Wigan Album

Ron where is this in Scholes.

not too sure but this looks like Hardybutts - just past St Pats Church

you spot on vb...its looking up hardybutts to top of birkett bank,,,,chap on right appears to be stood outside "the black bull" top of Edwin St,,,,and you can just see top right rigt at end Birkett Bank Hotel,,,the last building on right

I wonder what decade this is - it looks to me pre 40's or 50's even. I wonder if the bunch of rascals are still around???

wasn't this the photo used on the front of a recent novel (2-3 years ago). I am sure that the lads were still alive then and if I remember correctly they were from st.pats parish

I was born in the first house on the left 131 Hardybutts in 1944
The date of the photo is 1939 , Jack Blackledge one of boys told me there
Names Eddie cough, Colin livsey can,t remember the other

I mentioned to jack Blackledge there was a Colin livsey my age .
He told me the boy on the photo died tragically and Is brother was named
After him

Colin livseys mum sent him to the shop for a bootle milk
And he fell on it on the way home

The boy on the left of this picture is my uncle Norman Livesey. It was his younger brother Keith who died in the accident. He was only about 18 months old and tripped and fell at the doorstop where the milk bottle was. Not old enough to nip to the shop. My dad Colin was born after he died in 1944. All born at 163 Darlington St East

My dad John Lavin lived at 128 Hardybutts up to WWII. It would have been just up on the right before The Black Bull. It's an empty lot now.

Jane, interesting if that is the Black Bull, my parents had this pub in the late 1930's and my eldest brother was born there in 1940.
Must get up there soon and take a shot from the same spot and check what state the Black Bull is in, last time I heard it had been converted into a shop, just hope its not been demolished.

I have taken a picture from roughly the same spot and hope this will get uploaded. The changes are so drastic, I will leave you to judge!