Wigan Album

I just want to say this: Thanks for another great photograph giving us an insight to our Wigan of old and bringing back, for many of us, happy memories.

That's a fantastic photo, Veronica! It reminds me of the scene in Brief Encounter when Laura is walking along a busy shopping street and bumps into the good doctor who asks how her eye is and she says, "Well, I must be getting along to the greengrocers". I bet the lady facing the camera was on her way to Latimer's grocers!

I love studying the people and their clothes Irene. It would be the same fashions as ‘Brief Encounter’ . The women wouldn’t have had a cook though and Bobby and
( was it Susan?) wouldn’t be dragged round with
Mummy. What a great town in those days Ian. I spent 2 hours last night looking for interesting scenes. I have loads now but I will have to make sure they aren’t on already. Slowly, slowly though…I have some real belters.

Should have said Mummy’s little darlings would have had to help carry the broken biscuits and other packages Irene.…

Looks like that the shop they are passing was still Donegal Mens Tailors when this was taken. It later became Jacksons and I assume it is now still a travel agency.

Veronica, the little girl's name was Margaret in Brief Encounter. Our Ashley could take her off to a tee saying "My birthday's in June and there aren't any pantomimes in June", (funnily enough, Ashley's birthday IS in June). And that snobby lad Bobby, too, sitting up in bed whilst the maid brought him a huge piece of cake...I always feel like banging their heads together when I watch the film! LOL!

A great pity that ventilation pipe hadn't been kept either in place or put elsewhere in the Market Place, it would have been an original signpost and also those brackets near the top look to have been made for hanging baskets.
The shop far right and almost hidden by the bus was if I've got the location right was Dunn's men's outfitters, mentioned the other day.

Those folks out and about and busy with their shopping wouldn't have had any inkling at all that; within the next 70 years or so the town centre would have been decimated, twice!
And if you could go back and tell them they would most likely laugh and say don't be silly.

I knew you would know Irene..my memory for names lately is terrible. It’s time I watched the film again. I found some really good ones with little lads in whellies and balaclavas.

'Brief Encounter' gets referenced here quite a bit - but how many of you have visited Carnforth Station, where the Refreshment Room scenes were shot?
We stopped off there en route to the Lakes in January. It was a dismal, rainy day, and the exhibition area was closed. The outward appearance of the station buildings first seen from the road didn't look that remarkable in the rain. You have to go through an underpass beneath the WCML tracks to get to the main platform buildings, where the Refreshment Room is - so not a very romantic approach. The Edwardian iron and glass canopies over the platforms were replaced in the late 1930s with functional Art Deco structures, which I thought were quite gloomy - and you don't get to see much of the exterior of the buildings - but the Refreshment Room interior is very like the film set - and is full of memorabilia - as are the corridors down to the toilets, with war memorials just outside the internal corridor from the Refreshment Room.
The coffee we had there - and the cakes - were excellent and the lunch menu was very inviting, but we were there a bit too early for lunch.
All-in-all, a good stop, and worth a detour off the M6 if you're travelling.

Veronica and I are fans of Brief Encounter, Rev. David, and we often call each other Laura and Dolly! My husband and I have been to Carnforth Station and seen the refreshment room and the underpass where "Laura" runs when she realises her train is about to leave. Although it was filmed in Carnforth it is meant to be somewhere in Surrey, but when Dr. Harvey tells Laura at the station that he is going to work abroad, there is a signpost behind him pointing to Bolton, Bradford, Leeds and Hellifield!

Is that Jackson’s The Tailor’s on the left hand corner?

It looks like it Colin.