Wigan Album

Fighting a losing battle I think.

Like I already said, this is not Poolstock. It's Worsley Mesnes, Pemberton.
Why is it that Wiganers don't know much about their surroundings?

Hello John Noakes. Now I understand why mistakes can be self perpetuating, I simply took Ron’s identification at face value. However, how you could identify a front door, an alleyway, some brickwork and a lady washing a step as a particular or specific location in Wigan is beyond me. (unless it was identified on the back of the photo). I was born and brought up in Wigan, in an environment very similar to this one.

Keith, let me explain. Ron said the house was number 66 Poolstock Lane. I checked 66 Poolstock Lane on a 1940 map and it does have a ginnel between 66 and 64, so it could be correct. The lady in the photo looks to be cleaning the step of number 64. Although, the title "Poolstock" is wrong. If a house was shown as number 66 Warrington Road, would you automatically think it was in Warrington?

1891 census 62 poolstock lane alexander holden 41yrs. alice holden 42yrs my grt grand parents address worsley mesnes pemberton.

I have read that the practice of whitening steps began in the mills. There, stairwells were often in towers adjacent to the main workspace, and the lighting maybe less than desirable, especially when groups of people are together traversing the stairs. It seems to have been the mill owners' response to accidents on the stairs.

This is an experience to be repeated in 1940, when whitening the edge of railway station platforms was brought in, in response to 24 deaths by falls from such platforms during the blackout.

For some reason, the practice got taken up and applied to the front steps of houses: not sure exactly when, but I guess around the turn of the century.

What I do find strange though, is accounts of women expressing distain for a neighbour who failed to do the whitening. (Some kind of status/social pressure phenomenon.)

Sort of like today, when the kid who does not have the latest trainers costing a three figure sum, gets labelled a 'Pov', and bullied and picked on by the other kids.

Nowt as queer as folk, as they say.

Congrats “Strangeloop” on a fascinating piece of social and present day history.

I heard it was to help their husband negotiate the front step safely when he got home from the pub, instead of tripping over it and knocking his front teeth out on the edge of the sideboard?