Wigan Album

What a good, interesting pic

What a cracking photo, where are you getting these from Darren. Excellent pics.

The house on the right of the photo is where I lived from 1942 to 1951. The day of the launch I was watching from the opposite bank on top of the garden wall but managed to avoid the backsplash. I think I was about nine or ten at the time. The boat was built and launched from James Mayor and Sons boatbuilders, a company I was to work for when I left school in 1956.

Was just going to remark it was Mayors; I designed a project for local schools about its demolition and the subsequent building of the Investment Centre in the 90's

On the left where the workers are standing was Mayors engine repair shop. The covered slipway was used for the repair and maintenance of canal boats and dredger hoppers dealing mainly with the Monks and Waddington company boats and I believe the Darlington was the last boat to be built there probably for one of those companies. Mayors went out of business about 1959/60 I and two more family members were employed there and had to find work elsewhere when made redundant. Directly across from the engine shop the top windows of the Canal Company offices can be seen. Also in that yard were the blacksmiths shop, carpenters shop, and stables for the canal boat horses, the stables have been converted into offices. The blacksmiths shop is no longer there but the carpenters shop is, it was used for many years to build lock gates, my grandfather worked there as a carpenter until his retirement in 1944. This complex of Canal Company buildings was nationalised in 1948 and they became British Waterways.