Photo-a-Day  (Monday, 14th December, 2020)

I can't say that I recognize the view, my eyes must be fading. However, many years ago when I was a student, I used to work at Heinz Kitt Green factory during my summer holidays.
I was there when the tomato sauce machine exploded, throwing about fifty gallons of sauce in all directions, including even reaching the ceiling.
Everyone in the room was covered in it. What a mess !
Does anyone else remember this unforgetable experience ?

Thanks for the photo and the memory, David.

Alan (still combing sauce out of my hair)

A good advertising photo for a can of Mulligatawny

fantastic photo david

My father worked for the Metal Box Company in Howfen for quite a while and often found himself seconded to Kitt Green on machine maintenance and repairs (cf Alan's exploding ketchup machine, above) and he regarded both as good employers.
This photo is very "Wigan" - industry + rural in the same view. It is how D H Lawrence described the mining areas of Nottingham. Wigan was and is the same. In a place like Aspull, in the fifties, old miners and their wives knew everything there was to know about plants, animal behaviour and woodland.

I remember my brother mentioning something of the sort. He was in the fire brigade at the time, said all their equipment was covered in sauce but I had the impression it was stored canisters exploding owing to a fire. Maybe a different episode.

David....looks like you have caught a tomato souper not a pea souper.

And the bosses got together. "We've lost a lot of tomato sauce there, lads"! "How will we make up that loss"? "I know", said one quick-thinking young fellow called Alan, "If we put a bit more water in the beans, instead of tomato sauce, it will make up that loss in twelve months"! And so it goes. Heinz are "putting a bit more water in their beans, instead of tomato sauce" to this very day. And it's all Alan Porter's fault !

The had big silver tins of tomato pulp . No sign of the pretty young girl skipping down her cottage garden path to tenderly pluck the dew drenched fruits from the vine , as seen in the TV ad.

Again a photo that could be any where if you do not know the area? Reminds me of the pea souper fogs which cover the valleys in winter

Alan on Vancouver Island, that made me roar with laughter, it could have been slightly worse though. What if it had been beans? They would have been like bullets! It sounds like something out of a Norman Wisdom film. ;~))

It looks almost Victorian.

I worked at Heinz on maintenance for 20 years, i am making no comment on most of the rubbish comments written above.

PeterP, this IS WIGAN World after all, it's obvious to anyone, if you don't know the area what's the point in logging on. I wouldn't log on to Whitehaven World and expect to know what i was looking at !!!!

Blob I have been a member of WW since 2006 and If I went to St Helens or Whithaven and took a photo in the dark of an industrial setting could you recognise it unless it was on your door step I think not? I live on the outskirt of Ashton and from my back garden I can see the large mast at Rivington when it is illuminated .If I took a photo could you tell me where I am or what is between my house and the mast in the dark? Todays photo is just a dark shot of heinz from a distance and most members would not recognise it without the title

Blob...what visions that name makes in the mind ! I don't know the Wigan of today...my Wigan was many years ago but I still look in every morning to see whats going on.....its called interest also seeing what comments my WW compatriots have made...if I have no comment, I dont make one...Simples !

Last smoker holds his whiskey ,
Dean Martin on his own , drinking out his memories ,
For one last journey home .
The cotton mills are gone now ,
The last stacks had its day,
The bar man calls he’s
closing
So Dean just fades away ...

Blob, I agree with you, but I also agree with PeterP.
I find that most claimed 'Wiganers' aren't fromWigan. They think they are, but they know very little about the place. Many have not actually been to Wigan for years. Others, as some members point out on the message board, come from one side of Wigan but have never been to anywhere on the other side. Therefore, they don't know what the 'other side of Wigan' looks like. I'd bet there's a load of so-called Wiganers who don't know where Heinz's actually is, never mind been there and seen it.
As a matter of fact, I know Heinz very well, I could get there with my eyes shut, yet I didn't recognise it off the photo.

And, what's more, I don't think David (who took the photo), knows what's New Springs and what isn't.

Blob, I agree with you, but I also agree with PeterP.
I find that most claimed 'Wiganers' aren't fromWigan. They think they are, but they know very little about the place. Many have not actually been to Wigan for years. Others, as some members point out on the message board, come from one side of Wigan but have never been to anywhere on the other side. Therefore, they don't know what the 'other side of Wigan' looks like. I'd bet there's a load of so-called Wiganers who don't know where Heinz's actually is, never mind been there and seen it.
As a matter of fact, I know Heinz very well, I could get there with my eyes shut, yet I didn't recognise it off the photo.

And, what's more, I don't think David (who took the photo), knows what's New Springs and what isn't.

I always put Hindley, Lancashire, as my addtress.

Most of us who comment on here don't actually live in Wigan, although I only live 5 miles away. But Wigan will always be my home. I am a born and bred Wiganer, and still feel I am a Wiganer first and foremost. I knew the old Wigan like the back of my hand, I might not recognise some of the areas these days, but will always be interested in the changes. I take it for granted that the photos posted on PAD are genuinely taken in Wigan and accept that without question. Good photo David, very interesting Evening shadows!

I have lived in Hindley all my life nearly 70 years and I wouldn't ever say I lived anywhere else and I don't understand why people do that. Westhoughton is at the bottom of my garden and I see it from my bedroom window but I don't say I live there.
We go to Leigh shopping but I don't live there either and I'm not a Leyther. It is silly to say Wigan is your home when you live 5 miles away.

I don't care what you say George - Wigan is my home town and always will be. It's a part of me it's in my bones , and it's where my heart is.

Madness, madness, they call it madness,
It is plain to see, what Wigan means to me,
Madness, madness, it's nothing but madness.

Surely, one's 'home town' is the town they were born and live in? My home town is Ormskirk, although I now live in Orrell.

Correct John, as for me - you can take the girl out of Wigan, but you can't take Wigan out of the girl, as you say - your home town is where you are born...