Wigan Album

I have bought your books Frank, vols 1&2 and they make really good reading, I can recommend them!!

Good old Wigan!

There somebody peeping from upstairs
Yesterday I bought Franks volume two book of photos and there are some great photos and memories in it.

I remember going to Latimer's for fresh yeast, (which my Mam always called "barm"), for making bread in Domestic Science at school. I would have only been 15 but was already going out with Peter, (now my husband of 43 years, who I married at 21), and he worked at Sawbridge's Butchers in Commercial Yard, very near to Latimer's. Such a lot of interesting alleyways and arcades have been lost to form the soul-less town that Wigan is today, but of course that's Progress, isn't it?....Isn't it?

What memories this picture stirs- every Saturday morning sent on an errand for Latimer's best bacon. My basket on my arm and trotting in the side entrance and the smell of the shop as you went inside. It was always hustle and bustle and queuing up to get served. These pictures are magic. Did you know you were being watched Frank?

Thanks for the photo Frank of old Wigan town centre. How could Wigan council demolish these buildings in what was a vibrant street to replace them with a goods entrance to shops, most of which are now empty.It really is a crime what they did to the town.

Love these photos!! Keep them coming!!

Progress is a word often used by the Council or other organisations to promote radical changes. A word that hides mistakes and is well used today. The only changes that progress in Wigan for me is the new road layout to the saddle that cuts out Pottery road.

I must have been with you veronica,because I always remember your mam having bacon from latimers

I don't think I took you there Theresa -but I took you everywhere else in your tan-sad!! I was only about 10 at the time- then I had to go to Vose's pie shop!

Vose's sold the most delicious oval-shaped pies, Veronica. Of course I'm too young to remember then....my Mam told me about them, lol!! Oh, I could just go one at this moment!

Indeed they were Irene. I remember them well - lovely thick pastry that melted in your mouth! Always a queue in there as well. Another one was Pie Joe's in Scholes which was nearer - some belting shops in Scholes! I went on errands from a young age when I think about it. There was no need to go up town really. But as you know it was an event then to go 'up Wigan'.