Wigan Album

As the song and film-title go, ...."The Way We Were". I wish we still were.

I don't remember the restaurant and grill on the left of the photo, though I remember Turog bread and later when it was McCandlish Bakery, was it the same owner of this restaurant in a photo from the Album. https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=5&id=30127&gallery=Rendezvous+Cafe&offset=0

I remember too even up to the late 1960s when it was a superb and whatever you needed there would be a shop in the town centre that would have it for sale. I can't even remember the last time I was in the town centre and I doubt I shall be going there anytime soon either, as I don't require any cards or to sit drinking expensive coffee alongside foreigners smoking foul smelling cigarettes that are full of rolled up camel dung.

The shop/building on the far left of the picture has a sign for Worthington
Ales, perhaps it was a pub, I dont know. I have lived in this town for only
fiftysix years so I am not sure. I expect some locals who like a beer or two will have the answer. Cheers, Ray.
in the town centre will have the answer.

Cheers, Mines a pimt, Ray.

You had to watch out in those days it was so easy to bump into people on the pavements it was such a hive of activity. It’s only just after 9 30 on the photo and it’s almost packed already. I’ve been in Wigan on Saturday morning at that time and there’s hardly anybody about.
I wish, like Irene, it was like that nowadays.

Ray, I think that was Munro's off licence, at the junction of Millgate and the Market Place?

The Old Dog was on the left.

Ray, was it not Munroes the wine bar.

This is the land of loss content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.

I was brought up very close to Wigan town centre and so spent a lot of time there even as a child.to see it in the state it's now in is so sad...I'm sure there's no need to decimate so many stores and shops,the powers that be have gone over the top ..there's literally nowhere to shop now,no market,no clothes shops one shop right at the bottom of the town ( Iceland) to buy veg from..but it's more than sad..it's disgusting and no oh so clever person will tell me any different..and it seems that we'll have no market square to speak of..so my message to the planners is a big booooo.

The Pub was called The Ring O`bells it was the only pub in wigan
owned by George Munro & Co. a Wine and Spirit Merchant.
they were in several Lancashire Towns. the popular name was Munro`s.

Thank you for your reply Wigsy, I imagine it was a " Free House " being
able to sell beers from various breweries, hence the sign on the building
showing Worthington Ales. Cheers, Mines a pint. Ray.

This is how I see Wigan in my mind, in the early 1950s. I remember going into The National Westminster Bank...not Nat West back then....with my mother, it was a hushed & hallowed place, all marble & polished wood. My, how times have changed.

Peter and I were in the Natwest recently, Helen, and all the dark polished wood and glass partitions are sadly no more. Banks and Post Offices are sadly what I think of as "plastic" now.

That is sad news Irene, I've never banked there but years ago when as a volunteer at the RSPCA I had to go in on occasions and remember it was like going back in time or maybe walking into a grand house, not only with what you mentioned of the wood and glass, but also the ornate plaster friezes and the light fittings and I'm sure there was also a patterned tiled floor.

The former TSB in King Street,pre 1974,now Platt and Fishwick,still has the elaborate plaster ceiling,oak counters and revolving door.I called in last week with a friend,a former work colleague,just to see those features again.

As kids we were given a special treat at a cafe above the Ring o bells I cant remember the name of it !