Photo-a-Day  (Wednesday, 1st January, 2025)

Happy new year to everyone at Wigan World, hope 2025 turns out better than last year.

There are an estimated 400 pubs a week closing down so you will have to go hunting for one in a while

Did building tower blocks end community spirit or did it survive in another form ?

I forgot...it's the 1st of January.
Happy New Year everybody !

Hope you all have a lovely relaxing 2025.

All the best for 2025, hope your dreams come true.

Happy 2025 Wigan Worlders.
Keep safe.

A much tidy place than the rundown Scholes of the 1960s.
Happy new year.

People use to say the were more pubs in Scholes, that if it was raining and you pub crawled, you never got wet because they were very close to each other.
Happy new 2025.

Peace on earth to all of you.

You'll be lucky if a pub can survive out of Town these days.

Colin I find the word
‘ slum clearance’ objectionable it should never have been applied to the houses that were demolished in and around Wigan or all over Lancashire. People took pride in their homes and were looked after where I lived. It wasn’t just pubs along Scholes it was good quality shops as well. For every shop there was indeed a pub. It was a community unlike the void that’s left. The word ‘ slum’ clearance was used by the incompetent prats in charge who had no idea of what they did. Old houses in need of repair yes but ‘slums’ no. Where I live now there are houses of the same vintage but they haven’t been demolished instead they are renovated and made good. Communities ‘destroyed’ more like.
‘Slums’ never. Only folk who didn’t live there would say that.

Ps if they were so called ‘ slums’ why did they leave some behind?!. There’s still quite a lot of terraced housing from those times dotted over every town and village.

Well said, Veronica! Yes, they DID ruin close-knit communities and people went from neighbourliness to solitude in a very short space of time, and some just couldn't cope with it. As The Houghton Weavers sang about an old lady being moved to a high-rise flat, "I'm sure to get to Heaven, 'cos I'll be halfway there!" Happy New Year to the Wigan World Gang!

Veronica, with the greatest respect, I fear that you have entered 2025 with Rose Tinted Glasses.
I would agree that some terraced houses where built to a higher standard than others, with small private yards or gardens and possibly bathrooms, many of those still exists.
Not so for many others, ours in Harrogate Street for example was a two up two down with a small kitchen shared by my parents, grandmother and my two older brothers. Gas’s lighting upstairs, communal yard and a row of outside toilets which in winter a paraffin lamp was left to stop the pipes from freezing. The coal was kept under the stairs and my mother thought we had stepped up in the world when we acquired one of the three coal sheds in the communal yard as our own.
No such thing as central heating, double glazing or roof insulation in those days and even if there was most people or their landlords could not afford them.
Good clean modern housing replaced those slums but those suitable for improvement were kept.
They were not halcyon days in quaint terraced cottages but unhealthy hovels and slums and I for one am glad to see the back of them.
Happy New Year by the way to yourself and everyone else on WW.

The scheme was called slum clearance because that is exactly what it did. An exact and appropriate use of the English language. Language is the organ of the soul and frequently conveys the truth. The small pockets left standing were, I suspect, newer housing. Many of the Scholes condemned buildings were not fit for human habitation and it was right and proper to demolish. This was not a case of Wigan Council wasting money or plundering buildings but a social necessity in our recovery from WW2. Subsequent generations have benefitted enormously from this policy. Colin's picture is proof.

During the 1960s I've done some coal bagging round the Scholes area as well as Ince, the were some lovely people and lovely well cared houses. especially inside the properties.

Happy New Year everyone.
Nice photo Colin.

Well said Veronica.I for one don't believe you are looking through 'rose-tinted specs' ! I admit some properties did need to be demolished,but many others were worth of refurbishment and preservation.

Nothing wrong with people, certainly not in our small community around Harrogate Street. Most people were in the same boat and did their very best within limited means.
I wish I could walk those streets again but have no nostalgic desire to turn the clock back and live there.

Veronica. Look at Colins photo and compare it in your mind with how it looked before the Slum Clearance Act was implemented. The original legislation was the Housing Act 1930 but it took a long time to get going including a 15 year interruption due to the war. The drive to clear slum houses resumed in 1955 and was well underway by 1957. The 1969 Housing Act amended the definition of "slum houses " as being applied to houses being unfit for habitation and beyond reasonable repair cost. Scholes area was Wigan's worst slum area under this definition and needed to be virtually raised to the ground - which it was.

Nothing to do with people or communities, it’s all those slums that I refer to.
Damp, vermin infested houses, people kept dogs and cats not as pampered pets but to keep the mice and rats at bay.
Mortality rate in children too awful to contemplate with Polio, Diphtheria , Scarlet Fever etc, etc plaguing lives.
All now swept away, can you imagine what it would have like if in the 50’s and 60’s the various governments had not bit the bullet on Housing and the NHS. Unimaginable this being done today.

