Photo-a-Day  (Sunday, 24th September, 2023)

The telephone booths and the pillar box are worth a bob or two. These are used as garden ornaments in parts of the UK, or as design features for people with money to burn.
As has been mentioned in connection with Red Rock, the VR wall boxes carry a premium.

Doesn't the red of the post box & telephones boxes stand out. No doubt the phone boxes will be sold off but what about the post box ?
Here the PO closed & was opened in a newsagents come toy shop...then that closed & it was located in the community centre on the way out of town......that closed. Now it is once again in a newsagents. The Post Offices used to be such a hub for everyone.

Such a shame to lose this building that we have all been familiar with all our lives. It can't be said that it wasn't used either, as there was always a queue. But benefits are now paid straight into bank accounts, whereas pension day and family allowance day used to have recipients queuing up even before the post office opened, with their pension/allowance books at the ready. Times change.

It's Sad news what's being going on with the Post Office , all those PO workers wrongfully accused of theft, sacked and accused of theft. In the end and after years computer technology was at fault.
The Post Office has been going through rough times in recent years, but it shouldn't, it's a Great British institution, we need them.
Bad management and closing local POs has been going on for years. Their's talks about Post deliveries being stopped on Saturdays, this could happen in the next board meeting. They recon they are losing millions of pounds everyday.
I need and sherry.

Another great Wigan building bites the dust. Post office hitting bad times. Top management needs a clear out.

Post Offices used to be a trusted place, not now after the workers scandals. A beautiful building going to waste, that sums up the Post Office's top management.

In years to come all these three with be defunct a thing of the past. The Post Office, the phone box and the post box, you mark my word....sadly.

All these three are vital to everyone no question.

Before my Dad retired from the GPO, he always parked his car at the very front of the GPO, one day after shopping with my Mam we were walking past and my Mam who was a a bit of a devil said to me “have you got a pen and paper love” she wrote on the paper “ All is forgiven Jim please come home” and stuck it under the windscreen wiper , I would love to have seen his face bless him..I think about it every time I pass the GPO.

Incompetence the P/O top bosses should go.
The business is in a sorry state, closing offices all over Britain is not the answer to save money.
All these poor workers wrongfully accused of theft is shocking.

Technology, emails mobile phones are to blame.
For instance, it's much easier to send a birthday message by email than a card.

Our post man delivery is after 1.30pm every day lately, it used to be 10am for many years.
And it's not always the same person like we were so familiar with.

Post Offices , Banks, Pubs, Shops everything has or is going to the wall even Churches are gradually ( at least the congregations) disappearing . Where will people ‘socialise’ physically in the future? In Coffee shops or the Park maybe? There are still people working from home. I ordered something the other day from a company and I could hear a dog barking in the background! I rang Sainsbury’s yesterday just to renew my nectar card because it wouldn’t ‘swipe’ in the store - I was put through to India and the racket in the background was unbelievable it sounded as if it was in an office with the window wide open outside a market and I’m almost sure I could hear an elephant in the distance….. Definitely more socialising going on there. The same trying to ring the Bank with automated voices asking briefly what was the query until 20 minutes later I spoke to a human! Supermarkets striving to get us ‘diehards’ to use the self service machines with just 2 tills and a queue stretching back into the aisles. There’s me with a newspaper and a packet of Scotch pancakes in the middle of a long queue of trolleys piled high objecting to the young girl offering to help us use the self service. I did feel sorry for her…..
The future looks bleak to me..

I would still send cards to people, emails just make us look like ‘cheap skates’ ..mind you I have often posted by hand or given cards physically AND still emailed greetings. I’m not and never will be a robot which the world seems to be turning us into.

Veronica, that made me howl with laughter when you said you were sure you could hear an elephant in the distance....that's made my day! When I worked at Boots we had an answering system that put people through to different departments but if I was near a phone I would snatch it up quick and say "Good morning, Boots the Chemists Wigan", and there would be a stunned silence at the other end and then a voice would say, almost disbelievingly..."Oh...a person!". When I worked at Debenhams in the 1970s we had a telephonist who answered in a very friendly voice and put customers through to the various departments. Sometimes I think we've gone backwards instead of forwards.

I bet it wasn’t an office as we know it Irene - I bet he had a stall as well on the market. He wouldn’t have been in ‘office attire’ either! Come to think of it- it was probably a shack selling cold drinks and hot curries. He was very confident saying
“ Madam your card will be with you in 10 days.”
It is a long way off though is India…

I mooted a WW get together last year and provisionally booked the box on the left. Unfortunately the idea didn't garner enough interest so my deposit was lost :) Good photo Dennis.

I can do better than some people's analysis. We lost more than half of our railways to Dr Beeching cuts back in 1963. Most of our corner shops have all but gone. We don't print newspapers in Wigan anymore. Wigan newspaper are printed in Sheffield. The NHS is in turmoil as is the railways and booking offices. The Police have been cut back . Its difficult to get a doctors appointment. These are just some serious necessary points. Banks and Post Offices closings.
Pubs, supermarkets and coffee shops are not that important and not really necessary.

The future looks good, it all depends what you want out of life. I never go the the banks or post offices. I Don't go in pubs or cafe's I don't drive. I try to do everything on line, I use public transport.
I always sent Xmas and birthday messages by text.
Now that is the future we should all adjust to.

WN1 Standisher, count me in on a meet-up for Wigan Worlders. It would be lovely. What about you, Veronica, Garry , Wiganer, DTease, Poet and everyone else? xx

Oh dear, I missed Cyril and Mick, Maureen, Elizabeth and Edna, and probably a few more! Was trying hard to think of all the "regulars"....I know Helen and Broady and Linma are too far away. More names keep coming back to me!

Just to follow up on the good points from Alan, We should do away with cash and only use cards. This with also help to stop drug dealer stashing so much cash in hiding places. If the dealers had cards the bank manager would be most interested where the money came from and would call the police.
That's what I think anyway.

So where does speaking to ‘real’ people and not figments of our imagination come in? (Not just immediate family)
Its got to the stage where even ‘socialising’ is being done online… that’s what is happening here now this minute…
What you are talking about Alan is not the direct result of technology. Those issues have been happening over decades. It’s technology that is taking over by stealth. You are missing the point in the loss of the Post Office, the post box and the telephone box.
I usually go for a swim on Sunday morning but couldn’t be bothered, the only people I have spoken to are all you invisible figments of my imagination online. But that was my choice today.

Good photo Dennis, you certainly got everyone stirred with comments, about the state of thing's.Its shocking what's happening.Makes us wonder were it going to end.Garry I need two sherries.

People seem to be getting the post office and Royal Mail mixed up. Two separate companies. Post office have no say in delivery days, that’s Royal Mail.

Jon I think the idea of the photo to my mind was to represent communication by physical means ie, post and telephone and what people are doing instead by means of technology. I understand your meaning though regarding the ‘separate’ company’s. But even deliveries are made now by other private company’s and Royal Mail is not used as much. That is why Post Offices are closing more and more. That’s what I think anyway. I stand to be corrected as I am no ‘technological expert ’…by any stretch of imagination.