Wigan Album

Was this photograph from the late 30s/40s ?As my uncle worked here from school to joining the Marines during the war. I know he drove lorries in the Army and I think he learned to drive here. I believe he came on leave in an Army lorry and left it on the Breid (spare land)on Vauxhall Rd near the Stocking Factory.

Around 1920/30's

Thank you Ron it sounds about right . I think he would have left school at 14 in 1938. He was younger and more daring than my dad.

Remember in the sixties when there were two petrol pumps on the corner?

Veronica.Thank you for spelling Breid.I have never seen it written,though I played on plenty

I’m only guessing with the spelling Donald. The word has always fascinated me as I have never heard it anywhere else . I wonder if it is an Irish word for spare land. We always played on the ‘Breid’ many fond memories of the 50’s.
Also my uncle leaving a military lorry on the ‘Breid’ may be because he was passing through and not on leave. I dare say that would not have been allowed. I know he and my dad met up on one night and he drove him back to a camp at Formby and they had both been drinking! He was a daredevil as my dad would often say…. I bet their mother would have had kittens if she’d known.

I looked up the word ‘Breid’ and it seems it’s a Scottish word for bread! Perhaps Wheat was grown there centuries ago - if that isn’t stretching it a bit! Curious! Perhaps someone else has an idea of the word….

I thought it might be Wigan for breadth butI have never heard the word used outside of Wigan
In the war we lived at the bottom of Cambridge Street and walked to the family home in Caunce Street via this Seddon's stocking factory breid. There were always men tossing coins there

You could be right Donald ‘breadth’ sounds nearer to ‘Breid’. I used to wonder if houses were on that spare land. The reason I say that is because me and my pal used to collect old bricks there and concoct them into a square for a pretend house with gaps for the doors and windows! Many happy hours on the ‘Breid’in those days.
You would have passed a corner shop as well on Bradshawgate run by Ginny Dyke my friends grt Aunty who used to let us ‘help’ her in the shop.

Veronica.I think there had been houses there, demolished in the earlier slum clearances, like Coop Street off Scholes which would have been my more regular playgroundLong before health & safety would have made it impossible for Thomas Heaton & other mates to have acted out the latest gangster films on the still standing staircases
The corner shop I do remember was on Belvoir Street.A branch of O&G Rushton My cousin's wife was the manageress there in the War Mrs Martin McNicholas was always seated there .Her husband was on the Council

I can just remember the shop as Rushton’s then it became Wadsworths - when they emigrated to Canada it was Rosaleen Hart nee Handley from Wellington St. I had relatives at the bottom end of Cambridge St in a little street off there it was Hamilton St. and across the main road the continuing Cambridge St. were you by any chance related to Miss Underwood a teacher at St Pat’s? Just wondering as she lived off Darlington St.

Nelly Underwood was a distant relation

I thought as much Donald. There’s a couple of school photographs under St Patrick’s school, you may already know about. There was a lot of McNicholas’s in John St where I lived. In fact I have a photograph of Martin Mc Nicholas in my grandmother’s old tin - if it is the same man. I will try to dig it out and post it.

See my comment on the photo

You must be a good guesser to have connected me to Nellie Underwood
You have to go back 6 generations to find a common ancestor

She was a lovely teacher, one of the best.

When did Timberlake's vacate the Library St premises? Did they move straight to Wallgate, where Go Outdoors is now?