lennons supermarket

who remembers shopping at lennons king street wigan

Bottom of King Street wasn't it...?

yes i did . didnt they give green sheild stamps ?

My mum & big sis used to go there all the time.

Danni'll remember it...

JARVO !!!

I used to shop there,not a bad shop lennons

In 1961 when I got married we used to go to Lennon's on a Friday after work. If you spent £2 you could buy a bag of sugar
at half price, but what a job we had to spend £2!!! We were buying all sorts of just to get a bag of sugar for half price. Mind you, I was only on £10 per week wages!!!

How old is little mickey...?

Yes,I have shopped there,it was built on the site of Wigan Hippodrome, and I believe it was haunted.

i remember it well, i think tehre was a tesco opposite?

TESCO was a bit further up on the right hand side think its the walkabout now.

Lennon was better at writing songs than selling bread!

The Lennons supermarket chain was owned by Terry Lennon, who also did a bit of car dealing at a petrol station in haresfinch.
His son owns the Pier and Legends clubs.

Tesco was where Chicago Rock is now and Lennons was where the car park in between Brocul House and Revolution.

dead right rio

I remember Lennons well. When I was a kid I used to go there after I'd picked up my mums family allowance up.

Lennons ended up being a furniture and carpet shop before it closed down.

Does anyone remember the first supermarket opening in King St? It was called Blowers...not very large.
I remember going for the first time and ending up with a trolley load of stuff which cost approx. £1.10/- {£1.50}

Wish I could do it today!
Hubby's wages were £10 a week back then though and our first mortgage for a 3 bed. semi on Holden Rd Leigh was £9.2shillings and 3d a month!!
The house cost £1,800 and we had to put a deposit of £300 down.

Those were the days!

Fishlizzie was your shop on Darlington street the very end one next to the river and bridge.

I always thought Tesco was the first supermarket to open in Wigan, would have been about 1965?

xrh...yes it was! Moved there in 1945 and it was a second hand furniture shop...Dad also rented the two next to it and did well until about 1950 when HP came out and no one wanted old stuff!
he let the other two go and turned the end one into a fish/fruit and veg shop eventually building it up to a full grocery shop.

I lived there until I got married in 1960.


Blowers was deffo the first to be like a supermarket.....my Mother went balistic as so many of her customers went there to shop for a while....she used to say "Bloody Blowers!" She sent me to shop there just to see what it was like!

xrh...yes it was! Moved there in 1945 and it was a second hand furniture shop...Dad also rented the two next to it and did well until about 1950 when HP came out and no one wanted old stuff!
he let the other two go and turned the end one into a fish/fruit and veg shop eventually building it up to a full grocery shop.

I lived there until I got married in 1960.


Blowers was deffo the first to be like a supermarket.....my Mother went balistic as so many of her customers went there to shop for a while....she used to say "Bloody Blowers!" She sent me to shop there just to see what it was like!

fishlizzie, when you lived in the grocers shop in Darlington St. Do you remember the hairdressers right on the corner of Sovereign Rd, with a flat above & one behind, with big green doors to the yard, opposite the gasworks entrance?

I remember that, Art. I used to live on Darlington Street in the 50s as well. That bluddy gas works stunk rotten on certain days!

when my hubby was out of work he went to the dole next door for his money then he did our weekly shop in there a lot of the men whent in the pubs with there money by the way i was at work at the time

I remember all these, used to live right near the hair dressers on the corner, we lived at 66 darlington st, then there was next door's then the hairdresser's on the corner. Their used to be a lady in soverign road that made us "crimpolene" hotpants.

art.....I certainly do remember it! I had my hair done there on my wedding day!

tracy....what was your name then?
One of our customers lived on that row...her name was Barbara, married to a man called Les and they had a baby girl I sometimes baby sat for,
I went to Warrington Lane school from 1945 to 1950 then the Girls High School.

fishlizzie, the ground floor flat,a door on Darlington St (No72)& Sovereign Rd (you could say two front doors), was where I started married life on Halloween 1959.
We were only there about 6/8 months tho'.
My Mrs shopped at your shop.
The upstairs flat was occupied by two nurses, who later went to Australia.

My name was then Woods, we lived next door to the Jackson's, and Mercers on the other side

Fishlizzie is this your shop.

We lived round the corner from that hairdressers near Lily Smiths dress shop,does anyone remember that?,I loved living there,we all had to move out to make way for a car park and not a big one at that.

Wow, a 'show of strength' from the Boy's Brigade!

Wow! How old is that picture?
it IS our shop although don't remember those adverts being there?
We moved there in 1945

Tracey.....Jackson was the name of Barbara/Les....sorry but don't remember you! Which school did you go to? I was at Warrington Lane Junior school

I know a woman called Phyllis who used to live in Sovereign Road when she was young.

