Wigan Album
Aspull
12 CommentsPhoto: Philip Harrison
Item #: 24443
Lovely story, have you still got the Observer.
We may have Colin, it must be in the loft somewhere. Bit of a problem with the space, it would take ages to find it. It would probably be with some copies of the Townsville, Australia newspapers I acquired when I was thinking of moving to Cairns or Townsville from Wigan in the 60s, typesetting for the newspapers. I often wonder how I would have got on!
I knew Colin would make comment about the Observer.
Talking about the Observer Mick, how abut this for a weekly shift - I started at 3pm and finished at 3am for three nights, but had Thurs, Fri, Sat. and Sun. off, some loved it and some hated it!!
Where did you work Philip?
They should be pleased they had work...where ever it was.
Sorry about any confusion folks, I worked at the Observer for a few years.
Philip, did you work at Woods st or Martland Mill?
Hi Colin, I moved from M/cr Evening News and Guardian in 1998. I started to work at Wigan Observer at Martland Mill in July of that year. David Gardner was manager at the time, I stayed there until ''The Destruction of Sennacherib'' in 2004 as we knew it when the presses were dismantled and sold on to foreign lands. At that time you could walk around the dereliction where you could see on the floor (rotting) precious copies of the Observer bound into big files with the dates of 1876 onwards, we were not allowed to have them, they had to be left and destroyed - what a waste! All these items could have gone to the History Shop.
It's sad to hear that Philip. Well the Wigan Observer at Woods Street, give way to Martland Mill publications around 1984, and Central Lancashire Printer was formed under the parent company, United Newspapers. Most of the North-West tittles including the Observer were printed there. The two Goss presses were very busy at that time churning out Millions of newspapers under one roof. In the mid 90s, a new and much bigger printing and publishing plant was almost ready called Broughton Printers at Fullwood near Preston, and all the papers under the umbrella of utd news and later Regional independent media were produced there, including the Daily Express and Daily Star. These days the Wigan Observer is still published at Martland Mill, but is now printed at Knowsley, Liverpool. From a personal point, its sad the the Wigan Observers not printed in Wigan anymore, after saying that, not many newspapers are produced in the town were they are read these days...sadly.
click on to work and then printers to see more history of the Observer at Rowbottom Square and Woods ST.
Colin, I worked for a while at Lockie Press in the dark room shooting ads and pics for 12 freebies including Wigan Reporter, Warrington Mercury and others most if not all which went to Stoke for printing.