Photo-a-Day  (Thursday, 2nd February, 2023)

The Moorgate is and was a very friendly place to have a drink we used to go regularly at weekends in the 90s? when Trevor and Anne managed it what a great couple and I could talk to Trevors dad all night he was a cracking bloke,does anyone know if Trevor and Anne are still living in Aspull,great memories ????

A nice photo of a homely village. I like the name Sawney Brow.....do Aspullers pronounce it "brow" or "broo"? In Abram, Kingsdown Flash is known as "Polly's Pond" or even "Auntie Polly's". and in Platt Bridge, Low Hall Nature Reserve is known as "Sammy's Flood". I love local names for places.

Thanks Dennis, good photo which reminds me of 60 years ago. The small shop on the right with the CAFE sign was once Billy Croston's grocers shop where I worked as an errand boy in the latter end of the 1950s early 60s, 11 hours per week for 15/- 75p per week in today's money but I was allowed to keep any tips I received. handed the job over to my younger brother when I left school in 1962, those were the days.

Much has changed since the 50s and 60s - no long row of terraced houses after the Moorgate pub, Harold Street to the right, long gone including its Methodist chapel. Ephraim's Fold will still be there on the top of the brow, left.
Still recognizable despite the changes. On the top deck of the no. 16 bus to Horwich, this was always a cracking view.

My great Aunt used to live in the terraced houses that used to be next to the pub. There was pebble dash on the walls, and my cousin and I used to spend hours picking the pebbles from the wall. . My Aunt used to live up the road in Ephrams Fold. I never knew it was called Sawney Brow. As you say Walt Happy Days.

Was here yesterday,I love Aspull,it's my favourite area of around Wigan and district.

Irene,
I grew up a stone's throw from Polly's Pond, and never even heard the name Kingsdown Flash until a few years ago...

Being in the area which a lot of Scottish folk came to live, I wonder if the name Sawney came from the old Scottish legend of Sawney Bean?

Gary, your families competitor, Alf Spence, had a shop on the left near the top of the hill. Then there were Pens up to Ephraim’s Fold.
I don’t know where Sawney Brow came from, but we always called it that. I think it referred to the other side of the hill mostly. Maybe someone of that name once lived there.
As a youngster, in the days when buses had an open platform on the back, I once jumped off at that bus stop before the bus stopped because I had seen grown ups doing the same thing. Unfortunately I tripped and did half a dozen somersaults before ending up back on my feet. I gave the Conductor a cheery wave pretending I wasn’t hurt, but as soon as the bus went I collapsed in a heap. My arms and legs were various shades of black, blue and purple for weeks.
The thing was though, I didn’t go home for a couple of hours after, but when I did my mam asked me what I had been doing, so I just told her I had a fall. She then told me in minute detail exactly what I had done.
Those Aspull mothers had a finely tuned spy system in operation.
If you did anything you shouldn’t have, they knew about it almost before you did it!

Walt I’ll bet you remember the Pink Elephant down the street facing Moorgate and Jackson’s shop the other side of fingerpost just lower down from Queens head was our local shop as after Dukes Row I lived in Crawford st and then School close where the pretty new Methodist church stands now all whilst working at Harvey’s Red Seal later sixties I frequently used the DIY shop on Bolton Road and the scrap yard for car spares I think the rugby club is close to where the scrap yard was just further down from Crawford St (happy days)

Walt I’ll bet you remember the Pink Elephant down the street facing Moorgate and Jackson’s shop the other side of fingerpost just lower down from Queens head was our local shop as after Dukes Row I lived in Crawford st and then School close where the pretty new Methodist church stands now all whilst working at Harvey’s Red Seal later sixties I frequently used the DIY shop on Bolton Road and the scrap yard for car spares I think the rugby club is close to where the scrap yard was just further down from Crawford St (happy days)

Irene, Auntie Polly's or Polly's Pond is quite famous too, and some folks in comments on the website are asking who was Aunt Polly, any ideas, maybe she once slipped and fell into the pond.

https://amandaragaa.com/tag/pollys-pond/

I remember too reading the story of Ludovic the train driver, someone shouted for him to jump - but he went down with his beloved Dolly. sad to read that the travellers are playing up, I remember Mr Price who kept everyone and the caravan site in order. In the 1980s we got the job of emptying the electric meters as everyone else was scared of going, but the people on the camp were okay and always friendly, and the dogs that were loose was friendly also.

I wasn't born in a village,
only a simple street .
The people became my family,
the ones I grew to meet.
We shared each others belongings,
when need became greater for some,
no one was richer or poorer,
we treated each other like one .
We played together while growing ,
our bommies we sent to the Gods ,
we ran whilst screaming and laughing,
the rest I leave to Red Cloggs...

Dennis I was ‘dying’ laughing at your episode - sorry! I couldn’t help it.. I’m in chinks. I do laugh at the most inappropriate things. Imagining your mam..oh! Heck.

I blame it on a lack of fridges, Veronica. Not many, if any, in Aspull had a fridge in those days and that meant that they had to go to the shop almost every day.
You would see them with their heads together in a corner swopping intelligence about what each others kids had been up to.
If they suspected that you was earwigging they would switch into mee-mawing mode so that us kids would never know what they knew. Very frustrating that was because it meant that you always missed the juiciest bits.
I remember one Summer’s day during the holidays, we had been out over the fields for practically all the daylight hours and never saw a grown up, but sure enough when I got home she knew exactly where we had been.
Some of the lads thought she was guessing, others put it down to witchcraft, personally, I reckoned we had a traitor in our midst. If that was so we never caught him.

" I’m in chinks"

Which one are you in, Veronica? Are you having chow-mein? or sweet and sour chicken and fried rice?

I like that poem,’e’, it fits the Aspull I knew as a child to a ‘T’.

Mams and mums are the same the world over Dennis- we always know when something’s amiss, I still do it’s called instinct! …Almighty B it means ‘helpless’ with laughter! If I feel like a good laugh I can read that episode again! It always does the trick for me. At home I just need to look at some old passport photos and I explode laughing. I am the holder of all the passports in the family because they’re safe with me.. well I think they are!

John I certainly do remember the Pink Elephant, Nellie Orrell's shop. Arthur Winrow's shop, Mrs Eckersly' s chippy, Tom Jacksons dad had the shop just to the right of of where Dennis stood for this photo. Aye lad, I remember Billy's scrap yard, the fiver Lodge near there, climbing Woodchie when I was 5 years old holding onto my sister's hand, it was like Mount Everest back then. One thing I do know is, whenever Dennis puts a Photo of Aspull on there are endless good comments and fond memories so, thanks again for those memories.

John, the DIY shop was once the Co-op shop and I worked there for a short time as well.

Walt the man that had the DIY shop gave me his Ford Thames 15 cwt grey van when he finished at the shop I bet you remember the van,what a decent man he was. I did spend quite a bit there as I used to make tiled top coffee tables out of blockboard with screw on legs and sold loads of them to work mates at the bakery good time’s.

I grew up at the Dover End and it was always Polly's then.