Photo-a-Day  (Wednesday, 2nd January, 2019)

Thank you Mick for this photograph. We are blessed in Wigan to have such a facility .You can pay a visit and spend hours looking at local history ; there are copies of the Wigan Observer going back to the 1850s along with copies of The Examiner ( cease to published 1960) they are invaluable references . The staff are absolutely wonderful and helpful .

I think that Wigan Library is a lovely one.

Beautiful, I have never been but I will be paying a visit. I love libraries.

A beautiful setting to study in. I remember revising for my A-levels more than 40 years ago in that very room. It doesn't seem to have changed at all. I'm so glad they haven't made it "visitor-friendly" or dumbed it down in any other way.

The library looks like a library should look, lets hope it stays that way. Not that libraries shouldnt move with the times. Our library here allows you to go in at anytime of day, when there are no staff on duty etc. You just scan your library card & insert your pin number. Wonderful !

I hope its not to late to wish all fellow WW...ers a very Happy New Year !

volunteers there Monday afternoons to help with family research.

Bristol fashion, or what?

This is a lovely room, full of character. Helen, this is the old library which is for reference and local history. The actual Wigan lending library, (The Glass Box, as I call it), is across the road and we have had self-issue machines with a plastic card for years now. I miss the days when the library assistant stamped your books for you, and I still have my cardboard library tickets, Happy New Year, Helen!

This level has stayed the same for years. I remember joining the library downstairs at aged 14. The front entrance was used at the time but I was always curious about what was at the top of the stone steps. Mainly old men reading the musty old books,but it was fascinating all the same. Twenty years ago I did a lot of my family history here ( without the aid of computers!). I loved the library downstairs.

Did some GCE "O" level revision in there 1968.
First class library.
Lending book signed by Eric Blair aka George Orwell.

I used to ho on the reel to reel many years ago to find more of my family history..old men and women used to take sandwiches and flasks of tea and spend all day there.I remember a lovely old chap..knowing I was new to it all,wanted to help..he said "Don't forget love that plenty of people couldn't spell many years ago..and they wrote their names down exactly how he heard it,"how right he was..can you imagine how versions of my maiden name of McGovern there are...apart from that I just love the atmosphere of the place,it is quite unique.

Not been for a while, will try and go there soon.

Ssssh! Please! You're all making far too much noise.

The Wigan Examiner closed publication in June 1961.

When I was around 8-10 years old, (1960-62), I can remember my friend Christine and I "playing libraries". I think After-Eight Mints were quite a new thing and we must have got some for Christmas because I recall us sticking the little brown paper folders that held the chocolates into my books, and making index cards with the book name and the author's name to slide into them. We stuck sheets of paper inside the front cover for the books to receive the date on which it was "due back". We took turns at being the librarian and the customer, and when, one momentous day, someone gave us an old ink-pad and date-stamp we thought we'd died and gone to Heaven! I wonder how many children today would be so happy and excited with such simple pleasures. Forgive me sharing the memory....I just had to! (Sorry, Poet, for getting so giddy in the library....you're quite right!).

You are so right Irene. When I went into the library the wooden boxes holding the index cards were on top of the counter. I liked watching the assistants searching for the cards with shiny polished fingernails. They wore belted green overalls in those days.
Maureen I remember the chap who helped everyone when they first started doing ancestry. I believe he flew in bombers during the war.
I also remember when I first joined the library, there was a very old wooden wall carving dating from the 1600's half way up the stone steps. I can't remember the words on it though. Perhaps someone else can.

I've always loved books,one day my lovely Brother paid a visit to our house which we hadn't been in so long,he went to my book shelves and said "You won't believe this our Mo but you've got every same book that I have ". The very first I had was a book I won at School titled 'The Art Prize',and that book set off my love of books..I've given an awful lot to the recycling Library in Beech Hill, I had so many and not a lot of room to keep them,no doubt dome day I'm going to regret it.

Irene & Veronica, I worked at our local library for about 10yrs when we lived in Kent. On my first day I was filled with dread at the front counter that held long wooden boxes all with cardboard envelopes with library cards in...I didnt know how I was going to get the hang of things...but I did. Another thing was ...shelving....putting back all the books that had been returned in the right place, in the end I could have done it without thinking about it. Now when in the library I want a book on a certain subject I just remember the index number. Happy Days !
Happy New to you both !

Being a librarian was a job I fancied doing Helen,I think I would have felt at home! But it wasn't on the 'cards' so to speak!
And a Happy New Year to you...

I'd like to wish everyone A Very Happy New Year .xx

I remember walking along the upper levels, on the right hand side, looking for a recipe for gunpowder, in the late 1950's, as a schoolboy from Wigan Grammar School. The atmosphere was fantastic back then.

Just a lovely library but I seem to remember a dark and closed atmosphere..but it looks just the same as back then. Excellent photo, Mick.

Happy New Year to Mo and to everyone...xxx

Michael, I'm on catch -up: please see p.a.d.31/12

I too wanted to be a librarian, Helen, Veronica and Maureen.....I never made it! However, my daughter worked in a library on Work Experience from school, leading to further library work on leaving school and she worked in the library at Styal Women's Prison before moving to The Isle of Lewis, where they still have a mobile library from Stornoway to the outlying remote villages, (my daughter doesn't work on it, though). I have a book from Boots' Lending Library, even though it is much before my time, but Veronica and I share a love of Brief Encounter, where the heroine, Laura, (Celia Johnson), visits Boots' Library in the film. What a winding tale this lovely photo has taken us on!

Fred, one of your Heads at WGS, LW (The Baz) Warren, became the Head of my Liverpool Grammar - the Alsop - where we were actually taught how to make gunpowder. A local chemist happily supplied the chemicals required, and much excitement was enjoyed experimenting....

Happy New Year Fred..xxx

Irene your mention of Laura ( Celia Johnson) Brief Encounter, reminds me of another old B/W film found on You Tube ' The Holly and The Ivy' over the Christmas hols - the minx was flirting with another man! It was good too...:! Finding many good films on there - so much better than the rubbish on the telly.

I used to work here, from 2004 to 2010. I loved it, it felt brilliant being able to access such a wealth of material. I was just sorry I hadn't taken more notice of my parents when they were around and had spoken of long-gone memories growing up.I have always loved books and worked at the library before transferring to the Museum ( History Shop !)

There's a lovely photo of Elizabeth at the time she worked there..It's in one of the 'Past Forward Magazines'

Happy New Year, Elizabeth! xx

Thanks Irene, you too. Happy New Year, Maureen, but I'm not at all photogenic, I wish I was !

Happy New Year to you too Elizabeth..and you look lovely on that photo.