Photo-a-Day  (Sunday, 23rd March, 2025)

Not in to this Spicy so called food. Traditional English food for me, all this spice and sauce do nowt for me, to see
people after drinking plenty water after the meal.
According to Google it's still open.

Most Wiganers will never have been in the place, so it won't be missed.
I can only remember being in there one time, but I do remember telling Howard, who I met outside one morning, how daft he was for having his name on his car number plate.

I think the blamed the pedestrianisation of Millgate for a downturn in trade but there is more to it than that.
Increased costs have become unsustainable Gas, Water, Electricity, rise in Minimum Wage and National Insurance, Business Rates etc. etc the list goes on.
It’s the same all over the country decimating small businesses all to fill a supposedly Black Hole. Criminal!
Nice photo though Dennis.

They are getting like pubs, the prices are too high. Sad but its the reality.

Doesn't bother me, I'm a chippy chappy.
There is a cost of living crisis by the way.

I seem to remember many years ago that arched window with gates across but not what business was there.
On the right in the 50’s and 60’s was Tickles Craft Shop, I used to spend hours in there, now it does picture and memorabilia framing.

What are the odds on this reopening as a Kurdish Barbers or a Pakistani Vape Shop?
Proceeds of which go to pay off the gangs in France who brought them over in the first place so more can be brought over. Makes you think.

The arch window was once a doorway for the horses to have new shoes fitted.

Tom, I think you are getting it mixed up with Timpson’s on Standishgate!!!

Even the chippy is getting a bit expensive. I paid £9 in Southport the other day . Good though .

I’ve not been to Wigan for months and used to come on the train 2 or 3 times a week. Not be long before garish adverts are plastered over those windows along with a pungent smell of spices. Another “ Rishi’s Dishes” or “Happy Elephant “ take away …. Can’t have too many of those.

Seems the bollards of new vibrant Wigin didn't help.

Your right WN6 or junk food shop.
No wonder our kids have no teeth.

We as a Town are inundated with poor quality food outlets, Vaps, sugar sweets full of colours, poor diet foods, no nutrition or protein products.
A lot of parents are too busy and lazy to cook good foods. And some can't cook at all, only microwave stuff.

I have to say I do remember gates in the archway opened inwards. Very vaguely though.

Called in at Bizzie Lizzie’s in Skipton last week, £9.50 for fish and chips!
Used to be a cheap meal at the end of the week, not any more sadly.

I paid £11 in Lytham last August and that was to take the fish and chips outside! I was starving so I paid up. Then I had to walk half a mile to find a grassy mound to sit on. It was the 40’s weekend so that may be why they cost so much. They were very good though. There was enough for 2 - I couldn’t finish them all then I had to walk a fair way to find a bin. They were very good but I bet they would have only cost a ‘tanner’ in the 40’s.

One problem about growing old is we have a comparison. We can remember when fish and chips cost 2/- We forget that wages were probably £4 or £5 a week so in comparison. as a percentage of the cost to a weeks wage It isn't much different.
I tell my kids that I still think £10 is a lot of money...

It all depends where you go, Dennis.

You don't have to pay that Dennis, get a smaller portion. Fish and chips do vary in price, but hey, it's only once a week.

Fish and Chips has become expensive, if you get mushy peas and a carton of curry it’s more like £12
These days is when we fancy it we get one between us.
Get a pack of two Lemon Sole or bag of Scampi and a bag of oven chips from Lidl for around £6 it’s much better value and none of that fatty batter. You’ll get at least two meals out of that.
Got to go! just off to Lid. Mmmmmm.

Fish & Chips cheaper for pensioners at some chippies. You can also get a small portion if you need to save money and there's plenty in the smaller portions.

Fish and Chips much better than Kabbs and all that other rubbish.
Agree Dennis Chippy can be expensive but I suppose it all depends where you go. What's not cheap today.

Love Bizzie Lizzie's though, Dennis; the fish is delicious and the batter is so tasty. We used to go regularly when we had the caravan which we sadly had to give up last year. I think we'll have to have a ride to Skipton soon. The New Chippery in Market Street in Wigan is good value, though.....sit in at a table, lovely staff, very reasonably priced "specials".

