally when walking up to Abram Park I would see the coal-man delivering there. However, since we lost our dogs some years ago, I rarely pass that house any more so don't know if they still have a coal fire, but Peter and I were behind a coal-delivery van in the car one day last year and it seemed a novelty where once it was an everyday sight.

That was a hard job being a binman, not only rolling with one hand, but lifting it up to the bin lorries.
No many coal men about these days, almost dead, all my work mates have sadly past away.
Now that was a hard job street coalman, grabbing 100cwt of coal in a sack off a lorrie to a back yard coal shed in the rain, I did it 5 days a week for years, my back took some real punishment, I now walk looking at my shoes.
I use 25kg bags of coal, but mainly wood since I now have a wood burner....and plenty Sherry to keep me warm, cheers.

Log burners are growing since the fuel crisis more and more people are going that way. I suppose the down side is making it. Both the bin and coal men had really hard jobs. I must confest nothing beats a coal fire on a bitter cold Winters night or even today.

Not only as the title changed from binman the refuse collection, but the job looks so much easier.

Irene, they may have been two brothers or his name may have been Adrian too, but I wouldn't know as I only knew him as Kevin. The office I originally worked from was the old Christopher Street Mortuary at Ince and in 1990 this and also the office at Leigh closed and became combined with the office at Ashton Town Hall, the Ashton road sweepers were still based in the yard there and that is how I became to know Kevin and others too, though it was only a cursory hello etc, if I saw them passing of a morning.

I wouldn't have liked the job of heaving those heavy galvanised steel bins up and possibly having rotten fish or meat full of maggots falling from them onto my shoulder, then there would be the smell of the refuse in the wagon, you'll get an idea of how gut wrenching it is if you go to the Kirkless tip at Higher Ince.

I can smell Woodburners when I'm walking home from pub

I get the message Cyril. But in those days hot ashes from the coal fires would have put the dampners on smells.

When folks did have coal fires the majority of the rubbish produced got burned as Irene was saying, so anything to attract flies was usually put on the fire, but even with ashes mixed in the refuse did have a distinctive smell, unfortunately there probably aren't any of bin men like in the photo around now to tell of the smell. It did say on the bin lids 'No Hot Ashes.'

Yes the solid food got burned definitely that’s if anything was left. If anything fatty was thrown on the fire there would be spitting sparks. I used to take peelings from potato’s etc to somebody who kept pigs at the bottom of Stuart St and got some toffee in return. We used to go to the back gate with them. I never actually saw any pigs but I presume there was some. I don’t know if it was even legal to keep a pig in the back yard. I just did as I was told. Come to think of it the peelings were taken off me in a ‘shifty’ manner. …. ;0))

Veronica, I can remember taking peelings to a local shopkeeper who kept chickens in the yard and getting a few toffees in exchange, straight from the shopkeeper's hand into mine ....no-one fussed about plastic gloves back then. I remember when the fire wouldn't "get going" and my Mam used to throw the contents of the sugar-bowl on it and it would blaze up!

Nothing wasted in those days Irene….
No fridges either to keep things fresh. I think my upbringing has made me resistant to all sorts of virus’s. How on earth did we survive..

Like you have said Veronica we became resistant to some germs . There were a lot of nasty diseases about then and you wonder why in this day and age some of them are slowly coming back.(polio TB Scarlet fever) I wonder if because we made every more sterile ,sprays which allege to kill 99% of germs that our immune system gets weaker?

Yes we did the same with veg peelings taking them to Hayes down the road, they had a smallholding and had pigs, chickens and geese, you were lucky too as we didn't get anything for taking them. We would also go to a farm further down and they too had a very big pig called Sally, but they didn't want any veg peelings, Sally was always having piglets which didn't get very old before they sold them on to another farmer who they said would then fatten them up.

Noticed there's a few new names posting, hope they post some good comments.

You're right cyril it does look like a young kevin, but he wasn't a bin man when i knew him in 70s he was on brush around Ashton, he was only a small guy as i remember we used take a short cut past council yard over small bridge and come out at police station on old road.

Wallgate outside the post office in 1967 that has the date stone of the building 1884. The arcade goes to the back of the Princes cinema that had closed in 1964.
Lonnie Donnegan's song My old man's a dustman he wears a dustman's cap, he wears gorblimey trousers and he lives in a council flat was a few years earlier in 1959.

Yes Dave he was still a brush mechanic in the 1990s, I'm left wondering if Kevin ever was on the bins and the man in the photo was his brother or just someone who genuinely resembled him, initially Irene wrote that she believed the person to be someone named Adrian who was on the bins around Platt Bridge.

Mr X the Bank Chambers led to Clarence Yard which encircled the Princes Cinema and that came out on either Wallgate or King Street West.

Also according to Cinema Treasures the Princes Cinema closed its doors 10th January 1970 after the showing of The Mad Room. (1969) I hadn't known that it was initially the Kings Electric Theatre and later became the New Princes Cinema and was demolished in 1933, and replaced with the Princes Cinema. After closing it later became a Discoteque and Night/Cabaret Club so it's had quite an interesting and varied life.

The Kings Electric Theatre would put on live acts as well as showing films and put on Candlelight Concert nights, I'm sure the quartet that played on stage in the midst of all those candles on stage and also folks on the front rows must have become to get very hot as the night wore on.
See weblinks for photos and information:
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/50478
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/50482

Cyril, I'm sure the man on the photo is the man I knew and perhaps I just got his name wrong. I seem to remember him going in the pubs in Platt Bridge, mainly The Victoria pub, which is where I feel I remember him from, but that doesn't necessarily mean he lived in Platt Bridge; he could have been visiting the area with a friend or relative, but I remember him talking about his job on the bins to my parents. What a pity we are unable to verify this but my parents are no longer with us. If the man on the photo is a different person altogether, he is a "dead ringer", but then they say we all have a "double"! A mystery, Cyril!

Years ago, on some course or other I was on we were asked who saved the most lives, a dustman or a brain surgeon. Answer was the dustman as filth of all kinds breeds disease and spreads it so the dustman was the winner for keeping the muck out of homes and disposing of it. Some people of course will have a different take on this.