Photo-a-Day  (Tuesday, 31st October, 2023)

I remember getting on that type of scales in the old Market Hall. Woolworths had a similar one. Wonder why you don't see them these days ?

Working in Hughes Bros, cheese factors, Gidlow Lane in the late 60s - an Avery version of one of these, with a bigger metal scale, for weighing full cheese. It encouraged biceps fit foe Wigan rugby.

I remember those in the Market Hall not all that long ago....there were two at one time, near the front door and near the back door, and they used to be in Woolworths too. I always thought they might have been used more had they been faced away from people passing, so only the person getting weighed could see the dial. It was so big that everyone walking past even yards away could see what you weighed!

WSG, Wilkie Speak Goss

Irene, you might just have that right .....
Weight being such a thorny subject in today's world !

I wonder what will happen with those scales. Will they be trashed like the big clock hanging from the galleries? Or will someone carry them off and keep them as a novelty. There must be a museum somewhere who would-be glad to take care of them. Or perhaps they will buried near the owd soldier in that great big hole where missing items go to. It’s dreadful that the market hall is being demolished beyond words.

Veronica, I would like to think they would still be used, albeit in a new home....perhaps even the new Market Hall, if ever we get one! It isn't all that long ago that I used them myself in Wigan Market Hall....it was 20p to get weighed. I remember when I was growing up in the 1960s it was an old, pre-decimal penny to get weighed on those big red scales in Woolworths, and weighing-scales, (although not that size!) stood on the pavement outside most chemists' shops, including the one where I worked.

There’s no use for these old things anymore. Keep up with the modern times people.

It was worse when you went to weigh yourself on it and it said "One at a time, please!"

Here's a collection of public weighing scales in a coin operated machine museum. https://penny-arcade.info/penny-weight-scales

If not used anymore rather than being scrapped or put in storage then maybe this one could be put in a new Wigan museum, along with the jockey scales and all those other gifted to the town treasures which are all stored away in the council's 'Ali Baba' secret cave.

Oh Mick, why be so negative, these machines were a marvel of engineering. Now everything is digital.

As if anybody will take note of that advice
…” keep up with modern times” ! Where has that got the town of Wigan? Same with all the other towns.
I am still waiting for a parcel that was posted on Friday from a company with Royal Mail and it’s still not arrived! First Class too! Plus no sign of it having left the Mail Centre at Manchester when tracked and traced! ..so annoying..

Agreed, Veronica. Peter went to The Halifax today where you used to be able to sit in a private room with an advisor if you needed help. He was told they don't do that now and he has to go "online" for advice. He told them we don't do bank business "online" and was told he would have to ring up to speak to someone. This is not going forwards, this is going backwards but it needs people to stand up to it. I will stand in a queue in a supermarket with one item before I will use a self-checkout, and I will refuse to buy something in a store if that store won't accept cash, but it needs everyone to stand up to that or we have lost. If they did, the banks and supermarkets would be forced to back down, but people just won't make a stand.

Going on ’online’ to press this that and the other Irene is another nightmare! At the end of a list to pick what applies to your complaint you have to press one of the ready made complaints on the list so that you can go on to another ‘field’ . Ending up with a stupid thing that proves you are not a robot by looking at 6 photographs to match some flaming traffic lights…What the hell fire is that all about ? At the end of all that you go back to the beginning until you are ready to tear your hair out and give up ‘cos you are back to where you started.
It’s just a ploy to keep you in suspense until they’re ready to deliver a parcel from their burgeoning stockpiles of undelivered parcels!..
Welcome to the nauseating world of technology! It’s stupefying and created to grind us down into dust.

Have you noticed Veronica that these couriers don't have a phone number, so you can't actually phone them to enquire about a parcel. Very, very frustrating.

Not only that Pat they leave deliveries in the queerest of places, for instance inside the dustbin, hanging on a tree, amidst shrubberies ..I wouldn’t be surprised at anywhere they stuff them. I think they just stop at stuffing them down chimneys.

That might be an option they will use at Christmas!