Wigan Album

Had a few pints in this pub. I think there was some type of dance hall near to, where we used to frequent. One of our old masters, Spring View Boys’ School, Mr Heyes (Old Block). It was his local. Met him there a couple of times, and had a couple of jars together, together with with another couple of his former pupil.

Albert - the dance hall, which was behind the pub, is now a gym or 'fitness centre'.
I remember Jack Heyes well. In later years, he took to drinking in the Owl Inn, further up the road. You could set your watch by him coming in of an evening.

Albert S. “Owd Block” got his name from calling his pupils, blockheads, if they got the answer wrong to a question. He taught my father and his brother before me. They lived in Hey Street.

B. A school mate of mine lived in Hey Street. Derek Hunter. In the early 1940s I lived at the first house in St Clement’s Street, with a lady I always referred to as Aunty Eady (Edith Hesketh).

The Abbey Lakes hotel was later a pub and I think now a restaurant, and is on the Wigan/ West Lancashire boundary just before the steep climb to Upholland and used to be a Wigan Corporation tram and later bus terminus on route 7.

Albers S. I bet she sent you to Gwillams grocers for the shopping? I lived with my Grandmother at number 23.

B. A very long time ago. I can’t bring to mind who had the shop before Gwilliams. I remember the home guard being billeted in the old bakery on the opposite side of the road, and the Wigan Corporation buses going up St Clement’s Street, along Hey Street, then down Taylor’s Lane, for their return journey to Wigan.

Jimmy Ind's garage on the right.