Agree about the Lidl lemon sole Colin . Delicious . I almost live on it . I put lots of cider vinegar on . Chips done in the air fryer. Tin of mushy peas , 29 pence . Barm Joe and a brew . Can't wait for tea time .

Four of us called in Mr Thomas’s chippy Hollinworth Lake last week and they were excellent well worth another visit albeit Dennis has been there.

I must admit Irene the fish was on the large side and hanging over each side of the carton.
One portion of fish and chips could easily feed two people, provided they were not too greedy.
The weather was great and it was very pleasant sat outside watching the boats go bye while eating.

Fish is probably still worth the price.
The chips dished up these days are not good compared to the British chippies of yesteryear imo.

We just usually have a fish each, Dennis, but fish and chips between two people would be ample, and the nice thing is there are tables inside the chippy if the weather is wet or cold, and you can sit comfortably. Glad you enjoyed it.

Verbs when I was telling Irene that the chippies put up their prices when they have a 40s weekend nobody believed me.
I think some of older folk should just ask for a pensioners special or a child's portion.

I remember going to the chippy every Friday in the 1960s for tea, mi mam would put three dishes in a proper bag, the chippy lady would warm the dishes up and wrap our chips, peas and gravy in the hot dishes with newspaper sheets. Great, so hot when we got home. (and no spillages)
I always remember a bag of chips 6d.

What's not cheap today. I remember my dad paying £1 for 4 gallon of petrol in the 60s, then served by an attendant. Everything expensive today.
I never count the cost of Fish & Chips if we have a day out, where ever we go, it's a treat.

Colin Taylor, that doesn't sound good, I'll stick to the chippy what ever it cost.

If I'm on a day out, I'll pay what ever the cost of Fish and Chips. It's a day out for God's Sake. Surely it's not that bad is it!

If you want to save chippy money Dennis and Colin, Instead of curry try gravy, much cheaper and tastes much better. On days out take buttered bread and a flask of tea, to go wi chippy food.
It makes good sense and you'll save.

Totally agree with your comment Ron at 12:06.

This should put things in perspective.
I've just had delivered one of those junk food leaflets.
I've picked one at random from a Turkish menu.
2 x medium pizzas, reg cheesy garlic bread, chips, bottle of drink. £25.99.
Now come on let's have it right. You can't beat English Fish and Chips.

It was a Pensioner’s Special at £11 but would have served 2 people Michael. It might be that price without it being the 40’s event I didn’t ask. You can’t go to the seaside without having fish’n’chips and an ice cream cornet though. I imagine it will cost more this year with the added tax- the Wicked Witch will see to that.

Putting curry sauce / gravy on fish, chips and peas is akin to putting ice-cream on sausage, egg and beans. In other words, it just doesn't go.

Battered Mars Bar, anyone?

Totally agree with your comment Ron at 12:06.

When comparing today's prices with the 1960's and 70's, don't forget that anybody in full-time employment this year will be on just less than £500 a week minimum. When petrol was £1 a gallon, your Cortina only did 25 mpg and you only got £50 a week. It's all relative.

I can't believe nobody has praised Gallimores. My wife and I have had many lovely lunches and all reasonably priced. I for one will certainly miss it!

I have never been to Gallimore's, Dave, so can't comment personally, but a friend goes every Christmas Eve with all her family as it is her husband's birthday. They all love it there and will miss it very much. Sad to see businesses close down.

When I started work in 1962 I think my wage was £3.10s.00d a week? I had to give my mother £2.00 so that left £1.10s for me. Bus fare to Wigan was Single 2d that is 4d a day with a return ticket. X 5 days = 20d a weeks dinner in the canteen probably 2/- x 5 = 10/-a week So that left about 18/- for spending money. If I worked overtime that was mine to keep. I think the pictures cost about 9d or 1/- for the cheap seats. A couple of years later I remember two seats in the circle at the RITZ cost 3/9

Three ha'peth o' chips an' a penneth o' peas,
parlez vous,
Three ha'peth o' chips an' a penneth o' peas,
parlez vous,
Three ha'peth o' chips an' a penneth o' peas,
wi' plenty salt an' vinegar please,
inky, pinky, parlez vous.