Good start to 2025.
My slum in Great George Street was worse than your slum in Scholes, so there.

No I don’t look back with ‘rose tinted glasses’ far from it, I stand by what I say. The ones that were left behind weren’t in many cases as good as what were demolished
If ‘words are organs of the soul’ then ‘ slums’ shows a deep disrespect for the people who lived in the those houses. What was built in their place in some instances at the time were so shoddy they were demolished as well not too long ago. A life span of no more than 60 years. What is left won’t last as long as the old houses did. How many tall flats and maisonettes have been demolished since?.
(Not to mention the concrete slabs dropping off the tall flats)
Not all those houses should have been condemned they could have been renovated. Thankfully buildings that have been built recently are of a much better quality than was built in the sixties, for instance in Scholes and around Hardybutts where the old folk live. How come aged terraced houses in other places around about are not termed as ‘slums’ no different to what existed then… There’s plenty of old red brick housing from the Victorian times still standing in every town.
That’s my opinion anyway.

Paul P when I look at that photo I just see a
‘ void’. Inferior buildings in place of a thriving community that deserved better than it got. If houses were to be pulled down better buildings to last should have been in place.

Can you imagine people using outside lavatory today, that's what Scholes was all about and many folk who lived in the Slum and rundown houses welcomed the Councils plan to redevelop Scholes.

Colin: some people who are lucky enough to own their own house always assume people in Council houses are poorer than them. I can assure you and other people that's not always the case.
I was born and lived in Council property's and loved the people there, none of them were Stuck-up, or thought they were somebody, most worked for a living and had lovely houses and gardens.

I have seen many houses just a few years old that look like slums.
It’s not the buildings that matter it’s the people who live in them that make the difference.
Generations of children were brought up in those houses in Scholes and would not change their childhood, nor the area they lived in, for anything.

Only ignorant people call Scholes a Slum and rundown area, people who don't want to understand the community we once shared. It was great.
Have a fantastic new year.

Many true comments on here about old Scholes and the community there.Melbourne Street in Wallgate really was a slum area if you wish to compare.

Wigan of the 1950’s bore the vestiges of the poverty of the Great Depression of the 1930’s and the deprivations of the Second World War. A sick and tired nation struggling to survive and still living in squalid conditions.
The 1950’s brought new hope, sweeping away the old and bringing in the new.
So please don’t voice your Revisionist nonsense about the good old days, I saw first hand the misery and squalor in those slums.
Clearly you did not read my book.

Good grief, only just read all this. My Grandparents lived in a terraced house in Vauxhall Road and it certainly wasn’t a slum. It was a well cared for loved home. I also was brought up in a terraced house, just up the road in New Springs. This again was a well cared for clean and loved home. Even if the coal was under the stairs and the toilet was outside.
My uncle was once the Landlord at The Shovel and Broom.

It’s what was put in place afterwards Eric. ..evidently.

No point in my repeating the joke regarding the bloke who came up on the lottery , purchased an expensive barbecue and had an inside toilet installed is there ? …
I’m sure most of you will be familiar with the tale already .

Mr G Orwell . I have read your book , and this was my conclusion.



A Book is Immortal.
Tom Walsh.

It is often said that a book is immortal, how very true in the case of ‘The Road to Wigan Pier', the people of of Wigan know the truth of the saying to their cost. Wherever you travel in the world and you mention your place of birth it often becomes the topic of conversation . The book has done untold damage to the town since its publication in 1937 and that harm will continue because of books longevity. He claimed to like the people of Wigan, God knows what he would have written if he hadn't. The book will hang like an albatross round Wigan's neck for decades if not centuries to come.

On the 75th anniversary of the publication of the book The Wigan Observer carried a special feature. I was fortunate enough to be invited to contribute, mine was a very harsh critique . Quentin Kopp from the Orwell Society fought Orwell's corner. At an event at the Museum of Wigan to commemorate the anniversary, I pointedly didn't say celebrate. Mr. Kopp seemed less than pleased with my criticism of the work , I think it would be fair to use the phrase 'if looks could kill'; however I was, and still am, firm in my assertion that Orwell came to the north with an agenda and we're told, with a retainer in his back pocket.

My criticism was not of his writing, he is an outstanding descriptive writer and his chapters regarding coal mining were of great significance, and brought the terrible working conditions to the attention of the nation. Because of the upcoming unveiling of the mining monument I have revisited the book, to see if I had been unfair in my opinion that his description of Scholes and Wallgate were largely exaggerated to the point of being biased in the pursuit of a good story!

