Photo-a-Day  (Saturday, 8th August, 2020)

The white wall behind the boat is all that is left of the old stinky bone hole factory were I used to work back in the 60s, appley bridge in those had a unique smell, a combination of the bone hole, thomas whitters lino factory and the quarrys and flag yards
Thanks for bringing back some memories Mick.

I like that photo and the boat; it looks cared for and I like the colours. I remember the smelly bone works....when we went to Southport on the old steam trains people used to open the carriage windows on hot days....the windows were held open with a heavy leather strap, and when we passed the bone works the thud-thud of the train windows being shut sounded like machine-gun fire! I used to call Our Jamie "Foghorn Leghorn" when he was a little lad!

They say you can get used to anything . We fished here as lads for it was a most prolific spot and after a time you didn't notice the pong. They reckoned the fishing was so good because the bone works emptied bits of offal and marrow into the cut. It's surprising no great man eaters ever evolved , like those giant Catfish on the Gangees.

A chap told me a story of when he sailed from East Yorkshire to Liverpool via the rivers and canals. One reason for the trip was to raise money for charity. Along the route he was helped by good wishers not only donating money but gave him fuel for the boat and food to eat. He arrived in Wigan on the L-L canal and went for a pie-n-pint in a pub. The money for charity kept in his shoulder bag £2000 so far. A couple of the locals took him to watch a game of rugby, only later did he realise that he no longer had the bag and panic set in. He last remembered hanging the bag behind the toilet door in the pub several hours earlier. Rushing back there he was relieved to find the bag where he had left it, the flap was open and an extra £20 inside, the lads in the pub had realised who it belonged to. That's one chap who will never say a bad word against Wigan. Like the pic Mick.

Predictive text again ! Didn't they render the bones for glue ? I'm sure we used to call this place the Glue Factory.
Irene - yes I also remember the train windows being slammed shut. They also used to be slammed shut at Hoscar Moss for the same reason but a different source !!

I had forgotten those leather strapped windows and the banging when they shut them. I also remember on hot days leaning out the windows. Irene my mam used to call me "Foghorn". I in turn called my granddaughter the same name when she was small, for telling all and sundry my business! Thankfully she is the opposite now and very quiet.

I liked watching those Foghorn leghorn cartoons, wonder if it inspired the butcher Fred Elliot character on Coronation Street with the same - I say - I say...

What's that wheeled contraption on the back of the boat - a sort of chariot or rickshaw maybe and is it pulled along by the bike I wonder, you'll have to get one Mick and take your Missus on your travels.

Cyril, you're probably right about Fred Elliott in the days when Coronation Street had a bit of humour in it. I can remember him looking in a baby's pram on the programme and bellowing "'ELLO, LICKLE BABY!"in his foghorn leghorn voice, in his capacity as Mayor of Wetherfield, and the poor baby yelling! And when he asked Audrey to be Mayoress and he took a medallion on a chain off a pig's head in the shop window and put it round her neck, and told her that Beef Wellington was a bit of steak with ideas above its station!

Whatever it is it's on the front (bow) not the back :-)

Your right Bert from Chequerbent the wall is now full of Swallows nesting,
there was also a clay hole and brickwork next to the canal.
You used to get tramps coming down there to sleep in the empty kilns
Yes Carolaen the factory was called Britsh Glues and Chemicals and the mucky hot milky coloured waste water went into the canal like you said and made the fish bigger.

mick .The birds nesting in the wall are Martins not swallows. The advantage
living near the bone works was your garden got a free supply of bone meal.