Wigan Album

What a lovely photo! Just look at their sparkling-white socks! I remember having little black ankle-strap shoes like those in the late 1950s. I know Fairfield Avenue in Platt Bridge, just off Walthew Lane.

This is a beautiful photo..everyone is beautifully dressed aren't they..a photograph that's obviously treasured...and thank you Harry.

I was surprised when i looked him up and found he had played for, Wigan Athletic, Oldham Athletic, Blackpool FC and Nottingham Forest amongst others, so a famous Wigan goalkeeper.

As Tommy Steele sang...What a picture, what a photograph !!
Its wonderful Peter

Incredible picture Peter, must have been like corralling cats to get them all together and sit for a picture.
I bet all those white socks didn’t stay clean for long.
What year was this taken?
Many thanks for sharing.

It looks like the very early forties ( wartime) with the styles worn by the grown- ups.The net curtains are impressive as well. It’s a
Ancestry searcher’s
dream to find this photograph.

Was at Hindley and Abram G S. Older than myself.

Lovely family photo. I wonder what the book is the little boy is holding and if he's always enjoyed reading.

Beautiful pic ! Looks about late 40's ,early 50'? Can remember shoes like the girls are wearing from the 50's.Very little money around then but the children are dressed beautifully. X

Thank everyone for your lovely comments. Alwyn says her mum would never have believed one of her eighty year old photos would have been seen and liked by so many people. It was taken in July 1943. I heard of one difficulty taking it Colin, when they settled the children on the bench Harry had is foot on one end and just before the snap he lifted his foot, the bench tipped up and they all slid off the other end.

That's tickled me, Peter, and I can just imagine all the children giggling as they slid off the bench! Harry was certainly a very handsome young man.

Irene,
I am sure Harry’s parents had Sharrats had the shop near you. The one where you turn into the Community Centre. He also played for Bishop Auckland in the early 50’s in the FA Amateur Cup. His brother Jack was a well known teacher on the Wigan scene.

That end building as you turn into Dootson Street, wasn't a shop, if I remember rightly, when we moved to Abram, and I used to pass it regularly on the way to Muriel Houghton's off-licence a couple of doors further up. However, it DID open as a shop again a couple of times in later years, although it is back to a house now. I remember Ben Sharratt who lived in the same row and he told me his family used to have an off-licence down near Kingsdown Road, and he told me it was haunted! I remember chatting to Ben at his gate when it was going dark one night and some lads asked him if he had a light to light their cigarettes so I went home, but I couldn't rest in case they had followed him into his house, as he lived alone, so I went back to check, but they had just accepted a light and then left. Are you sure it wasn't Muriel Houghton's off-licence that the Sharratt family had once owned?....It was just further along from Dootson Street, not actually on the corner.

Past Muriel Houghton heading towards you and at the end of the row was Sharrats shop on the corner. Opposite side of the entry Greens chippy. The entry in between them took you to Culcheth Avenue. That is how I remember it.

Then you're absolutely right, Broady. I just don't recall Sharratt's shop at number 131 all....perhaps it had closed shortly before we moved to Abram. I was working full-time in Wigan until I had my son at the end of 1976, so didn't really see a lot of Abram, but I remember going to Muriel Houghton's at night after work, but of course it would have been open later than Sharratt's with being an off-licence. I remember the chippy at number 129, and I believe the end house at the OTHER end of our row, (number 109), had also been a shop at one time, but we only ever knew it as a house. The people who live there moved in around the same time as us, and have been our neighbours now for 50 years, and we both had our Golden Weddings earlier this year. Our next-door neighbour and a couple across the road have been here even longer than us!

Hi Irene,
I think the shop at the end of your road was Pownall’s. Hope you are keeping well.

I'm sure you're right, now I look back. When we moved to Abram in 1974 we didn't live in the row we live in now....we lived down a little tiny street, Ashton Street, with only three houses, which ran down the side of 109 Warrington Road, parallel with Dootson Street, which ran down the side of Green's chippy at 129. They demolished Ashton Street and Dootson Street in 1983 and we were lucky enough to buy the house we still live in, which was just round the corner. We only had to move our furniture through one back-gate and into the other! At the time, a Mr. and Mrs Pownall lived in the row across the road from us, and I vaguely remember someone saying they had had a shop at 109 at one time. A lady called Maxine put a list of old shops in Abram on the Abram Heritage and History Facebook Site which had been compiled by a lady who is no longer with us, and what fascinating reading it made! There seemed to be shops catering for every need, and even a hat shop at one time!

Àlwyn called Harrys parents, Uncle Ben and Auntie Liddie.