Photo-a-Day  (Thursday, 14th September, 2023)

Is this the pub that new fathers wet the babies’ heads in Billinge? …How very appropriately named.... lovely building.

A very appropriate name for a pub in Billinge, a place where so many Wigan babies were born!

another building ear marked for affordable (otherwise known as fill it with asylum seekers housing development ) financed by govt grants

Irene I do think you and I think alike sometimes! ;o)). (A certain person will be thinking we are in league!)

Great minds think alike, Veronica, that's why!!

And St Helens babies, Irene.

You get about Dennis I had two daughters born in Billinge in 1967 and 1969 then another in Firs at Leigh in 1971 I must be getting old,both Billinge and Firs maternity hospitals well gone.

7 out of 10 people can't tell the difference between Stork and a real boozer .

Taxi .

Veronica and Irene, The Stork would have been a good walk, 2 miles or thereabouts from Roy Hartley, so you'd be ready for a drink, but as you say an apt name for a Billinge pub, nearer though would have been the Labour Club across the road, The Holts Arms in Crank Road or The Unicorn just down the road which very often had patients from the Psychiatric wards who being away with the fairy godmother turned up at the bar - naked.
I've only been in the Stork once with friends in the early 1970s, and we like many other folks I'm sure only ever went there because of the tale of the haunting Cavalier, and the tale has been a very good cash cow for the pub over the years. A shame the locals didn't win the fight to keep it open, though they did prevent it being demolished which the developers wanted had in mind.

Poet . Stork from butter you mean.

Poet, wonder if those who said they couldn't tell the difference got a Brucie bonus? They wouldn't get away with telling such porkies now, or could they? Butter tasted far better than Stork or any other 'marge' for that matter, and, despite what they implied at the time, was a lot better for you than the stuff they were insisting housewife's should be buying.

Cyril, even "The Labour Club" is a suitable name for being near to Billinge Maternity Unit!

How hard can it be having a baby? Granted there’s a bit of effort involved at the end, but it’s worth it considering you get pampered and run round after for nine months beforehand. I don’t know what all the fuss is about really.
I’m now going to take my brew and hide out in the shed for a day or two.

The Stork and the Labour Club where the men hid from view until it was all over ….(back in time.) nowadays they hang about twiddling their thumbs and getting in the way…. Or end up fainting…

As already stated by Arthur, kind of, why would the father of a Wigan baby go to a St Helens pub to 'wet it's head'? Especially as there are several pubs much closer.

DTease, get in that shed lad, and stay there! You cheeky monkey! I bet you faint over watching "Call the Midwife"! LOL!

Irene, I never thought of that i.e. labour :¬)

One time when I was doing pest control at the hospitals and was at Billinge, one of the duty doctors on maternity had reported being bitten by fleas in the room where the duty doctor rested and slept, anyhow I was spraying the room and moving the furniture and underneath the bed was a lot of those under the counter magazines, I couldn't understand why someone who would spend hours every day looking at and examining real life vaginas in the course of their work, would then want to spend their free time ogling photos of them in magazines.

The Stork at Billinge has a ghost, and it is a Poltergeist Ghost, it chucks furniture around.

The former Stork Pub is being converted into 26 flats, and when those new residents move in, that ghost is going to think that Christmas has come early, because it will have a WAIL of a time.

Why is it that folk always refer to the maternity hospital as "Billinge", yet always call the area "Higher End", never Billinge, as if Billinge doesn't exist. You never hear anyone from Chapen End actually calling it "Chapel End", it's always "Billinge". A crazy lot.

For those of us who don't live in Billinge, we don't know of "Higher End" or "Chapel End". We were told back in the day when attending ante-natal clinics in all areas of Wigan and District that our babies would be born at The Roy Hartley Maternity Unit, but to be honest most doctors and midwives just referred to it as "Billinge", so that's all we knew it as.

These days at the birth,the men are there taking photos with the rest of the family!

With the NHS under pressure a few women have recently given birth on trolleys while awaiting admission to the ward .
Emma was lying there waiting when a chap in a white coat appeared , lifted the gown and gave her a thorough inspection , and then off he went .
A few minutes later another man arrived , and also had a close look .
" Is there anything wrong ? " , said Emma , a little alarmed .
" I don't know Miss " , said the man , " We're just painting the corridor" .

Poet, when I was being examined in Billinge Maternity Hospital there were painters or window-cleaners, (can't remember now, but they were two men!), up at the huge glass window, at which there were no curtains or blinds, and that's absolutely true. I had to ask if either they or I could be moved somewhere else whilst my examination took place! The staff were so busy and intent on their job that they hadn't even noticed the men!