Fishlizzie the photo was taken in the 1940's,if you look at the Bobby bringing up the rear of the procession you can see the webbing of his gasmask case across his shoulder.The man with the forage cap and highly polished boots is Harry Lloyd who was captain and founder of the 5th Wigan company of St.Cathrines church boys' Brigade in Scholes.

Info and picture from Past Forward. Magazine.

Fishlizzie,

Barbara and les had a daughter Freda, with hair down to her ankles, I was only about 10 years old when we moved from darlington st, I went to Rose Bridge.

That was the name...Freda!! Couldn't remember it!
Barbara used to come into our shop and she would buy a tail end of cod fillet for the baby! She used to say "I stuff her and stuff her until she is sick then I know she's had enough!"

I remember most of these lived in spring street and remember adding up the co-op coupons with my dad, remember the grocers and lily smiths used to go to school with Jennifer Nixon who lived near there I think Lily was her aunt, theres a photo of whelley school on the album Jennifers on it, sadley she passed away when she was only about 21.

is terry lennon still alive, we had some good times many years ago.

anyone remember the old bus station near the (old) market square? I can vaguely recall an arcade (slot machine arcade with pool tables upstairs) and a supermarket there (early 1980's), i think mr lennon owned that before selling it to 'yorkshire dave' whelan (who in turn sold it on to morrisons - i think)

I think that was called Rushtons before Dave Whelan opened his supermarket. There was a slot machine arcade close to it,don't remember the pool tables though.

tuddy, if you take a look at the councils planning dept offices (the old gas showrooms) that is called rushtons building, so i think you may be getting confused with that

I worked at Lennons as a saturday lad around 1972-1973. The manager at the time was Barry Lloyd, a really nice bloke who had a great knack of catching shoplifters. I worked on the fruit counter a lot of the time, my mum worked on it as well with a German woman called Inga. I remember carrying 56lb bags of spuds out to peoples cars for them as they used to sell them for 56 pence for a 56lb bag. Families used to buy the bags and split them as 56 lb was a lot of spuds. I was the good looking blond lad with the scouse accent!

Fishlissie... Do you remember a girl named Yvonne who went to Warrington Lane school same time as me and lived on the corner of Warrington Lane and Darlington St.I left Warrington Lane school to go to Whelley in 1947.Just remebered her surname...Yvonne Winters. her mother had a dress shop and they lived behind it.

Bought my wedding dress from Lilian Smiths in 1970.

fine days when we where young and strong and the world at your feet.

Lenons had a off-lience on the corner of Gerard St & Princess rd in the 40s-50s in Ashton.

Hello Grouse,just browsing through old threads and come across the subject of Lilly Smith..we used to live next door but one to her shop,my Mam once told me that one of her Aunts lived in the house between us and Lilly Smiths,(she used the house to house her clothes) but am surprised to say the least to see the name Yvonne Winters who was my cousin..my Mams name was Winters..and I did not know that Lily Smith was her Mother which makes related to her..that's a real first for me.

I remember your two uncles, Mike and Bernie!

Gheeeeeeeeee!

And there was Schnorbitz too

“I’ll shhhmash your fashhhh in”!

“I’ll shhhmash your fashhhh in”!

I remember many of the places. I used to go to Lennon's for my nan. As somebody stated, it was next to Brocol House. If I remember correctly, it was a very cheap looking building: a one-storey square building and very bland looking. Also, it was relatively a small supermarket, even in those days. To me, it looked like it had been built quickly at low expense and around 1960.
Went to Whelan's for my mum - it was one of my weekly chores. I could go on Friday, after school, or Saturday morning.
Whelan's was almost opposite the end of the old bus station building and had an upstairs department which sold prams, toys, music and I think, bicycles. The ground floor department sold food, drink etc and was on two levels: one part was slightly lower than the other part and I think that a small slope connected the two levels. There were two entrances, each being from one of the two streets as Whelan's was sandwiched between two streets. I remember that it was quite dull in the food department and always seemed cluttered.
As someone stated, there was an amusement arcade in that area. It was either next door or next-door-but-one to Whelan's. I don't remember any pool tables and I don't remember there being an upstairs. I remember that it was only small and at the far end there was an office with a reasonably large window, behind the glass a man sat watching what was going on - any messing around and he came out and threw you out.

Mick_dorset,
You're right with the supermarket being Whelan's and then Morrison's.
I believe, I'm too young to ever have seen the place being Lennon's.
With regard to the amusement arcade, it was on the left as you walked down the street from the green (Grammar School cricket ground). The first buildings of that street were demolished around 1970. I think, one of them had been a dairy.

