Wigan Album

Yet more of the Crispin customers spilling out onto the street at the end of Sunday lunch time circa 1951. The beginning of Birkett Street and further along Kirklless street can just be seen. The gentleman on the extreme left is Dick Prescott a veteran of the Gallipolli landings in the First World War. His account of it made memorable stories. He also recounted how two Wiganers who were doing work in the cellar of a pub in town (I think it may have been the White Heart Inn but I'm not sure) whose landlord was Charlie Seeling the great ex-Wigan forward, were found dead in the pub's cellar. Apparently they had helped themselves to bottles of whisky while working and drunk the lot, the reason they died was because in those days it was normal practice for the whisky to be delivered to premises in full strength condition, and then it would diluted by the landlords on site. The whisky they consumed had not yet been diluted and the strength of it had resulted in their deaths. I've no idea when this took place but Charlie came over to this country with the 1905 New Zealand tourists and played for Wigan for a good many years before he took a pub. It could have taken place in the 1920's.