Photo-a-Day  (Friday, 11th January, 2019)

Good photo showing the bottom entrance h Makinson's Arcade. Whilst it is nice to see the Arcade and the history around it, there is no "humpf" to it, I must be getting too old.

Correct Ken R.Like the rest of the town.
I'ts souless.The market hall is worse.

An iconic entrance to the arcade that I knew so well.

Shame about the ...loud..shop sign.

Thanks Jane.

Like an elegant Edwardian gent wearing a baseball cap.

The town has become like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing - there will be more missing soon, sadly,when and if the big stores close....it's the same all over. That sign is so tacky and out of place - do they think we are all blind!

I wonder if that woman wearing the gay coloured jacket ever looks in the mirror

Nicely put, Poet! And I was amazed to see what I thought were three ladies actually wearing skirts, until I realised they were schoolgirls in uniform. I walk through Wigan four days a week and there only ever seems to be ME wearing a skirt or dress and heels. It is all trousers and trainers these days. I used to love the smell of coffee from Makinson's Coffee Shop, (now Thornton's), when I was a little girl. The name is still there picked out in mosaic on the floor as you walk in. I agree with the above statements but I must admit I like the lamps.

I have been pondering as to what will be left in the future. My tortured brain has come up with :- Post Office for returns from Internet shopping possibly.
Card shops, a cafe for the lost souls like my self - wondering where all the shops have gone! MORE than enough Charity shops.
The Galleries will become a shelter for when it's raining and somewhere for the homeless to bed down at night? Might even have a Green Grocers. The Bus Station - could be somewhere for the kids to skate board! Have I left any shops out?

Irene you are not the only one wearing skirts - I have just bought a lovely corduroy one in navy. Last year I was in Debenhams and a ninety year old lady was looking for a skirt and saw me wearing one and she asked me where I had got it from- I didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted! Neither of us could find a skirt last year but this year there's loads about! I was beginning to think they had become extinct..... Unless you wanted one in a six inch length!

Well Mick judging by that photo 26/09/17, look at the state of YOU, you obviously never look in a mirror, stop being so rude to people you don't know

Irene,Elizabeth always wears a skirt.

Yes I know she does, Maureen. I was just generalising.....I DO see an occasional skirt or a dress, (particularly in Summer), but the trousers/jeans/ tracksuit bottoms far out-number them. I was just pointing out how times have changed since the Makinson Arcade was built and through its heydays in the fifties and sixties when I was growing up. It was mainly the young girls who wore jeans or trousers then but they are fashionable with all ages now.

Irene, I always wear skirts and dresses.. Pants when I am working out in my garden.. ( I remember from my childhood, seeing older ladies, bent over to pick something up, with their bum in the air, showing their knickers.. so I wear pants.). Can't wear heels any more, just low wedges.. this is Florida, very casual, only women going to work wear heels...

Makinsons arcade, one of the few Wigan icons left, I remember the wonderful aroma from the Makinsons coffee shop and as reminded by Irene, the name is still on the entrance floor as you walk in.
Of course when I get to visit Wigan, one of the first stops is Thornton’s chocolates, usually have a shipping order for special toffee and elsewhere for Uncle Joes Mint Balls to to take back to the USA .

I was just thinking the other day, the bus station has seen many changes, from Hope St, to a new bus station at the back of Market St, to a re-constructed bus station.

There’s nothing so sure as change itself as I notice each time I visit Wigan (which is not often enough).

Britboy, only yesterday I was telling my husband about Makinsons Coffee shop and the amazing aroma .. never smelled anything like it and I didn't even drink coffee back then.. I do miss the Wigan of my day...

A bit "old" Wigan still there, a shame about the bakery sign, completely out of context.
Nice one Jane.

And those horrible stickers all over the windows, really tacky.
I remember the coffee importers ...thats going back a while, back to the late 1940s !

I think the photo=a -day referred to is 25th September 2017.

Unfortunately Janet (jouell) the Wigan of our time has long gone, but it remains in our thoughts and loving memories for ever.

Used to walk down there on the way to TLS from StationRoad and shout”Clapper” and he would chase us all across the market square. Think his name was Bill Lyon.

It was indeed, Bill. xx