People   (Re-unions, trace old friends and relatives.)

Hi again! Happy Christmas!

wiganyankeeron.....Only my elder son and my daughter still in Wigan...my sister has a daughter in Southport...otherwise...all down here!

The surgical shop was Slaters, they had a chemist next door to it too.
We moved there in 1945 when I was 6 to number 63 and Dad opened it as a second hand furniture shop....we ended up renting the two next door shops too making 3 altogether!
Our most famous customer was Mrs Louisa Merrifield who was hanged for murder! She lived on Park Road then and had a guest house there.
After the war ended, second hand stuff wasn't wanted as HP came out so Dad let 2 of the shops go and opened the one we lived behind as a fruit/veg/fish shop gradually building it up to a full grocery shop. I was married from there in 1960.
We 3 kids had great fun in those early days....always playing outside...cricket in the gasworks yard, top and whips, ghosts/statues when it was just going dark....
I remember the huge Catholic Whit Monday walking days when we used to put all our chairs on the pavement for relatives to sit on! It used to take about 2 hours to go past our shop!
I could write a book! So many memories of things that todays children would be amazed at, cocooned as they are with their central heating and all todays gadgets! Not for them the ice on the INSIDE of windows in Winter or Monday washdays with the huge iron mangle with a tin bath underneath and a dolly tub!
The oven shelf to warm the bed and us dressed in Dad's shirt, socks and a cardigan!