Wigan Album

He closed the shop and went online. Selling 2nd hand books in Wigan is a hard job - I know - I ran a charity bookshop in various shops for a few years.

That's a shame Rev David, I enjoyed rummaging around in there on the few occasions that I went in.

Very true about it being hard selling books in Wigan Reverend Long.
I used to go in this bookshop myself for a root round and bought a fair bit of stuff off him. He was a retired teacher as I remember.
A good few years before he opened up, another chap opened a bookshop a couple of doors furhter down but didn't last long. I remember chatting to him and he said he was fed up of people coming in straight out of the pub and trying to haggle the price down on stuff he had already reduced to clear. He said the thing that annoyed him was the books very often cost less than a pint of the ale they had been supping all afternoon. He said this showed their sense of values.
He also said he'd never known a place like Wigan for folk bragging that they had never read a book in their life, apart from when they were at school.
There was also a chap had a second hand shop in the Wiend about 20 years ago. He moved onto Millgate near the Borough chippy before it was all demolished and later he had a shop at the back of Mesnes Street.

AlecW, They would sooner spend their money on sausage rolls and pies and sit eating them with the pigeons at nine in the morning.

Paul Morris moved into premises on First Avenue Hindley and as mentioned sold online, he died a few years ago. The other Paul who is mentioned having Avaroot at Back Mesnes Street is still selling on ebay. There was another superb used bookshop around that time too, on College Avenue at the back of McNulty shoes.

The Wiend always reminds me of the Shambles in York or a passage in a quaint town in Cornwall. I remember the book shop, and wasn't there another shop that sold odds and ends until the 1980s. I think the owner was called Frank Tickle. In 2006 I saw the late magician Paul Daniels having a meal in the restaurant.

The shop behind McNulty's was one of the premises we used for our charity bookshop.
We had three premises - firstly above Johnsons the Cleaners on Market Place, then on King Street, and finally off Library Street, behind McNulty's.
I have to say that the similar shop I ran in Warrington was more profitable, and helped my parish fund a canal boat for people with disabilities.

There was also a shop on the right going down in the 60's that sold suede and leather jackets. The smell as you walked in was fantastic. If I close my eyes I can still smell it now.

A timeless scene - pity about the plastic table and chairs in such quaint, Dickensian surroundings. If I owned a cafe at the top of the Wiend, I would make the most of its history.

I have to agree with you Veronica, those chairs look totally out of place, don't they?

Shop on the left was Tickle's sold all kinds of craft materials, later moved to Aspinals Artistic Artisans in Mesnes street.

What do you make of those two hooks, at top right, DTease? I can't imagine there having been much of a need for sun-blinds, there - Perhaps I've got my bearings wrong, though.

Perhaps it’s where they stuck the heads of shoplifters in Victorian times Philip.

I actually thought they might be for hanging robbing highway men in the 1700's ... But I didn't like to say it!!! I imagined a wooden barrel kicked from under them...after being dragged on a cart up the Wiend - the stone flag tracks are still there! I wouldn't be surprised if ghosts walk around there in the early hours, avoiding King St like the plague.. (Tongue in cheek, just in case) !

That would have been awful, DTease. And so much to pay for a solitary piece of Cough Candy.

Did the hooks hold brazier/lamps in days gone by.

PhilipG, there was an engineering shop in this area in the fifties, maybe they had something to do with that.

Seen similar hooks used on old shops to support/suspend a horizontal iron bar, from which goods for sale (often butchers' meat or game) could be hung on hooks.
Long before health and safety of course.
A shop on Church Street Ormskirk, still has such an arrangement outside.

Didn't Tom Whalley's pet-shop used to be in The Wiend before it went to Stairgate, off Millgate? I seem to recall a parrot in a cage outside the shop.

Abel (Fabulous name!).
Thanks for your effort, . . . I can imagine a steel-rimmed wheel hung high on both of those hooks. But what about the further possibility of Mick's meat and game being hung high on them; Joint-favouritism with 'A shortened blind', for me, until their true purpose has been found. Mick also mentions Ormskirk's over-head 'cold meat rack', to which I'd like to add that of Burchall's, in St Helens.
Irene,
I remember going into Whalley's 'Millgate shop during the seventies and being told that mynah birds were £100 each - How much are they now, I wonder. And hadn't Whalley's shop suffered serious fire damage at some time, in the past, or am I mistaken. I also find this thread as being a bit of rum do, as one or two of its points remind me of Cpl. Jones's tale of The Battle of Omdurman, in the British Restaurant, and how it had soon put an end to the rest of the platoon's meal.
However, the Reverend's mention of 'a canal boat for people with disabilities' is very much settling.

I remember a paint shop there in the early 1980's by the name of Harridges. They used to make their own paint and sell it in cans with a no frills basic paper label attatched to it with their name on it. It was good stuff too. Just as good as the main named brands and a lot cheaper.

Philip G- Mynah birds are no longer imported into the UK since (I think) the late 80's by law. In the mid 70's my Father-in-law was given a Mynah bird for one of his Birthdays by the family. It was a very intelligent bird and a good mimic. It was a male and named Henry. I think my Sister-in law & Brother-in-law got in from a specialist pet importer in Liverpool.Can't remember how much we paid for it now neither can my wife. For the life of me, I don't remember the Wiend Wigan.

Thanks for that, Barrie. And I think there'd been a knowing-hand in choosing such a gift.

I seem to remember some years ago the (then) landlord of the Crown Hotel, New Springs kept a Mynah bird in the bar. My word! the language that the locals taught that bird was enough to make the devil blush!

Some years ago,one of our near had a mynah bird..every time a female walked up or down the road he would wolf whistle..and they would start to fix their har thinking of course that I was a man whistling at them,and if my young uns knocked on the front door it would shout " Debbie you're wanted" at the top of his voice which sounded just like .Debbies Mum.

I worked in the Wiend in the 60's for Joe Kennedy, the bookmaket.Our office was above Stylo shoe shop and Mdame Blackshaws hairdressers.The white buildings on right date back to Civil war when Lord Derby's men hid before the battle of Wigan Lane.

Nice post Bernard. You might also enjoy looking at DTease's 'Item 30634'. And there's also Items 26683 and 30615.