Places   (Help with places, streets and buildings in Wigan.)

Flaggy delf, I sold cer-cur-o ointment when I worked in a Chemist's on leaving school, (not in Ince, though). Our Joseph, it was Dr. Szczesniak, (pronounced Chesniak),.....I sat on the wall outside and memorised it, (not much on the telly in those days!), and I recall the papershop on Ince Bar as TOMMY Entie's, Kenny, but could be wrong.
Aitch, please try to pass this on via Colin Shirley.....

For Christine....

Remember Ince in '62?
We were nine then, me and you,
When nights drew in and brought a haze
Of magic to the Autumn days.
A tingling feeling in the air,
And, on the old spare land, - The Fair!
Noses pressed to lit-up shops,
Penny Arrows, Lollipops.
Jumble Sale on Friday night,
"Take Your Pick" in black-and-white.
Nights when Jack Frost bit your nose,
And fog hung low in terraced rows,
We told ghost-stories in our den,
Of skeletons and bogeymen.
"Penny-for-the-Guy" was fun,
And daring games of "Ring-and-Run";
Carol-singers, mild and meek,
Always told, "Come back next week"!
We're old now, Chris, .....it's getting late,
The time moved on...it wouldn't wait...
The Fair has gone; On that spare land
Now a hundred houses stand;
And in the front room of a house,
A child holds a Computer-Mouse,
Staring at a screen for hours,
On the spot where we picked flowers.
Is this how her life will be?
Computerised Technology?
Or will she step outside today,
So we can teach her how to play
the games that came with lighter nights;
Summer pleasures, Spring delights?
Playing "two-ball" on the wall,
Chanting songs I still recall:
"Old Mother at Hindley Fair,
Get some papers to curl my hair".
Remember, too, the skipping rhymes,
Jumping into Mam's clothes-line:
"Eeper, Weeper, Chimney-Sweeper,
Had a wife but couldn't keep her".
Hopscotch chalked out on the flags,
Marbles kept in draw-string bags.
May-Queens formed all over town...
Mam's net-curtain, cardboard crown;
Remember Ince in '63?
We were ten then, you and me.