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Wigan Album

Wigan Girls' High School

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A dancing lesson, c1947.
A dancing lesson, c1947.
Photo: Carol Coates (nee Brown)
Views: 7,215
Item #: 458
Dancing lesson in the hall of Wigan High School c1947.

Notice in the background the oak table, chairs and lectern on the platform. These were bought with a gift of £50 presented by the Old Girls in honour of the Golden Jubilee of Wigan Girls' High School in July 1937. The school attended a service of thanksgiving in All Saints Parish Church and 200 Old Girls and past and present staff met at a Jubilee Dinner in the school hall. The appearance of the platform and furniture was unchanged in 1964. Prefects and sixth formers were allowed to sit along the upper corridor looking down from open balconies on to the assembly proceedings. When everyone was seated, the black gowned head mistress would sweep down the length of the hall from the back, the rows of girls parting down the centre like the Red Sea, to take her place on the platform. The only time giggles were heard were when one of the huge paper sculpture turtle doves forming part of the Christmas decorations, floated down from its moorings aloft, covering the heads of at least twelve girls in the middle of assembly.

Comment by: margaret hegan on 22nd October 2008 at 09:48

remember that hall well! I was there from 1947 to around 1954. I was in Banks House (blue)

Comment by: margaret swarbrick nee ball on 5th February 2009 at 18:01

i remember the hall well with miss cutland and miss doherty i was at the school from 1947 til 1952

Comment by: jean hall on 5th September 2009 at 14:55

I remember the chairs on the platform . I went to the main Standishgate School in my second year 1964 having done my first year at Brindley Street in Pemberton. We move soon after to new buildings in Whitley Crescent

Comment by: Judith Howes on 23rd April 2010 at 17:16

What memories! I also did my 1st yr at Pemberton then on to Standishgate and finished up at Whitley. On a visit from the U.S about 12 yrs ago, Margaret Griffin and I wangled our way into the Standishgate building after hrs and got as far as the downstairs cloakrms when we were , not very nicely, asked to leave. And it's still there! My Mum, Joan Lea, went there too. We really got an excellent education by today's standards.

Comment by: Gillian Sjodahl (née Standing on 22nd July 2012 at 11:31

I was at Wigan High from 1949-1953. In my final year I was deputy Head Girl (Barbara Winstanley was Head Girl). The hall was transformed when we performed A Midsummer Night's Dream one year. Can't imagine how we all fitted in on the stage!

Comment by: JEAN BLEWITT on 26th August 2012 at 16:59

I went from Gilow Girls School to Whitley high after passing my 13+ I think it was. I remember Judith Howes and if it is the same one we went to Teacher's Traing College in Sunderland together.
(JEAN HOLLERON)

Comment by: Julia Gaskell (nee Hesketh) on 29th July 2022 at 18:20

I was there from 1951 to 1957 and remember the hall distinctly, where you could look down from the upstairs corridor on to proceedings below

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