Wigan Album

That is a great photo, I remember it well. Regularly caught a train from here to go to "The Twisted Wheel" in Manchester to listen to Spencer Davis Group, The Hollies and more, great memories.

Can remember a label tag machine on this platform, you could produce a metal tag with your name, address or whatever stamped on it, can't remember how much they cost, but they wouldn't have been very much more than a penny or so.

The locomotives would take on water just behind the photographer's back. The start would always be the same: the Stanier engines would usually skid going under Wallgate tunnel; the noise could be deafening until it reached the Iron Bridge. We used to get the train to Victoria on our way to Belle Vue. I loved the atmosphere of Wallgate. Even today, 48 years on, you get a whiff of steam when going down the steps.

During the long summer holidays when we were kids, mam would gather up a gang of us kids and chuck us all on the train to Southport from Wigan Wallgate. When we got to Southport she threw us all on the sand and settled down with a book. I think it was the only way she could preserve her sanity.

When I was a teenager, every Friday, after school, I used to catch the train to Southport for my music lessons. My teacher was the wonderful Mr. Bailey, so sad he died in an accident. Lovely memories.

We caught the Southport train at Ince Station. Oh, the smell of steam as the train rounded the bend on a sunny June morning! The individual carriages with leather straps to open or close the windows, and the sound of windows slamming shut as the train passed the bone-works at Appley Bridge....it sounded like machine-gun fire! My Dad always recited the stations.....Gathurst, Appley Bridge, Parbold, New Lane, Bescar Lane, Meols Cop, St. Luke's.....such magical names to a child who only had a couple of train-rides from Ince a couple of times a year. Our dinner, (NOT LUNCH!!), in Mary's café, (the building is there yet and seen these days through misty eyes). A ride on the Miniature Railway to Pleasureland, with its Helter-Skelter, which we shot down on little mats, landing in a huge wooden bowl, surrounded by rather old-fashioned cut-outs of 1950s ladies wearing stockings and frilly underskirts; The Caterpillar, where a green cover enveloped us in a strange, underwater-like gloom, then back on the magnificent steam-train to Ince, we little girls wearing a little white heart-shaped brooch with our name on; I would have a job finding one with "Irene" on these days, but, come to think of it, I have just as much trouble these days finding one for my grand-daughter, Edie! Fashions, and names, come and go! x.

Lovely memories, Irene. My mum's name was Edie. Take care and enjoy the weeks to Christmas. It will soon be time to put the tree up...x

Cyril ,it was a Penny.