Wigan Album

Judging by the stamp , it looks as though that may be a sprung leather Brooks saddle on yon bike .
It can’t be proven but if it were a Brooks , you’d pay almost as much for a saddle like that one as you would for the complete bike these days .

I didn't really know that area of Wigan, Veronica, as my bus from Ince in the 1960s went up Darlington Street and I caught the bus back home in Library Street. I DID go to The Ritz and remember the metal steps down the back of it but that's as far as I went, and I don't even recall Wigan Central Station which was apparently just farther down from The Ritz! When I went to work at Debenhams in 1973, our staff entrance was in Crompton Street and when I got married in 1974, my bus home to Abram went along that road, but obviously the buildings shown in the photo were by then long-gone. But I could spend hours looking at those old photos!

It was a busy thoroughfare in those day from Scholes Irene. I suppose it still is but a busy road crosses where those shop buildings used to be. I went to town that way many times.

Where the bike is lent seems to be a pub as the inscription on the window is it the oval saucer? seems a strange name though.

I have no recollection of that building on the left yet I remember the row of houses on that side.
I remember the bike seats made of leather Ozy. They did hurt the posterior I had a second hand ladies bike in the fifties similar to that one. It had a saddle bag as well. I think it was a Raleigh and there was a thin red stripe on the mudguards. I was always polishing it.

They’re meant to mould themselves to the contours of the rider over time Veronica at which point they become extremely comfortable…allegedly .

What may I ask did you keep in the saddle bag for your first two thousand miles …. a jar of ointment perhaps ?

Extremely good saddles, if not just a tad bit overrated in my view .

A first aid kit! I had 7 stitches in my left knee riding my bike over the shingle at the side of the canal. I still have the ‘pit’ scar to prove it. The chain kept coming off!

The bike is an order bike my cousin use to deliver for this shop, it was a grocers. The owner had 2 daughters Marian and Winnie they married brothers Harold and Harry Beesley . There was always a black Labrador sat outside .I can remember all this but I'll be blowed if I can remember the name of the shop.

It must be Derby Terrace immediately on the left alongside the River Douglas, out of picture on the the right would be The Little Theatre and the entrance to the Water Heyes path leading to Greenough Street with those grotty toilets on the corner.
Stephen, by any chance are you the son om Marie and Martin?????

I was born in School street. The other end though.

john i was born in school st at no. 48 in 1947 when were you born and what no.