Wigan Album

I see in the window an advert for Malt Extract. My Mother used to dose us up with it....it was ok better than Cod Liver Oil which made me feel sick. On occasion she would by 'Virol ' a much better option in my view but it was more expensive so we didn't get that often !

Wow! What I'd give to walk in there!

Just below Harry Stephens shop. Our local barber and chemist for we Roby Millers. His father,also Bill Bryan was manager of Heywoods music shop in Library St,,Wigan

Ron, nice picture, very Dickensian looking very old and traditional, I wonder if it is still there and looking the same?

Irene, as you know with the chemists you worked in that inside the shop there would be a great many products on sale that actually did work for ailments, but for some daft reasons they were banned by those EU bureaucrats back in the early 1970s, I remember that Potter's had to stop producing a lot of herbal products that had been used for centuries, and which many folks swore by for easing their symptoms, but because no actual evidence could be proven they had to stop producing them. Even with now having left the constraints of the EEC or EU no one has again began to manufacture any of the many products that were banned by them, probably they can't get a product licence, or maybe after fifty odd years of doing without no one wants them anymore.

Malt Extract was produced at Leyland Mills too and though it has the goodness of minerals and vitamins from the barley, it contains a vast amount of sugar in the form of maltose from the malt which is good if you use up a lot of energy, if not then you know what it ends up as.
Helen as well as the original there was a cod liver oil too, and flavoured with butterscotch to take the edge off the fishy oil taste. Many years ago I tried it once over winter and took a spoonful everyday - as I remember it didn't make much difference, I still suffered with the usual odd cough or cold, and still with having had to put up with the taste everyday.

Ron, do you know if there is a pic of the 'old' Scot Lane School on WW somewhere ? I am presuming it would be a Victorian building.
Helen

Mum used to dose me and my brother up with malt extract also, sometimes it actually contained cod liver oil , a disgusting combination of taste and texture. She’s forgiven though, she just wanted us to be healthy . My kids would not have entertained it though !!

Colin - I'm afraid this shop is long gone.
After this shop was demolished, Billy Bryan moved to the opposite side of Parliament Street, into the building now occupied by a Balti takeaway.
Then, in the early 1960s, he moved from there into premises at Hall Green. This is now Rowlands Pharmacy.
He lived into his 90s, only dying all around the time of the Millenium.
Gordon - the barber was actually Sidney Stevens. He also sold sweets etc. He wasn't all that popular in the village because he'd been the ARP warden during the war, and many used to say the 'power' had gone to his head.

Mum used to dose me and my brother up with malt extract also, sometimes it actually contained cod liver oil , a disgusting combination of taste and texture. She’s forgiven though, she just wanted us to be healthy . My kids would not have entertained it though !!

I stand corrected Tony. I also think he had a limp. His shop was opposite red rock bus stop (or am I wrong again!

This shop was on Parliament Street, near the bottom of Back Brow in Up Holland village. As previously stated it moved to a new shop now the takeaway, I believe sometime in the 1930's.

Gordon - nearly right! Opposite Rock House bus stop.

I realised my mistake Tony - but I,m going back 80 years. Now 92 and living in Australia. Used to cycle past there on way to UpHolland Grammar School