Wigan Album

£11.11.0 in 1937 was the equivalent of £661 today - using the Bank of England inflation calculator.

I have a list of bits of furniture, written by my mother, when we moved into the house at Holland Moor in about 1949/50. 2 fireside chairs cost just over £4 each !

I knew these were your contributions, Ron, before I clicked onto them. Fascinating as always.....I love old adverts, especially of Wigan shops. I used to have a blotting-paper book, with sheets of blotting paper as its pages, that came from Pendlebury's and had furniture adverts on the covers, I can't recall what happened to it; I have a feeling I donated it to somewhere many years ago.

and the furniture would have been built to last, I vaguely remember some of the firms that in the late 1960s were still making handmade furniture which even nowadays is being sought after, Priory, GPlan and Stag, also Foster Len a local Wigan company, who at the time were making very good high backed fireside chairs at their manufacturing unit at Eleanor Street.
Was having a browse through the Album and came across this fascinating photo of a Barber Shop across from Crawford House and at 20 Standishgate. Wet shaves after a lathering up and then with a cut throat razor are once again becoming popular, though do they have the Sweeney Todd chairs and the steaming hot towels, and possibly a stinging splash of cologne.
https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=3&id=26417&gallery=Shops+in+and+around+Wigan&page=383