Wigan Album

Mr Glover, second from the left, he always wore a patch over his eye. Frank Johnson in the middle again. Mr Finney further back and I think one of the Gleesons behind him. This photo is an earlier one. I recognise some faces but can't recall their names.

4th from right the man with glasses looks like Tommy Gannon the school caretaker at the boy's school.

No doubt there's a member, or two, of your clan on here Frank.
I like how the chap, just left of centre, had flipped his shirt collar over his blazer - I seem to recall both young and old doing it during those balmy days of the 50s-60s.
And who's the chap in white blazer, with shoulders to die for - a fine specimen. The chap on the extreme right reminds me of the late Joe Gaskell who'd ran The Holts Arms, in Billinge, and probably at the time that your photo had been taken. Please, don't ask me about Bowls, as I've never really played the game - 'a twenty or thirty minute knock' back in the day being the only menace I was capable of issuing.
Any more photos from the days of 'balm and Bitter', please?

We're was the photo taken

Tom.It must be the Bowling Green on Great Acre

i have no information about the photo at all i recognise some of the faces my dad is at the back about 4 or five from left
i,d say this was early 60s

Don I don't think its great acre I was brought up round there

The green dose'nt look like Great Acre, It might not even be in Wigan, bowling trips to out of town locations have always been popular.

Philip G - you are right - a distinct resemblance to Joe Gaskell, a licensee who was very careful with his brass.
About forty years ago, I remember the cigar smokers in the 'Foot' asking Joe why the packets of Hamlet cigars he sold, had no cellophane wrapping on them.
Joe, in his inimitable way, replied 'that were rooad hi geet 'em', and said the fault must lie with the manufacturer.
It turned out the packets had in fact, had a '5p Off' label on the cellophane wrappers, and Joe had removed them all, to save losing a bob on the sale of every packet.

That made me laugh Mick Ld. I think a lot of men in that generation were 'careful' with money...there was a saying 'tight as cramp!'

Thanks Mick. So that's what Joe had been up to, eh? … scrattin'-off the factory's kindly offer - and oh how he held on to his eggs kept tightly in a glass jar beside the pumps. His 'divil' reminds me of the tale about a certain St Helens landlord who never gave small change to a customer; Instead, giving the likes of a box of Swan or a packet of KP (heaven knows what today's young madam would make of such exchange). I also remember the occasion when I'd asked one of The Foot's regular topers, the incoming George, for his quick opinion on the rather large egg that my mate had just bought, to which George replied "Well, all I can say is, it must have been a tidy Woggy". And I remember those Sunday afternoons, there, when others I knew wore suits and buttoned-up shirts punctuated by fine Windsors as they played 'Arrers', nicely. Too many topers don't seem to 'crackle' in quite the same friendly way today, I feel - they in silent thunder, perhaps. Take care.

I blame the Rolling Stones ( often described as the Great Unwashed) for the decline of the smart suit and tie, even the Beatles tread carefully at first with their suits without collars (round necked) It took a few years, as up to the 1970's the suit was still in evidence as far as I remember...I don't think men have ever looked as good since the demise of the suit and tie!

Whatever was it that caused those men to become skinflints? Could it have been 'The War' and rationing or the 'Hungry Thirties'? I know that generation used to hoard stuff, such as string, buttons, brown paper, anything you could think of, the list is endless and it was a hard habit to break... Whatever, they must have had hard lives....but it's so funny reading about their 'doings'!

I've heard so much about the thirties, when according to legend, everybody was clempt in Wigan. Is this true?