I must say that on rereading or should I say listening again on ' Audiobooks’ ; incidentally, many are free including this one . I can recommend this method of ‘reading by ear’, particularly helpful to me as I'm a very poor reader and can easily lose concentration, this is not a problem with the spoken word . However back to the subject at hand; in chapter 4 he speaks of back to back houses and reports he was told during his research, of 36 people sharing a lavatory, this is not in Wigan I should add , he doesn't identify which town. To be fair to Orwell he says a miner told him, and he doesn't know if this is true; why then include it? In a book that claims to be factual, he speaks of 'back to back houses’ frequently, and for clarity I would like to point out there were few if any of these dwellings in Wigan, we had hundreds, possibly thousands, of terraced houses where the back yards came 'back to back', these are not the same animal. Houses of that description share party walls on three of their four sides, with the front wall having the only door and windows. This may seem a trivial point but as many in Wigan use this terminology for the latter, I think it right to highlight the difference lest people draw the wrong conclusion , easily done as in the earlier chapters the book goes from town to town . The book has had a world-wide readership and of course most will see it as a report with facts and figures to be trusted. I say report because this is how the format of the first part of the work purports to sound.

I was born 8 years after the book was published so obviously have no recollection of the period itself, however I was born in Scholes as were my parents and grandparents . On first reading the book at about the age of 13, I took it upon myself to ask questions from my extended family. I can assure you not one had a good word for Mr Orwell. They felt betrayed by someone who had gained the trust of many people from all over the north, whom they now see as an interloper from the south who damaged the reputations of many northern towns; none more than Wigan because of the title he chose for what I consider to be a biased and unfair depiction of my town .

I do not argue there was not great poverty in some areas, of course there was, that cannot be denied. Many houses were unfit for habitation, that is also true ; but I do take issue with his betrayal of the cleanliness of the dwellings. I have no doubt there were houses as he describes but they would be in a tiny minority, a minority he sort out diligently to suit his paymaster Victor Gollancz. That the vast majority of the houses were in need of repair and demolition is also a truism, but they were spotless; women mopping their steps on a daily basis even including an oblong of the pavement .

I think I can best show how unfair the book is by an article in The Wigan Observer on the13th March 1937, the same month as the publication of the book . The article reports that Mr. Bennett the Director of Education for Wigan was being interviewed on the wireless 'The National Programme'. The woman announcer who introduced Mr. Bennett to the microphone paid this tribute to Wigan - I paraphrase . 'As you approach Wigan, the traveler will be shocked and surprised as he draws near to what must be to south countrymen, the most fabulous of all northern towns. For you come into it through suburbs filled with thoroughly good modern houses, none look jerrybuilt, all suggesting an air of social content

No Lancashire town can show as many well built small houses as can Wigan on it eastern side; indeed there is nothing about Wigan that looks as though it had fallen into decline. Wigan is not a cotton town though a certain amount of cotton is spun and woven there . It is a colliery town , the difference between a colliery town and a cotton town is the coal pits are kept well away from the town centre whereas cotton mills are always protruding themselves into the very heart of the towns of their choice.

The centre of Wigan is very attractive its shops are made out of old black and white timber houses. The centre of Wigan is still further dignified by its magnificent Parish Church and the Market Place adjoining it. Altogether the face of Wigan is anything but what musical hall comedians suggest; it isn't place where the collier beats his wife is a matter of course every Saturday. There are many things in which Wigan is a shining example to all the Lancashire boroughs.' I am sure there is an amount of hyperbole in her comments, but what she has said, was said.

Can these two observations possibly be of the same town? I don't try to expunge the poor housing conditions in Scholes and Wallgate in 1937, but fairness demands that if you are to give a balanced view of a town , you should show some of the good side too! As Cromwell said 'paint me warts and all.' This programme didn't seek to gloss over Wigan’s problems, on the contrary, in Mr Bennett's address he mentions the high unemployment in Wigan, and says there were 11, 000 children of school age and confronts the free school meals issue.

The woman announcer , (the article doesn't give her name) entered Wigan from Chorley coming through Standish and presumably Wigan Lane , and I imagine left by the same route ; consequently didn't see the poor housing conditions in Scholes and Wallgate . I cannot but think had she visited these areas her judgment would have been more merciful and considered than that of Orwell .

This programme was not broadcast as a rebuttal of The Road to Wigan Pier it was a coincidence that it was broadcast in the same month as the publication of the book. Talking of rebuttal, I in my own tinpot way have written a rebuttal. The last chapter reads - I hope that some of the contents in this book leads readers to look at my home town with fresh eyes (mine) and in so doing see through the mist of bigotry and misinformation deliberately peddled by a one-time police officer from Burma. Today I think it could be described as 'fake news’. I may seem to have been dilatory in taking up the cudgel to right a wrong that incensed me on first reading it almost 60 years ago at St John Fisher Secondary Modern School, but is no less heartfelt for the delay. I hope I have managed to portray my love for Wigan ; to show why I have been moved to put pen to paper, or more correctly finger to i- pad . You see for me WIGAN has no PEER !

