Wigan Album

Men carrying their gaberdine macs and wearing trilbies reminds me of the old black and white films I like watching. I can just see Alan Ladd and Richard Widmark with their hats tipped at the back of their heads. Not forgetting Bogey….
I watched him yesterday with Lizabeth Scott in ‘Dead Reckoning’. Great films. Scholes Pictures had a lot to do with my taste in films.

well paved foot walk, daffodil planted wall beds, maintained lawn flowering trees a lovely spring morning. Just what is our council tax spent on nowadays?

We were once at Pickering 1940s weekend in our forties clothes and were standing on the pavement when a coach full of older people passed by and they were pointing at us, and Peter raised his trilby hat to them and they were delighted! When I first lived in Abram in the 1970s there was an elderly gentleman who always wore a suit and a trilby and he always raised his hat to ladies....I was only in my twenties at the time and thought it was such a lovely gesture; I have never forgotten him.

Sorry Ron, sent this before i saw your other photo of JMH.

Known as John McCurdy Hall when we went to the TLS Ron.

Roy yes it was.. The TLS had three classrooms in the building I think they were 301, 302, and 303,? I remember Dennis Pegg had his German classroom in one of them.

I was a student at Wigan Tech in early Sixties: both Parson's Walk and Library Street buildings. I thought it to be a great place. I was friends for years with some of the people I met at Tech.

In the 21st Century, I have tried a number of courses in retirement. I wish the quality of Adult Ed classes available then could be found today.

Up to the mid eighties if you wanted to educate yourself it was cheap enough to do. I left school without any GCE ‘O’ levels because we didn’t have that opportunity. I ended up enrolling on courses to achieve them myself and ended up at Degree level. Never in my wildest dreams did I envisage myself with a Hons. Degree in Literature/ History. Not exactly the same as Cambridge/ Oxford I’ll admit….but Bolton Higher Education Institute gave me that opportunity. I loved every minute of the 3 years spent there. ‘Never give up ‘is my motto. Having said that you would need a mortgage to do that these days! Looking back at the essays I did then which most of them I kept…I don’t know how I wrote them but it is 40 years ago since and no ‘ Google’ to help either - all plain studying and reading.

Veronica, I am full of admiration for anyone who spent years studying at Night School. Sad to say its something I never did.. Too many other things going on in my life after I left school.. Football and Girls<g>

BUT you passed your scholarship Ron and that was a passport to everything and anything then…you weren’t tossed onto the ‘factory fodder’ heap… having said that I enjoyed most of the places I worked as a young girl especially working at the ROF that was an eye opener for me. The ‘workplace’ was where you really grew up and met all kinds of characters. Some you never forgot.
Sadly the young ones today don’t have the same choices we had (without all the qualifications) but as you know there was jobs aplenty.

Ps have you seen Douglas Murray - brilliant orator on ytube?