Wigan Album

The Mount, across the road.

Looks to be someone hiding their upper body behind the gatepost of the third house along, can just make out their two legs and a shopping basket.

Cyril needs to go to specsavers. That's an order pushbike. The same as Mortons used.

Look at the amount of telegraph poles, didn't think so many of us had phones then?

LOL. Just had another look with a magnifying glass, you're right Gary.

I remember going up to the top floor of the Wigan Co-op warehouse that was on Dorning Street in the early 1970s and there was loads of those bikes that had been collected from the branch shops and put up there in storage, they fetch a good price nowadays.

Thank you Alan for the placement .

alex, very few people did have a telephone in those days but telegrams, otherwise known as telegraphs, wires, cables and various other things were widely used by business and private users to convey messages quickly. 21st birthday, wedding day messages and such things were common types of messages sent by telegram. The system was discontonued in the early 1980s when more peole got telephones.

Whoever had ridden that shops order bike was delivering more than bread or sausages! The rider is nowhere to be seen. ;-)

The telegraph poles would also be carrying connections from the exchange to other districts, not just to the houses in that vicinity, hence the number of wires and insulators that can be seen.
Nowadays, most of these connections run underground in between the poles, which just provide a connection for users in their area.

A.W.
At my wedding in the mid-seventies, I received a few telegrams so the service was still quite popular!

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the tram lines, what year would this be approximately ?

Prior to 1931 most likely, Jonno.

Cyril/Giovanni.I think your on to something.Could that bike belong to Ernie,the fastest mailman in the west[of Wigan]