Wigan Album

Thanks Ron, for posting a rare photo of inside the state-of-the-art repair yard, an outside view can be seen on item # 31964. I have fond memories of accompanying my father, Foreman in early sixties, on Saturday mornings, before H & S, to have a ride on one of the BSA Bantams used to patrol the towpaths. Was introduced to highly skilled carpenters, name Abel Buckley rings a bell, who crafted huge lock gates out of expensive Greenheart.

Interesting causal reference to the use of asbestos cement in those days. Back in the 1970s I had a holiday job working with a Wigan firm who were replacing machinery in the Turner and Newall Asbestos Factory at Widnes. For 8 weeks I was coming home every day covered in the stuff. Nearly every day for the past 50 years I have had it in the back of my mind the issue and worry of mesothelioma.

Sometimes changes in Health and Safety Regulations have really been for the better, and this is one of them.

Hi Carolean, I couldn't agree with you more. Asbestos cement in construction was only banned, in 1999, although the dangers were known of much earlier. It appears you have had a lot more exposure than what was being released from roofing. However, as you no doubt know, lots of workers exposed to large quantities didn't get asbestosis or mesothelioma, but in some cases their partners who washed their overalls did. Hopefully you and I are lucky ones. My reference to H & S was that visitors and the public could wonder into factories in the 60's, as they did at British Waterways asking for off cuts of Greenheart to make top lenghts of fishing rods, but when I recently visited Pagefield Ind Estate, where I served my apprenticeship, H & S protocols have rightly been put in place to stop unauthorised access. Although it is a different authority, the Air and Water quality Regulations today are like asbestos ones were, and in my opinion need to be to tightened up and quickly.

Previous to the new maintenance sheds being constructed i worked in the old dry dock adjacent to the lock. At the time I was an electric welder employed by James Mayor & sons, boatbuilders. I left in 1963 when the company closed down. My family has a long history working as boatmen on the Leeds and Liverpool canal starting in the early 1800s and ending with me in 1963. My Grandfather was a wheelwright and master carpenter who worked all his life for the canal company as it was known before nationalisation, his last job before retirement in 1965 was construction of lock gates in the old buildings just off Pottery Rd.

Correction that should read Grandfather retired 1945. He died 1965. Oops, my senior moment.