Wigan Album

My Dad worked as a young man at that pit, having started work at The Maypole Pit in Abram at the age of 12. He went on to Plank Lane and remembered that he had his first pint of beer in The Britannia Pub. I always think of him when we go over the swing bridge at Plank Lane.

All that work creating mine buildings and the underground mines, and all the wealth that was created. Sadly there is little to show for all that effort, it has all been lost into the rich and wasted by successive governments. We don't seem able to make more money anymore.

Don't know about profits from coal going to government, but there are some quite bonny grand houses in north of England built on the profits of the coal owners. Just this week, in the news is the restoration of Wentworth Woodhouse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wentworth_Woodhouse

It is about half the size of Buckingham Palace, which itself was built on profits of mining, though not coal in this instance. However, I believe the Bowes-Lyon family, (Queen Mother's family of origin) were beneficiaries of coal owning.

When coal was king, some people clearly enjoyed a considerable bonanza.

i did say the money was lost into the rich AND wasted by governments. There are countless examples of grand houses funded out of the sweat of miners, one of which is currently being refurbished using public money, just outside Wigan.

Freddie, if you mean Haigh Hall, I don’t think it was built by money made from coal mining. It was built by people who were landed gentry and were acting tax collectors for the crown. They could still have built Haigh Hall without coal, that would just be a sideline.

Although I never actually owned one myself , I always admired the look of the A40 . ( the car that is … not the road ) .

A bloke from St Helens named Jed that I knew briefly once owned one .

He had the likeness of the big fella out of the Righteous Brothers , the one with the deep voice.

We took it for a run over the Cat & Fiddle one evening in 1972 or thereabouts , with some other bloke ; … I forget who .

And thats it …

Sorry ! …

Talk about an anticlimax.

And no connection with Bickershaw colliery either … Damn !

Although I did cart coal out of the place on umpteen occasions if that counts .

Pardon me , but I’m just in the process of finishing this box of Maltesers that I was given for Christmas .

Lord ! Don’t these bleed’n Maltesers make you thirsty after you’ve eaten half a boxful ?

They ought to come with a government health warning really .

But at least thats it until next Christmas .

Now where’s that cider ?
…. Bugger ! … it’s disappeared … just like every other meandrous bloody thing does in this place .

I hope it was not Cat and Fiddle that proved to be the anti-climax!

Always been one of my favourite journeys: that, and Woodhead, and of course Snake. Maybe just flying a kite, but was reported this week they are considering closing snake because of upkeep expense.

Oxygen, just wondering, could that Jed have been Jed Ashall?

Dunno OD . It’s 50 odd years ago , and I only knew the lad briefly .

He were a tall lad and resembled the bloke I mentioned , and his A40 was green I think .

And that’s about all I can remember about him .

Oh ! … and he had a tendency to say “ yon mon con myther an Easter rat “ .
Being from St Helens , he obviously wasn’t familiar the correct saying .