Wigan Album

Three of us: me, our Dave and his mate Ray were wandering up and down the locks in Higher Ince. It was in the Summer, sometime around 1968 or 1969; our Dave and his mate would have been about nine years old and me, ten or eleven.

We went down to the Rose Bridge lock to have a look and see who was fishing. All the kids used to line up on the Bandag Tyres side for snatching gudgeon. It looked like there was a match on sometimes. Then, we set off up the locks and just had a wander and a bit of a throw-in where there wasn’t anyone fishing, and checked all the lock gates looking for lost quills. On reaching the Iron Bridge lock, we decided to go a bit further on, but not too far up, and crossed over onto the Rabbit Rocks side. At the lower bywash on the second lock up, Ray found a rod bag lying like a dead snake in the long grass at the side. It was a belter; beige coloured and with good tie strings. What a find! That sort of thing didn’t happen everyday. I wanted to do a swap, but Ray said that his Dad needed a bag for his piking rod and tucked it in his jeans. There was a bloke with his little lad fishing at the upstream bywash, and we went up to see if he’d caught owt.

You had to be careful. Some blokes would shout and send you off. We sallied up behind him, quiet, no messing, and asked him, and he seemed alright, so we watched him for a bit. He didn’t get any bites.

Ray’s Dad was a bit fierce and a bit strict: me and our Dave were frightened of him. He would come out in the street at bed time and do a special whistle and if Ray didn’t go in straight away he wouldn’t be out the next night. It wasn’t going dark yet but we thought we’d better get closer to home. We were too far up the locks anyway, so we set off downhill. Back at the Iron Bridge lock, we crossed onto the towpath again and carried on down. We had only seen two other blokes fishing, close together, on our way up, and we were going to see if they had caught anything before we went off home.

By the time that we had done the Iron Bridge lock, checked for quills and then done the Sandy Bottoms lock, our Dave had wandered off a bit in front on his own, fed up, because I was trying to talk Ray into giving up the rod bag he’d found. There must have been some swap or other made and, as he gives it to me, we hear our Dave shout, “He’s got one!” So off we scramble and we catch him up in the middle of the Nameless lock, just as this bloke’s mate pushes his landing net into the water. “Get back a bit lads, don’t go near the edge,” says the bloke with the rod. We back off a bit, but only a bit, and his rod bends like mad. There’s loads of swirling going on and we can see this massive snig thrashing about, its head out of the water, and the bloke’s mate tries to get the landing net under it. He tries once. Then he tries again, but the snig’s swimming backwards, it’s absolutely massive, and it keeps slipping back out over the edge of the net. Then, the bloke from the bywash further up, the one we’d been watching, suddenly appears and he is running down the towpath. He shouts, “Get hold of them kids!” We look up, and he’s mad as owt. We move away but he corners us against the lock gates.

“Come here you,” he shouts,” gimme that back.” He snatches the rod bag out of my hand and bang! He lands one, straight across the chops. It doesn’t half rattle.

“What have you done that for?” shouts the bloke who’s wrestling with the snig. And his mate with the landing net looks at us.

“He’s pinched my rod bag, and what’s it got to do with you?”

“No I’ve not.” I say, “We’ve found it.” I’m nearly crying.

“You’ve pinched it when you were behind me.” He’s still shouting. “Now, come on. Own up! Where’ve you got it from?”

“I’ve not pinched it.” I cry, “I’ve got it off him.” I point at Ray.

Bang! He slaps Ray straight across the face as well.

“It was in the grass,” says Ray, and Ray’s really crying. Our Dave’s next in line.

“In the grass at the back of me,” shouts the man. “Now, bugger off before I belt you again!” And off he goes, back up the cut.

I look at Ray and he looks at me. We can just see our Dave running off, pell-mell. He is half way down the Deepy lock and heading for Rose Bridge when the bloke with the landing net lifts this giant snig out of the water.

“Did you pinch it?” The bloke who caught the snig asks us.

“No, honest,” says Ray. “It was just there in the grass, near the bywash.”

“Come back here then. Let’s have a look at your faces,” says the bloke, and we do and he does.

We stare at the snig in the landing net. It’s massive.

“I’m going telling mi Dad,” says Ray. And off we go.

Home was only a mile away. Ray lived right at the top of Chatham Street; the first house at the end of our backs. When we got there, our Dave was waiting and Ray’s Dad and Uncle were stood smoking at the front gate. Ray’s Dad asked him what was going on and it looked like he was going to get another belt for a minute. The next thing was, Ray had been sent to bed and Ray’s Dad and his Uncle rushed off over the cut to find this bloke. Me and our Dave went home. We decided to say nowt. We didn’t want our Grandad going off over the cut for a row with him…




Some things leave a deeper impression on you than others. I’m not talking about the finger marks across Ray’s glowing left cheek. It may seem quite brutal now, but we soon got over a slapped face in those days. None of us ever got over the giant snig though; not even our Dave who hadn’t seen it in the net. All for one and one for all!…but could you blame him running off? We couldn’t.

That particular lock, the Nameless, so called because all of the other ones had names but no-one seemed to have a name for the middle one of these five, was to be forever associated with giant snig. Soon afterwards, and then in later years, and on and on, we would try for a massive snig with a worm when it got late. Of course, it never happened. The giant snig that night was really massive. I am not exaggerating! It was an absolute monster! Never been seen since. It must have been eight feet long…

The top picture is from about 1978. The era of the capped-sleeve tee shirt, the first tash and our Mam’s prize winning patches. This is the actual lock – the Nameless lock.

The lower picture is a bit of a problem. It was about ten years later, 1987ish, but where? I don’t think it is the Top Length. Sennicar Lane way, maybe? It may be Burscough or perhaps Gorst Lane or further afield. I don’t know now.

The pic illustrates a couple of things: I taught him all he knows about fishing, our Dave, but he never got the hang of snig juggling. Personally, I wouldn’t have tried a three-snigger, myself. He would never listen proper. And, he’s still wearing capped-sleeve tee shirts.




…We didn’t see Ray for a couple of days after the slapping. He was often being confined to barracks anyway. Me and our Dave had said nothing at home. When we did see him again, he couldn’t tell us anything. Ray said that his Dad wouldn’t tell him what had happened after they had found the bloke: except…except, the bloke had been fishing on the bottom bywash at first, and, not getting any bites, had upped sticks and moved to the top bywash... leaving his rod bag behind in the long grass.