Wigan Album

Before all the haters comment about excessive photos, I'd like to thank you for taking the time and effort to upload these Bickershaw Colliery photos.

They're a great resource for the site and for future visitors.

Thank You.

I agree with Grahams comments ,many thanks Terry for putting
the photos on many good memories of the site

Graham: We are not all pit lovers, and neither should we be. Don't think just because we are born and bred Wiganers, that we should have affinity to the coal miner. Far from it. There are other working class heroes in other trades and jobs that hardly ever get a look in...The miner was never low paid, and it was his own choice to go down into the bowels of the earth. They were not conscripts.

I'm with you on that Graham. If the person (Terry ?) had not bothered to walk around with his camera this part of Wigan history would have been lost. Can't see that anyone would have cause to moan...look at the pics, you might learn something.

What was the name of this colliery again?

Shall I put on fifty pics of the Triangle Valve machine shops?
So much interest and history in those sacred places of engineering excellence. All gone now. But of little interest to the ex miner...

Jarvo
Excuse me...well don't actually...Miners were NOT always well paid and there was not always an alternative to going down the mine.
In my Grandpa's time they were very badly paid and conditions were atrocious in the mines. It was not mechanised in those days. Even so, it has always been a dreadful job. Have you ever been down a pit?
My Grandpa, at an early age , literally coughed his lungs up in the back garden and 2 of his sons died in inches from related illnesses. Has your post made me hopping mad...you bet your boots it has. Put your brain in gear before you shoot your mouth off in future.Or read up on some History.Rant over.

Not really my cup of tea but as someone said Mining played a big part in lots of peoples lives. We should keep these photos and similar ones to protect our Heritage. I would re-iterate what someone else said in that Miners weren't always well paid. My granddad worked 50 years down / around the Mines. He was one of the lucky ones in that he lived until he was 80+ and never had so mush as a cough.

As i have stated on one of Terry's other pics, a great collection, but WW could have introduced them in say batches of ten, in order not to 'take over' the site.

I am glad your granddad survived those dreadful times,Broady. Mine died long before I was born so I never had chance to know him.
My mother told me that in the old days a siren would sound to let people know there was an accident and all the women would run with babies wrapped in shawls to the pithead waiting for news...never knew that to happen at Triang Valve Jarvo and by the way another of my Uncles worked at the Valve.

Nothing against miners, nothing against pits, nothing against Bickershaw but for heaven's sake let's have a sense of proportion! This is madness.

JohnB: Exactly!

Well said JohnB; 108 photo`s - far too many.

We can never have too many pics of pits! This is an entire archive and it is a credit to Terry.

Well done for taking the time to scan and upload the images. They are part of the area's past and it would have been a loss to any archive had they been thrown out. As for all the snide comments - you don't need to look at photos you are not interested in, so back off!

Why do these sanctimonious people who spout their "it wer a hard life down't pit" want to view pics of these God damn awful places anyway? The buggers have long gone. And thank God for that.

Stop talking down to people Jarvo. I have never said 'it wer ' in my life.And you have 2 choices, view the pics and insult the ( in your opinion) sanctimonious folk (who do you mean???) or do not view the pics and look elsewhere. Simples. I think the latter would be preferable to most people on here.

I agree with Roy. These photos are important and should certainly be uploaded but in smaller numbers at a time, so that other photos get a chance to have their turn on page one for a while instead of going almost immediately to page three or four. The next lot of photos in the series, in this case Bickershaw Colliery, could then be shown the next week.

Interesting... ancestors from wigan, but probably shunned by the masses mostly, given that they were all educators,however anything in excess is annoying, including train pix, footy pix, walking days and the list goes on. I guess its all about tolerance and "shutting out" the stuff we can't identify with. Lets face it, you will never see an excess of pix of teachers in Wigan's past!

Don't know if others would support this but since 40 photos "fill" a page, would it be a "good idea" to limit any set of photos on the same theme or topic to be limited to 40 in any one month being posted? This would allow a better means of skipping the photos if they are of no interest. At the same time it does not "rule out" posting the rest, in this case the other 68 in the following months, but never more than 40in any one month.

Agreed! ALL the photos are important but they all deserve a chance to be seen on page one for a while before being moved on.