Jeff, I lived in happy home in a slum until I was 13 then a council flat until married at 26. Give me the council flat any day. Wherever we have lived poor or not we’ve always had good neighbours.

Poverty across old Wigan is well documented.
Seems urban development was an attempt to improve conditions and communities changed with it.

At least the wrecking ball couldn't destroy fond memories for those folk who knew it as their.. home.

'Never mind your rags and tatters, as long as your all heart that's all that matters'.

Have a healthy, happy and prosperous new year folks.

What was put in place was on a steep learning curve and mistakes were made. The mistakes were also recognised and acknowledged. Social infrastructure was lost and councils sometimes tried to use cheaper materials. The buildings in Colin's picture have always struck me as good examples of quality construction. The fact that some of the replacements were of poor quality does not detract from the fact that the slums they replaced were often not fit for human habitation. The dictionary definition of a slum is a squalid overcrowded house. This is what was knocked down and replaced with a much superior product. We should be pleased with what we have achieved in this respect.

I have no idea what is happening to my comments as they are just not appearing. I put one on earlier to say that my house was built in 1900, so is 125 years old this year. It would have had an outside toilet and no hot water for many years, but by the 1960s it had hot water indoors and an inside toilet and bathroom. The houses were just modernised and that was all that was needed......my home is still structurally sound and looks to be so for a long time to come. Some of my neighbours have been my neighbours for fifty years. That is what "slum clearance" took away from the people in Scholes....it wasn't the bricks and mortar, it was a way of life. I hope THIS comment appears, and I apologise if the original one eventually appears. SO annoying!

I didn’t live in a ‘ slum’ we had three bedrooms for four in the family.. ‘rented’ … The only thing missing was a bathroom. The remedy to that was the Swimming baths for a private bath. When people moved on to the tall flats the novelty soon wore off having a bathroom. People were miserable in them. I can vouch for that in the neighbours I used to see. It made me upset for my parents who had always worked but never had a chance to buy their own home. When they were young it was all about working for the ‘ war effort’ ! Plus the generation before them. My generation had all the benefits of their work. It was so easy to move on and buy property then.
In the beginning those tall flats were riddled with youths tormenting the residents by running up and down the steps and messing about on the landings and lifts. It’s probably better now for residents but not for the generation who first lived in them. I still say they should have had better. I also sympathise now for young people who don’t get the chance to buy their own homes.

Happy, healthy new year everyone!

The houses George Orwell described were all landlord owned with rents being paid, but with repairs or fixing up as they say never, ever being done, the folks living in them coped the best they could - they had too, because there was nothing else.
Here's Chapter Four of The Road to Wigan Pier, he later in the chapter describes two Wigan Corporation houses which had inside toilets and bathrooms. Strange how he never went to the privately owned or the well kept houses in Scholes or Wallgate.
https://www.george-orwell.org/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/3.html

Orwell's book put Wigan on the map. I've traveled all over the World, and the town Wigan was known everywhere I went because of his book.

I agree Cyril the earlier Council houses built in the 30’s I believe were so much better than what was built later. I know because my mother lived in one before she married.

Dave whelan putting wigan athletic in the premier league put wigan on the map. The only foreigners to have heard of wigan are the football supporters and that's wigan athletic not wigan town

I did some of the demolition there in late 1950's.

The structures were extremely rotten: Once the roof removed, and was no longer tying together the brickwork, no tools or equipment needed. You could just push the brickwork over by hand. I know, because I did.

Our house was a two up two down until my dad had another bedroom constructed paid for my brother who until then used to sleep in the same bed as myself..our toilet was outside in the yard so my fear of spiders was my only fear of living in Great George St,my mam and dad both worked full time so after school I would either clean the bedrooms and polish the furniture until they shone like crazy with lavender polish..my dad used to send me to Liveseys in Queen Street for whitewash which he would keep the yard walls snow white.the from step and windows were seen to with myself..my friend said she could stand at the top of the street and know which was our housed because the windowsill was that shiny..my mam had a new tiled fire surround from a shop in Wallgate..it was lovely..all we didn’t have was a bathroom,but that was soon sorted my mam had a boiler installed in the little kitchen..I used to leave a note on the door saying Dad please don’t come in as I’m having a bath lol.which meant was a good wash in the sink but I would go the baths at Wigan twice a week…I loved my childhood and could go on and on so if anyone wants to call them slums let them go ahead but I bet them any sum of money that their childhood was no better than I was living in a slum.