Also, the buildings after Whelan's were demolished in the seventies. So, Morrison's, the arcade and possibly one or two other buildings stood with derelict land on each side.
If I remember correctly, large wooden supports were holding up the gable end of Morrison's.

Just at the side of the amusement arcade where the stairs up to the Room at the Top club.

I remember when it opened and my friend's dad took us to show how they shop in America. It was strange picking items up and paying at the end when all we'd known was shops with counters

Was it not KWIKSAVE before it was LENNONS.

Cindy,
Kiwi Save came after Lennons.

momac,
I think you meant, 'kwiksave', unless a New Zealand company took them over.
By the way, I am sure you areperfectly correct with 'kwiksave' coming after Lennon's.
Possibly happened sometime around 1980.

It was owned by umpteen different supermarket companies, because it was quite busy, because it was the local shop for the bottom end of Scholes, and there was a lot of residential property there then, and so thus customers, there were the high rise flats, but back then there were also numerous other flats and maisonettes which were demolished some 30 yrs or more ago, the supermarket on Scholes wasn't there until later on in the 1970s, and it wasn't has good a store as the one in King Street, and it was an uphill walk for folk, and more expensive.

It started off as a Finefare or Lennons, but I think it was over the years a Co-Op, Greens, and others, it ended its days as a KwikSave

I thought lennons was a bit downmarket that's all .
GB.

This is a old post .

Ian yes I did mean Kwik Save..my iPad is to blame,it makes its own mind up at times.lol

momac, I fully understand. I have real issues when I use my mobile phone to post on here. Personally speaking, it sometimes drives me crazy.

Obviously, my mobile phone and I are not perfectly compatible - definitely not a marriage made in Heaven.
Or, the thing refuses to recognise the language I wish to use and it wants to get back to its South Korean roots.

I think my mobile must be Irish,some of the words it throws out don't half tickle me.

I dont know a lot about mobile phones but I soon find out how to get rid of predicted text.On my phone when using text it puts some words in a box and if I need that word then I can tap on that word and it will insert that word but will not auto insert any words

PeterP,
I am in your class as far as phones go but I think you can go in settings to disable predictive text.

PeterP and broady,
This is true. You have the three-box option and you have many options to control the text. As broady thought, you can disable predictive text.
But, if you disable all the options which help with speed and possibly with ease, then this obviously can slow down the messaging.
Also, you have the option to choose the language. I tend to have mine on English. But, I sometimes communicate using a different language - this creates issues as the phone changes the word to an English word that it believes is the correct word.
In answer to what PeterP said, if you type quickly and don't tap on the option box, the auto insert sometimes occurs.
A typical issue with this is when you wish to use an apostrophe with an 's', the auto insert may consider to insert a plural. If the person is typing quickly, they do not recognise the auto inserts.
Obviously, it also depends on the type of mobile phone and the age of the mobile phone.
For me, most of the time, everything works well and smoothly.

Thanks momac I must have got confused.

Cindy..xx

"Yvonne Winters who was my cousin"

That name rings a bell in my head.
Was she a school teacher by any chance in the 1960's, Momac?

Yes CC..I believe she was,she used to live in Standish many years ago near..was it St Marie's Church?..we actually had our tonsils out at the same time,I don't know how old she was at the time,I just know that she was older than me..and she used to be known as 'Bonny'by the family..I wish I'd asked my Mam more when she was alive,it's just a shame that as youngsters you don't ask that many questions about the family line.

Small world, Momac.
If she is alive now she must be in her 80's?
Does the surname Lythgoe ring a bell in your family / relations? I think she was related to a Lythgoe if it is the same person?.

No CC,I don't know of any Lythgoe in my family at all...wouldn't it be very interesting if we knew more, my Mam had two Brothers ,one Sister and a step Sister.Vincent was one Brother but try as I might I can't remember the other Brothers name..so one of them must be Yvonne's Dad..oh how I wish I knew more..I tried many times years ago to find more out,there is quite a bit of history on my Mams side,I could go on all day.

My wife’s mum was a Lythgoe and her grandad came from Standish. They lived just up the road from you, Momac, in Maple Ave!

The only Lythgoe I know went to my School St Josephs Wallgate,I think he lived in Queen St Wallgate...the way this thread is going we'll probably all finish up related.lol.

Her uncles were Ken, who we believe has died, and Graham, who’s known to a few on here through music.

They don't ring any bells Tonks.

Tonks ,I wonder if your wife's Mum knew any Andrews from Beech Hill Lane.

Lennons was at the bottom right of King St now a car park. Which shop moved into a building half way down King St on the left near the old cinema or even in the old cinema it was open in the early 70's sold every thing from food to small furniture

Peter,that was Tesco's.

Momac thanks

Peter..you're more than welcome.

PeterP they knocked down the old Methodist church to build Tesco.