Wigan Album

Aye - thin end off the wedge, letting pit brew lasses wear trousers.... Look where it got their grand-daughters.
I presume that's the Wigan connection, Ron?

She was the dinner lady at the school my brother attended.

She's a Wiganer.

Kathleen is from Kitt Green,Wigan.

Didn't she used to run The Abbey Lakes Pub at one time?

It seemed she had the world at her feet in those days. I wonder where she is now and what became of her.

3 bob was a lot of money in those days a pint was less than 2 bob

I think it was Wendy George who ran the Abbey Lakes pub.

I think at the time she lived somewhere on the corner of Eccles Road and Prescott Lane in Kit Green, she was quite a celebrity at the time and someone pointed her house out to me.
Iren, I think she did have some connection with the Abbey Lakes Pub post beauty queen. Running a pub post retirement for people formally in the public eye was I suppose the thing to do in those days to a attract the punters.

Jean and Colin.....Jean is absolutely right; it was an different beauty queen , Wendy George, who ran the Abbey Lakes Pub. I knew it was one of them. Very beautiful ladies, both.

I was waiting for somebody to ask that Abbey Lakes question which pops up every time a photo of Kathleen Winstanley appears on here!
It was Wendy George who had the Abbey Lakes. She took the pub in 1985, and was there for fifteen or sixteen years.

Kathleen Winstanley never had anything to do with the Abbey Lakes.
Wendy George was the beauty queen landlady.
It was my local pub from the early 1970s when I moved into the area, until 1998, when I moved to Scotland with my work.
I knew all the landlords and landladies in that time.

Think Kathleen was the Landlady of the Imperial pub in Higher Ince.

Kathleen married a business man and lives down south somewhere? Wendy is still in contact with her.

Veronica, she seemed to have disappeared from the limelight after all the publicity and great amount of photographs taken from after the time she won the Miss UK contest, and of course came runner up in the Miss World contest, there is even a photograph from 1968 shown in this article of Past Forward 89 of December 2022 to March 2022, when she along with Barry Mason and his wife were invited to have tea in the Mayors Parlour, see pages 16 - 17 Barry Mason.
https://www.wigan.gov.uk/Docs/PDF/Resident/Leisure/Museums-and-archives/archives/Past-Forward/Past-Forward-Issue-89.pdf

There is also this photo from 1968 and posted in wiganworld Album 2012. Geoff Shryhane says she married and now lives in Southern England and still visits Wigan.
https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=3&id=20756&gallery=Printers&offset=60

Owd Viewer. Yvonne McCann was the beauty queen who had the Imperial. She later had the Brick in Hallgate, and I seem to remember her having the Ball and Boot at one time.

Thanks Cyril I looked at Past Forward I must say I had never heard of Barry Mason.
It sounds like Kathleen had had enough of all the attention and wanted to lose herself down south. She was a very beautiful girl. Her aunt worked at the ROF when I did.

Jean / Irene, thanks for the correction.
Wendy George that's another blast from the past. Both brought fame to Wigan, all quite innocent fun at the time for those who liked that kind of thing but not anymore.
On the television it was as popular as todays Strictly but no doubt someone will be working on a campaign to get even that banned.

Thanks Tony.

Keep guessing everybody, I'm sure you hit on the right person eventually. She lived in Prescott Lane, Orrell. Why nobody has mentioned Arnold Schwarzenegger yet?

Because Arnie was on the box on Friday night as a guest of Graham Norton and he didn’t mention Kathleen Spaced Out Mick. ( he probably wouldn’t even have remembered having his photo taken with her. ) Thank goodness she didn’t hang out with him anyway with his record.

coz he int a wiganer nor is he a shevvyer even with a name like that

I'm sure she did 'hang out' with him quite a lot, Veronica and I can't imagine him not remembering her either as he's still in contact with his old bodybuilding mates, especially Frank, who was with him when he first went over to USA.

Well, Our Veronica, I'm gobsmacked that he isn't a Wiganer. Ah could a' sworn there was a Hezekiah Schwarzenegger in Ince when I were a lass. He were a tackler at Th'Empress Cotton Mill. 'Appen ah'm mistook. T'memory plays tricks.

I was catching the London train in December 1968, and she jumped into my carriage. We went all the way to Euston together chatting about all sorts of things, and she showed me her knee tattoo that she  started to keep covered with a plaster because in those days people thought they were common/

I can't see how Wendy George "brought fame to Wigan"?

It was all about ‘photo shoots’ and I’m sure she had her head screwed on right. She would have been well paid for those photos.
I bet my dad knew Ezekiah he was always going on about him Irene. Are you sure he didn’t work at the gasworks…?.;o))

The reason Arnold Schwarzenegger ended up in Orrell was because he was a bodybuilding associate and frield of Frank Richards (Mr World, Mr Britain Am Mr Universe) and Kath Winstanley (miss World 1968 runner-up -and miss Universe Trained Figure 1967), Arnold was Mr Universe runner-up 1967 and winner 1968, 1969 and 1970. The three spent a lot of time together.

Veronica & Irene, I'm sure it was Hezekiah's brother Azariah that worked down at the gasworks.

I too hadn't heard of Barry Mason, even with him being born in Wigan, and yet we would have known all the songs he wrote and co-wrote, his obituary was in The Scotsman in 2021.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/obituary-barry-mason-songwriter-who-gave-the-world-delilah-3215048

It doesn’t mean to say they were a threesome though Wigan Mick’s potty tin-lid ….The girl escaped and married her Prince Charming and lived happily ever after. Arnie missed out there…but he made good and married a Kennedy girl but he ended up out on his ear with his dumbbells.
Cyril they must have been twins Ezekiah and Azariah. They were hard working though.

Colin Traynor. I don't see how Wendy George brought fame to Wigan.
She was from Derby and only came here after she married and had finished on the beauty contest circuit.

Colin Harlow has more information in item numbers 20755 and 20756.

There is a photo on ww
All three together out side kathleens house in kitt green ,they were good mates trained at Harry catteralls gym little lane goose green

Just seen Colin Harlows post, item number is 21147.
Kath and friends.

fixed the sill on her blue and white Riley Kestrel once ,and believe me she had lovely legs

Harry Catteralls gym wasn't in little lane goose green.
It was in Foundry Lane, Pemberton.

Afraid your wrong Bruce Harry had a gym behind the old farmhouse on the right going up from Warrington rd it looked over the football fields

If only most women looked like that. Most women over the age of 30 are obese and covered in tattoos. And the ones that are that attractive they end up with the wrong men who treat em like dirt, then they meet someone else who turns out to be the same.