Wigan Album

Keith, Isn't King St West on the other side of Wallgate running parallel with the station?

The album category is 'King Street & King Street West' so its in the correct place.

Great photo showing the street before all the night clubs and kebab shops!

Lots of nostalgia here,Keith.Brian,I am 67 and never had a kebab.Have I missed something.

ooops ! Slips !!

Yes Dave.......... you have missed food poisoning

In the 60's I remember being asked for my date of birth by a Police Inspector, (I was 21) who along with a colleague was checking that the packed pub didn't have any under age drinkers, but I can't remember the name of the pub, which I think was opposite the Court Ballroom, which is where we were heading after a few drinks.

Ashley,,,pub was "The Shakespear" a Magee,s pub,used to go there for the "Magee,s BB" which was a light mild,,and say as you would go to the Court Hall or The Crawford Rooms,,,
Apparentley a lot of "the turns" who where appearing on "The Hippadrome" next door would stop in the Shakie and could be seen having a drink before and after showtime,,,

Keith,,,congratulations ,,another great photo from the past

Thank you Jim, The Shakespeare, of course. I'm afraid an absence of 40+ years from Wigan plays havoc with the memory, well my memory at least.

Thanks for the kind comments on the photo, although it was taken around 1960 I'd never "developed" the negative until this week. I used to do my own photography in those days.

Was the Wigan Examiner a newspaper?

Hi Keith,I did all my own D.andP. until my hands changed into something out of a horror film due to chemical exposure.Thank heaven that digital came along.I still have thousands of negs.unprinted.

Hi Dave, get busy with that computer, Wigan World gives us the perfect excuse to "revive" the past.

Hi Dave There is now an adaptor that you can attach to a scanner that prints proper positive photographs from a negative. I don't think they are cheap but in the long run I bet it works out cheaper then developing them with the cost of chemicals, paper and time.

yes Dave, PLEASE put some more pics on...and Gerry, you never fail to make me laugh!

Hi Dave, I should have explained that I "develop" negatives using my scanner linked to the computer, too detailed to explain here but quite simple once you've got the hang of it and incredibly easy compared to the wonderful but often painstaking task of using a darkroom.

Hi Keith, Have you got a special piece of kit for your scanner? I have been looking for a similar thing for my scanner.

Keith and Dave... please please do post more photographs. Your situation, with undeveloped negs may turn up some absolute gems.

Hi Ron, no I don't have a special piece of kit, I have an Epson Perfection 2580 scanner which does photos, film, slides and negatives on my Mac. However, it's only recently that I found out how to do anything other than photos which shows how computer illiterate I am, since I've had the scanner several years. Nevertheless if you want to get in touch for more details of how I manage to stumble through I'll be only too glad to try and help.
There are dedicated scanners which you link up to the computer
www.veho-uk.com/ProductDetail.aspx?id=50
is one site but I'm sure there are many others. Just wish, like Dave, I had a few thousand undeveloped negatives to work on. Keith

This picture brings back loads of memories. I was working at the time at the Police Station and can just see the entrance where I used to run up the steps. Hope you post some more of the 1960's Wigan.

Hello Barbara do you you remember Annie Greenhalgh she worked in the Police canteen when it was in King St

James Yes the Wigan Examiner waa anewspaper. I think it was part of the Observer company, but a bit smaller.I think it came out on Tuesday and the Observer came out on Thursday or Friday. The Observer was the old style "broadsheet" a huge paper.

Thanks for that frank.

Hello James and Frank a,
Superb Photo Keith Bowen,you can really feel the towns
atmosphere.
The Wigan Examiner newspaper office was located at 62 King
street and founded in 1852 by the Rennie family.
The paper came out each Tuesday and Friday, it ran for
109 years, and the last edition was Friday,9 June 1961.
The Examiner had stiff competition the Wigan Observer,
based just round the corner at Rowbottom Square,
(now the Observer building).
The Wigan Observer founded by the Wall family in 1853,it
had the same front page format as the Examiner but could
never match the large volume of advertisements in the masive broadsheet Observer.
The wall family never made a bid to buy-out the Examiner, and sadly the Examiner cease publication on that June Friday, 1961. Some people from the Examiner started
work at the Observer and made the paper even stronger,
by 1966, the Circulation rosed to 50,000 Copies.
So it's not all that Sad.

Originally the Wigan Public Hall

https://manchestervictorianarchitects.org.uk/buildings/public-hall-62-king-street-wigan