Photo-a-Day  (Friday, 19th July, 2024)

Nice photo, Dennis, even in the rain! The bus stop near The Bird I'th Hand played a part in my life for many years, going home to Ince from Hindley Market as a small child with my Mam and then going to and from Hindley Grammar School Monday to Friday from being eleven years old to sixteen, then meeting Peter who lived there. I have always had a soft spot for Hindley....in fact I'm going there this morning to the hairdressers!

Going on the bus from Owfen to Wigan in the sixties, you always got the smell of fresh baked bread when it pulled up at the lights. Funny the things you remember sixty years ago but can't remember where you put your specs ten minutes earlier.

Many memories of Hindley in the sixties always got off the bus there and caught the bus home from ‘The Bird’. (The bus shelter has moved further along.) We enjoyed The Banner in the mid sixties..oh boy! Did we……when lads and girls ‘dressed up’ to the nines in the latest fashions. I would love to start all over again…

I have a soft spot for Hindley too, Irene.

peebee, I suppose the smell of fresh baked bread was from the Excel bakery on Market St.

Lewis’s coffee shop was the place in Hindley for me and loads of other motorbikers When Keith ran the place early 60 ties then the Castaways in the 70ties? The Banner looks still to be popular Veronica I guess you don’t see Barbra or her best friend Brenda that worked alongside you?

No not these days John but that was work we did have some fun though. The Banner was great with another two girls I worked with. One wag christened us
‘Rag, Tag and Bobtail!’ Then we parted company as I met my husband there. Still went to the Banner though occasionally he knew all the best groups and where they played.

Weather a bit different today Dennis.
Irene, do you timber when the bus shelter used to be inside a building next to The Bird? It was as if it had been in somebody’s front room, demolished some years back.
Having all those great nights in the Monaco Ballroom in the 1960’s brings back memories, a few antics went on in the bus shelter waiting for the last bus into Wigan!!!!

To continue Dennis.
Beautiful day today, what a change, currently in the garden on my lounger, sipping Rum and Coke listening to best of UB40 thinking I am on a beech in the Caribbean.
Can but dream!

The comedian that poet was commenting on the other day, Bob Newhart, died yesterday aged ninety four.
He was a great comedian, very funny.

Dennis another person who I was brought up with listening to on the WIRELESS( Radio)Walter Raleigh Potato and Tobacco sketches were Hilarious Very clever. When people, who were part of you informative years dies. It puts your mortality into your own thoughts...

I had only just discovered Bob - how sad he was very talented with his telephone conversations.

RON, it seems that every meeting you have with an old friend brings news of another old friend who has gone to his or her just reward.
It makes me feel guilty sometimes that I am still on my feet, but has my old grandad used to say “Tha ast play tha dominoes until thas none left lad”.

I love the rain, the wet, the gloom of late Autumn, and then it turns wonderfully cold, a late November day in the 1960's, as dusk approaches, the fog which has never lifted properly all day, comes down, and this was proper fog, not that wispy, misty stuff of today, this was Smog, it contained smoke from a million coal fires, arsenic and cyanide from the factory chimenies, and the sounds of the 60's, not Radio Caroline, but the mass coughing of the populace, has they heaved up their guts on their way to the bus stop, where they would poof on Woodbine to relive the pain, and then sit upstairs, where they would say "hello'' to the 'no spitting' signs.

They don't know their born today ....

Rum and coke hey, Colin
I was doing something similar in my garden. For a few minutes I was on a tropical island with Palm Trees and golden sands, then the Bin Wagon rolled up and brought me back to reality with the banging and crashing of wheely bins.
You have to keep at least one foot in the real world don’t you?

Thank god its raining tomorrow, I hate this hot weather.

Sir Bob, have you always been a cheery soul or did you have to work at it?
They could have used you during the Great Plague of 16 hundred and frozen to death.
You could have gone out in the fog at dead of night with a handcart shouting “BRING OUT YOUR DEAD”
Then you could have whistled a happy little tune for the family such as “Always Look On The Bright Side” as you you wheeled their only bread winner off to the Mortuary.

Colin, yes I do remember the old bus shelter when it was right next to The Bird....it ponged! When I was a small child I used to run round it shouting because it echoed. I remember going to The Monaco from Ince on the 3A Wigan Corporation bus in the late 1960s and then from Platt Bridge on the LUT number 1 bus in the early 1970s as we were moved there when our house in Ince came under demolition. Just going to Hindley this morning for my hair done brought back memories. Even with the Friday Market long-gone and many of the old shops now being nail bars, barbers and beauty establishments, Hindley still has a "homeliness" about it and I always feel welcome somehow!

R.I.P. Bob . You've left us a rich treasure trove of brilliantly wit to savour .

Ironic Dennis , that today's picture comes on the hottest day of the year so far .
Hope that's not an open topper you're sat on. .

Tee- hee, haha, chortle, chortle Dtease that did make me laugh. I am just picturing Sir Bob pushing the handcart to the town’s boundaries with his muffler wrapped round his neck - but still wailing “Oh yea! Oh yea!, Bring out yer dead”….His breath mixing with the swirling fog.

I know what you mean Irene,even with the repetitive shops appearing: nail bars,vape shops fast food eateries I still really like the place.However,I can't help feeling that this side of the town gets neglected in comparison to several other townships.

John ( Howfen) if you look at item 28162 you will see Barbara on the photo I posted. It’s at Turners Hindley Green. She is in middle peeping over somebody’s shoulder. I am on the extreme right at the end. I worked there aged 19 for about 18 months. It’s was a horrible job…but great camaraderie.

Veronica B you probably told me some time back as I have saved that picture and will not be deleting it but thank you.