Wigan Album

I remember the old building on the corner that’s being ‘measured’ but don’t remember the new building being built across the road, it seemed it had always been there. Maybe I remember the old more because of the Chemist (Jack Tomorrow’s) out of the photo to the left.

Those Ordnance Survey " Timepix "photos , (which people call The Pointy Man photos), taken in 1952, fascinate me. I have one of Ince Green Lane, taken just near the house where I was born, (also in 1952!), as my screensaver. I like black-and-white photography but I think the colourisation brings them to life. Thankyou Keith.

Thank you for those comments, the shop was a shoe shop or Cloggers, owned by Speakman, I don’t recall his first name. I lived in the Crispin Arm from 1950 to 1956 and would have seen the advertising hoardings daily and yet until I found this 1952 photo I would have had difficulty in remembering them.

What I failed to mention, that I did remember, was the dull thud, of what I presume was a steam hammer from Clarington Forge, as it moulded steel into shape. It seemed to shake the surrounding area but that might be my over active imagination.

Keith, I had an aunt and uncle who lived on Gordon St. which was opposite what was then The Wigan and Leigh Workshops for the Blind on Darlington St. Their house backed on to Clarington Forge and, when visiting , you would hear the loud and continuous thud from the forge, as though it was in their back yard. They claimed never to notice it - I suppose like people who lived near a railway line and claimed never to to hear the noise of the trains back in the age of steam.

I was intrigued with that half of a cigarette pack on the advertisement hoardings as I couldn't recognise it, and after a search it's for 'Bar One' cigarettes. Here's a photo of them:
https://live.staticflickr.com/4036/4524719839_979ed49d16_b.jpg

It's often been said that in the 1950/60s they didn't know about the harmful effects of tobacco and cigarette smoking, really, it's quite feasible that they did with tobacco being brought back from America by Sir Walter Ralegh in the 16th century, so it was a long time for the adverse affects to become known, and it's often been suggested that the cigarette companies paid out a lot of money to suppress this knowledge and the facts that tobacco was harmful, and caused a lot of damage to the human body, just to keep folks in the dark and to carry on or start to smoke cigarettes, which of course they denied.

I began smoking in the late 1960s when mostly everyone seemed to do so and when it was still seen has being sociable to smoke and I was offered one and took it and became hooked, I'd often wish in later years that I'd never begun to smoke with it being a hard nicotine addiction and habit to break, and only did give up the 'Coffin Nails' when the damage had been done. I have known folks too who being in their last weeks of life with having lung cancer and were still smoking, such was the hold nicotine had over them, or has one would say "there's no point in me giving up now." There's always a point to giving them up and better still not starting to smoke in the first place.

Thank you for your story Derek I was beginning to wonder if I’d been imagining the noise from the forge. Interesting to note that your aunt and uncle lived in Gordon Street while my grandmother, who I would visit occasionally lived in nearby Clarington Grove but can’t recall ever hearing the thud from the forge whilst there.
So true Cyril, the powers that be must have known the damaging effects but I suspect it was not allowed to be widely known.

I was born in No2 Kirkless st in 1956 and grew up here I do not remember a roundabout or traffic lights