Going off the subject a bit, but before we went to Skipton we visited the home of the Brontë sisters in Haworth.
It was very interesting, but the one who interested me most was Branwell, the sisters only brother.
Apparently, Branwell was partial to partaking of the strong waters at the Pub across the road of a Saturday evening.
Come Sunday morning he would be rudely awakened from his drunken sleep by the Church bells next to his home until one morning when he decided to make known his feelings on the matter by shooting his shotgun through his bedroom window at the bell tower.
Not surprisingly, his bedroom was the untidiest
room in the house.
We don’t have characters like that these days.

Maybe it's closing because too many people only went once a year Irene
Ozy I found the Famous umbrella pine tree of Saint-Tropez that you grew from seeds that you brought back from St Tropez
I just read up on them and it says that The president of the resident association of Saint-Tropez has written to the prefect to alert authorities about the threat to the famous “Parasol Pines” in the area which are being attacked by the turtle cochineal. A familiar part of the landscape in and around Saint-Tropez is seriously under threat due to the parasite which appeared back in 2021 and which is gradually gaining ground in the Var region. Residents call for a clear and precise plan to prevent any more pines from falling victim to the destructive phenomenon.
So who knows, if they all die out in St Tropez, yours planted in Wigan could be the only one left on earth, I took a photo and will send it into Brian hopefully he will make it a Pad so every Wiganer around the world will be able to view your good work,

I forgot to say there were some big pine cones on it but only on one side, you could see where the grass was trampled down by people collecting the cones.

RON, I started work in the same year as you and my first wage was £2.10s. For that I had to travel from Aspull to Appley Bridge every morning.
It cost me more to go to work than I got back in wages! And that Winter was terrible with snow on the ground for three months without a thaw,
Having said that, I was fifteen years old and glad to be working.
I think I learned more about life and what it entailed in that first year than I had learned in ten years of schooling.
It was a rude awakening!

Branwell Bronte put the sisters and his father through the mill. He ended up killing himself with drink..and other noxious substances. Apart from another sister who died in childhood the three surviving sisters died one by one with Charlotte the last and the father Patrick lived on for years afterwards….Haworth wasn’t a very healthy place to be especially with the overcrowded graveyard on the doorstep of the Parsonage. I love going there it’s like walking back into the past.
‘Jane Eyre’ one of my favourite books and ‘Wuthering Heights’. Such a talented family.

Slippery Mick is right about my Cortina. .

Everyone, this is the point I'm making.
Compered to the 1960s and now with the prices of everything.
So why mourn about the price of fish and chips.
John Noakes comes out with so stupid comments, but agree about that awful curry, gravy much better in my opinion.
Why do people like Kabbs and Pizza is beyond me, we never heard of them in the 1980s. Typical junk food.
But I must say, we never mourn about the price of food if we go for days out.

It isn’t just the Italian stone pines that are threatened Mick ; from 2009 onwards thousands of centuries old London plane trees ,
many of which lined the banks of the canals in France have had to be destroyed in an attempt to arrest the spread of some kind of tree cancer ; … In a way , rather like the Dutch Elm disease that decimated the elm trees in this country several ago years .

As a result , many parts of the French countryside have changed drastically .

I find it nothing short of tragic .

p.s. you’ll find another couple of parasol pines on one of the allotments in Crooke village if you’d care to take a look next time you’re passing through .

p.p.s.
And if you’re moderately interested in the problems that pine trees have to contend with , try Googling ‘ chenille processionnaire’ .

I used to work at Nimans shop in standishgate many moons ago. When they had a sale they would have some inexpensive costume jewellery. I would go to tickles and score the shelves for stones that would fit in the costume jewellery that was missing a stone. Then it would be repaired and sold in the sale. They where ahead with repairs and not throw things away.