Wigan Album

Lovely photo… how reminiscent of times gone by. Would be nice to think it’s still like that .. but..

What a lovely photo for anyone that used to live around that area..and not a scrap of litter to be seen.

Brilliant photo, Ozy, (and Frank). I would love to walk in that shop and see it as it was. I can remember the one in Ince when I was a child. The assistants wore little white caps with "CWS" on them, and they reckoned up my Mam's order on a long white strip of paper at the speed of light, first top-to-bottom, then re-checking it bottom-to-top, using a pencil which they kept behind their ear, before handing her a yellow "check" to stick on her divi-card. There was a chair marked "Restu" for waiting customers to sit on. Good memories.

been in many a time . ozy your right it was indeed ray doyle who was the butcher until he got the red lion in ashton & a couple of my mates worked in there as apprentices , bill adamson & chris raffertey .

Chris Rafferty , would that have been Kevin’s brother whups ? Kevin wed my cousin .

When I was a kid , I would walk up Victoria road to that co-op every Saturday morning to get a sheep’s head for a neighbour’s labrador .

I would ask Ray ,
“ ast gett’n a sheep’s yed Ray ? “ , to which he would reply , “ no, but av gett’n pig’s trotters “.

I found if funny the first couple of times , but it got a bit tedious after a while .

Is the bluebells pub still open?

yes ozy , one of them his brother pat died young at 28 . alan the bell is just about open .

Veronica, not a co-op, but there's still a convenience store there in the same building and the street behind hasn't changed much. You can see it in Google maps.

Thank you Andrew, there’s no denying buildings were far more substantial in times past. Plus the ugly advertising these days on shop windows lower the tone, there’s far too much of it. Where I live many of the Co-op buildings have been taken over.

Irene, you jogged my memory when you mentioned the Restu chair. When I was little and lived in Whelley my mother used to send me to John Clark's grocers at the top of Ellis St. and there was a Restu chair in there. I think it was a promotional item for a washing powder.

I lived on Leyland Green Road and was going on a blind date. Told this girl would be at the Coop at 8-00pm.Got there and no sign of the girl then remembered there was another Coop just up the road at the top of Booths Brow Road. Walked up to this Coop and she was there . Nearly 51 years later the rest is history and we are still together

A lovely story Peter P… I wonder how many times that happened for people.

she must have been blind .

Yes Brian she was blindly in love something you would know nothing about

really peter you would be very suprised indeed .

I used to go to the coop and the butcher's with my mam when l lived in downallgreen as an infant.Also jack pyes across the road and the old legion near to Thomas cromptons works near the green.my uncle tommy lived across the road from the coop with aunty Mary.