Photo-a-Day  (Tuesday, 1st November, 2022)

At least it is still surviving, hope it carries on getting people going in.

Strange how the Ball & Boot caught on and the Waterwheel further up the road didn’t last. I remember going in both in the late sixties. (I don’t recall the square bit at the back, was that added on later)? I thought it was quite ‘trendy’ at the time…

Of all the pubs in Scholes and they had to be replaced with these!
Ball &Boot, Waterwheel and Flamingo!!! I suppose that made the town centre pubs even more popular… now some of those are disintegrating -the Griffin is in a terrible state at the moment.

Would never have recognised it!
Clog & Pump - where Dave Berry gave an impromptu concert, at the bar, following an appearance in Wigan in 1968.

The Plough & Harrow public house on yesterdays PAD is still in very good shape.

Well it’s the Ball & Boots turn innit Syd…

You certainly had plenty of choice in Scholes Veronica, practically every other building was a Pub in those days.

I like the green sign “LIVE HORSE RACING HERE”.
Do they run round and round the Car Park?

With a week's bum fluff upon the chin
Wearing suits to look eighteen
We hid in the snug with all the old fellas ,
Wary of the 'War Cry' sellers ,
Watching for bobbies patrolling in twos
Weeding out we boyish boozers
Wily sipping lager and lime
Within dark tap rooms back in time
When Super Cockle sold in pubs
Whelks and shrimps and prawns in tubs .

Poet

I only mentioned that the Plough & Harrow was still in good shape after you mentioned that the Griffin pub is in a terrible state.

When I see signs displayed outside pubs saying Sky Sports and Karaoke it tells me not to venture in.
But I did use the paid car park in September when I went to watch a show at the Wigan Little theater.
I was told that its the safest car park in Wigan.

When I was 8 or 9 Dennis, I asked my uncle Bill Brindle, known for being a betting man where horses were concerned, who frequented the Running Horses in Aspull:
"Uncle Bill, where do t' th' horses run?"
Response:
"Raend't' fingerpost an' back."

Gary, do you remember Pat the bookies runner in Aspull who came round collecting peoples bets in the days before Betting Shops became legal?
I had a relation, an auntie who had a Saturday bet every week and Pat dreaded going to her house because she picked a horse in every race and the bets consisted of sixpenny singles, shilling doubles, each way doubles and any other bet she could think of. Poor old Pat had to reckon all these up and he reckoned he could collect twice as many bets if he didn’t have to visit auntie!
I think she did it on purpose just to annoy him!

The Griffin had a connection because the older end people migrated there (and other pubs)from the Scholes pubs after they they were demolished… thats the connection. These modern pubs did not go down well at all.

Th'eater is what you put on when it gets cowd.

Pat, the runner.
Dennis, I'd completely forgotten him. Most of the bets he took from my lot were a tanner or a shilling or two - except for the Grand National. Serious money was put on that race. My grandad backed Oxo, an outsider that won in 1959. Pat took that bet. It was much discussed in the following weeks, with people tapping empty glasses in the Hare & Hounds, the Running Horses and the Gerrard Arms, angling for a free pint.

Veronica, The Griffin was a very good pub as was The Silversmiths in the times I would go to them in the early to mid 1970s, it's very sad to see The Griffin in the state that it's in, and it seems to have been left to fall apart.

I also visited all three of those pubs in Scholes too during that time, i.e., The Flamingo, The Waterwheel and The Ball & Boot, but once only and that really was enough, though I'd say that The Waterwheel was the best of the three even with it being the smallest, it's now back to being a flat. When the Ball & Boot first opened wasn't there a football on the sign which angered the rugby fans that frequented the pub, and they had to swop it for a rugby ball to appease them - anyone remember it?

The Old Hall at top of Cemetery Road Lower Ince took some beating around mid sixties (can I look after your car mr was the first words you heard ) great music

The Ball & Boot was once called Sam's Bar. I think this was taken from the TV program called Cheers. Then it went back to Ball & Boot. Why do they change the name Then go back to the original?

Veronica, I think the square bit at the back was the living quarters for the landlord. Don't think it was a later addition.

Thank you Tuddy it’s over 50 years since we went in there a few times in the middle of the week, before I was married. Also went in the Waterwheel which was a quiet pub and very unusual underneath the flats. My favourite was the Old Hall it was brilliant with one really good group called the Vaqueros. If ever I hear the old song ‘ Oooh yes I’m a Great Pretender …..I am right back in that singing room, I loved the sixties the best of times.

We thought we could change the world in the sixties, Veronica. We thought everything was possible then.
We did change a lot, music, the way we dressed. We thought we could end wars, but that disappeared in a puff of mind altering drugs and we are still plagued with wars and drugs today.
Still, I wouldn’t have missed the sixties, not for anything.

Yes we certainly did Dtease , we rode the crest of the waves! But now we have reached old age, it’s caught up with us who never thought it would… I still feel young in my heart and head though…