Wigan Album

I hope Messrs. Parkinson, Dicconson, Richardson and Dalton and all their evil spectators contracted that year's equivalent of bird flu.

Irene, thank God for those who came together and founded the SPCA the forerunner to the RSPCA. They do a great job, but unfortunately as we know illicit cock and dog fighting still goes on today clandestinely, the TV programme and the undercover filming of these dog fights should be shown again, it shows just how cruelly evil the people behind the scenes really are, and the majority are from around Lancashire too.

https://www.rspca.org.uk/whatwedo/whoweare/history

Thankyou Cyril but I can't bear to watch it. When the RSPCA, Donkey Sanctuary and Animals Asia adverts come on the telly in the commercial breaks I have to switch over. As The Carpenters sang, "Bless the beasts and the children, for in this world they have no voice.....they have no choice". People who are cruel to animals and children are vile and I hope they get what they deserve. Sadly, they probably won't.

I agree Irene, those poor donkey's.It is shocking to see, but then there are some vile people unfortunately in this world.

People who are cruel to animals and children are vile and I hope they get what they deserve. Sadly, they probably won't.

Says the lady who can be seen out wearing a fox draped around her shoulders and game bird feathers in her hat

The fox fur I was given came from a fox that died in the 1930s, many years before I was born. If by leaving it hung in the wardrobe I could bring it back to life I would do so. Unfortunately I can't, and my wearing of it at 1940s events is a representation of what was then considered acceptable. The feathers in my hat came from a pheasant that had been killed in the road by a car driven by a man driving so fast he could have killed a child. My husband stopped and moved it off the road but it was already dead and its mate was looking on helplessly from the opposite pavement....I was heartbroken but I kept the two feathers that were left in the road because they were beautiful, as pheasant feathers are, and at least they live on. And you don't eat animals that are killed in slaughterhouses, do you not, Phil? Or wear leather shoes? I have never harmed an animal in my life and you can ask anyone who knows me on Wigan World, and there are quite a few on here. That was absolutely uncalled for but if it's made you feel virtuous then perhaps it wasn't a total waste of typing.

I couldn’t walk in anything but leather shoes as synthetic ‘draw’ the feet and don’t do my corns any good. At least with leather feet can breathe. Apart from wearing pumps in Summer that’s what I wear.. plus I like a bit of lamb me and steak now and again. AND I like to knit with Merino wool - nothing better.

It was only cooking rabbits that kept folk going ‘during the war’ as Uncle Albert used to say. Plus the odd pigeon…

There is a world of difference between using the meat, hides and other 'products' of well reared and humanely slaughtered farm animals, and the taking perverse pleasure of watching animals rip each other to pieces for the sick gratification of pathetic individuals who are usually making up for some gross inadequacy in their own lives.

You're right Irene, you weren’t responsible for the death of the fox or the pheasant and nor is there anything wrong in the recycling and wearing of vintage clothing and accessories, I suppose, in a nice way of course, you and Peter are a sort of walking museum, showing how folks would dress in the 1940s. As we all know foxes back then were thought of quite differently to how they are now, even my grandmother had a couple of fox stoles, she wouldn't have bought them and they would have been given to her too, I remember older ladies who would then be in their 80s and 90s and who had probably been wearing them all their life still wearing them in the 1980s, though they did have a heavy odour of Naphthalene, though a lot of older folks had that aroma about them. Sadly, foxes and other animals are, despite protests and campaigns, still bred for their fur pelts, China you would expect, but not Canada, though this country too also breeds animals for their fur pelts. https://www.hsi.org/news-media/canada_fur_020509/

Veronica, I've only ever had rabbit once and that was when I was at college, we did it a Mexican or should that be Aztec way by braising the rabbit in a sauce containing chilli and high % cocoa chocolate, it was quite good too, though I doubt I would try it again. I remember someone saying always buy rabbit with its head and coat on as a skinned prepared cat resembles a skinned and prepared rabbit, I can imagine the spivs like Walker bagging a few wandering cats for under the counter rabbits at Jones’ butchers during the war years.

Cyril I can remember in the fifties as a little one eating rabbit in a stew that my mam made. I did like it until I was told it was rabbit and I wouldn’t eat it again afterwards. It was the thought of them burrowing in rabbit holes that put me off.

Thankyou, Veronica, Gareth and Cyril. And will the real "Phil" please stand up? I have my doubts as to his identity.

It's harder to find rabbits on sale these days, but we have a delicious rabbit stew every now and again.

I have a dim recollection of seeing rabbits with their fur still on outside the old Market Hall in the butchers near the entrance. I don’t know if I have dreamt that. That could have been another reason I wouldn’t eat rabbit. I do remember my mother knitting with rabbit wool in the fifties in very bright colours.

I remember rabbits being sold at MacAvoy's Butchers stall inside the Market hall not that long ago but they were already skinned and jointed. However, I think you're right about the ones with fur on, Veronica, hanging outside the little shops that used to sell fish on the outskirts of the old market hall....Shacklady's is a name that comes to mind. The caravan park where we have our caravan is like Watership Down, there are so many rabbits running around! I love to see them. You can still buy rabbit ready for the oven but I think it is more of a rarity now than it once was.

Yes you’re right Irene. It was seeing the rabbit’s faces as well with their eyes open.
Perhaps the myxomatosis epidemic put paid to people hunting rabbits.

David, my mother and father had they said eaten rabbits during the war years, but later Myxomatosis put them and a lot of folks off from having them, they looked grotesque when infected, why on earth did french farmers use the virus as a rabbit control, though they've always denied it was them - of course they would, the french always do.

I remember rabbits at the market too Veronica, but for some strange reason the ones I remember wasn't at the butchers but always outside at the fishmongers and the rabbits were hung up along with Partridges, Pheasants and Grouse. They was always hung up by the neck too which made me think of the way it was said that aristocracy reckoned when they were ready to be cooked - when they had become so rotten that the head had come away from the neck they were perfect to roast, and complete with with maggots too presumably. Clarissa Dickson Wright in Spilling the Beans wrote that her father would every so often receive a haunch of venison from Scotland and he would then bury it in the garden and leave it until it had turned green - it was then ready to be cooked, she said that was how folks prepared venison before eating otherwise it was just too tough. How folks hadn't made themselves or others ill or even been killed I don't know, or maybe did they and it was just put down to a dose of the squits or food poisoning because of a bad parsnip or sprout and probably never due to the decomposing venison.

The last rabbit I had was from Bolton market,it was frozen and came from China.When I was younger we used to shoot rabbits and hares for the pot.

I hope it was before Covid Pw. It must have been - because you’re still here..

I used to get Rabbits from the last remaining butchers in the Market Hall next to the door to Mesnes St... Sad day when he closed a couple of years ago. I think I might I still have a couple in the freezer?? Rabbit stew in the slow cooker Ummmm.

Was the Bears Paw once involved with counterfeiting or money laundering.Veronica the rabbit was not good to eat.I think it was farmed.

It was Pw., here's a photo from the Album by Anne Melling and comments about the pub with a reputation of somewhere you could buy anything.
https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=4&id=28321&gallery=Chapel+Lane&page=1

I remember my dad bringing a rabbit home that he had bought in the pub .
An odd sight seeing him walking down the street with it dangling by the ears .
My mum had no clue how to skin and clean it , nor had he so it went straight in the bin .
We make many impulsive purchases we later regret .