Wigan Album

I know we live in a different world today but it's sad that Walk Sunday disappeared. I remember the excitment too Janice....even if it was much earlier than 1969 !

When we walked as children my grandma always referred to us as ' the Scholars ' . People would run out and give us sixpence .

My mother would call them Scholars too Poet, we were lugged up to Scholes from Pemberton to see them on Whit Sundays.

Janice, in the nicest way you're like a young Bonnie Langford, remember Just William she was superb as Violet Elizabeth.
https://youtu.be/GUczkXl_uVU

A lovely photo. We were warned at school not to accept money when walking. I think that was ignored! At that age the night before was a sleepless one due to the excitement.

Lovely photo Janice, it's a sad fact of the times that walking days have ended for most churches.They were good times, when everyone was excited.

I think those jaunts up Scholes would have been on Whit Monday not Sunday.

I came across these pdf pages from a book, see in link below, it's about the Whit Walks 1890-1968 of St. Patrick's. St. Mary's. Sacred Heart. St. Joseph's. St. John's. With photos along with dialogue, it's quite interesting, though folks some may already have seen it.
https://static.s123-cdn-static-d.com/uploads/3625811/normal_60f478ef51c17.pdf

I remember if I’m correct
that in Ince church walks were on a Sunday and Monday Cyril. It may have been St Williams that did - not too sure. The memory is a bit hazy. Perhaps Irene will know as sh3 lived next door to St Williams church.

I think St. William's in Ince DID walk on a Sunday but I can't be sure, Veronica, although I have a dvd of their 1956 walking day which was taken from a cine-film that was just about to be binned. It is quite moving as the rescuer slowed the film down from it's original rather quick and jerky format and added very emotive music. I walked with Ince Parish myself, and a couple of times with Rose Bridge Methodists., as I was christened there. I have told before of how my Aunty Mary always put a posh voice on at Walking Day but could never get her aitches in the right place. She used to say, "Oh, 'ello Vicar, hisn't it 'ot?" Then she would spot some high-up church lady's little lad "leading out" at the front and would revert to her normal Lancashire dialect..."Ey-up....ah thowt yon mon ud at t'be a shepherd!"

Thanks Irene… there was a lot of ‘Auntie Mary’ characters in Scholes too. We didn’t need to watch the comedians on the telly they lived amongst us. The world is a more miserable place without their like..;o))

I can't remember the exact day we'd go Veronica and Irene.
All I remember of the day there was dining chairs out on the pavements and crowds of folks began gathering, then what seemed an age of hearing feet walking along the road, the flaps of banners in the breeze, the tops of those banner and the tops of statues being carried along, and bands going by playing different tunes, we couldn't see anything else with being behind the crowd on the footpath, it also seemed hot and sunny too. We didn't keep in touch with my fathers side much with being at Pemberton, his mother did still live in Higham St and it was St Patrick's church the family belonged too, but as I say all I can remember was being lugged up there one particular day of the year, to what my mother would say "watching the scholars walk" until a time we stopped going.

The Catholic walks were on Whit Monday Cyril. I lived in John St - from our front window we could look down Higham St. it’s just a grassy mound nowadays sadly. I roller skated down that street many a time. We used to get all sorts of relatives from up Pemberton on that day after the Walks.

I don't remember the streets around the time Veronica, though in my later pest control job with the council I do remember when we had dealings with those Dutch or has they were then called 'upside down' houses, and with them being named Higham, Church and Belvoir Courts, from local streets. I also remember them from when I did a stint of caretaker, or car taker as the children would say, at St Catharine's, but didn't have much dealings with them except from walking through if I went to see Brian McHugh at St Pats school. It was then a pleasant area, but later turned out to be anything but, with folks being glad to see the back of them by the time they were demolished.

I have been going to an Art group at Sunshine House in Scholes for a few weeks. I feel so disheartened about the area round about and how it used to be. Scholes did have a poor name but it was never so bad back in the day.
I thought I’ll just go on the shopping precinct for a newspaper and I nearly died when I saw the state it was in. There’s not one shop open. But Sunshine House is a very good complex though with various activities going on inside. Sad times Cyril.

Veronica I remember from the local papers Barbara Nettleton being a very good campaigner for Sunshine House, and also the community garden down Gordon Street, though I haven't heard of her for some time, it still has a very good name when I've heard of it being mentioned. Shame about the precinct I remember it being busy and with different shops, though the supermarket Hanbury's was little more than a glorified corner shop, but it did serve a purpose whilst it lasted.

Thankfully those Maisonettes around and off Morris Street were demolished before they fell down, the reinforced concrete on them was in a terrible state with crumbling concrete chunks falling off and you could see the rusting reinforcing bars, though folks did like living around there with it being handy for town.