Photo-a-Day  (Monday, 28th June, 2021)

A warehouse in its Sunday best .

Although I'm not a lover of new builds this does look very nice,the colour scheme is lovely and it's on my home ground as well...thank you Dennis..you do get about don't you.

It's on Brown Street, backing onto Pitt Street.

Maureen, I was on a walk down Great George Street hoping to find some vestige of the old Wallgate, but there was nothing. None of the shops, pubs and houses that filled this area remain. The whole area as been given over to numerous car lots and small industrial units.
Given the thousands of people who were born, grew up, worked and died there, it’s sad that nothing remains to mark there tenancy.

I like the plant pot as well It matches the building.Just thinking the same as you Maureen, Dennis does get out and about.

I agree Dennis,I grew up at the top of Great George St,my Grandparents lived at the very top..I can remember all the names of the families around that area..and yes it's very sad when you think of the lives that started and ended there,it was a great community and I have so many memories...as a schoolgirl I once sat on our front step with my exercise book which was a mistake ( explain later)...pencil,rubber and ruler and sketched every house facing us then sat across the way to sketch all our houses,of course with it being in my exercise book i had to take it to a School,the teacher saw it tore the pages out and kept them...oh how I'd love to see those pages today..Wallgate in particular was a great place to grow up in,we had every shop we needed,no néed to go into town for anything except clothes...my heart skips a beat every time I see a photograph of any part of Wallgate so thank you again.

I have done the same by walking down Grt George St imagining my mother playing out. All I could see was the stone wall at the beginning of the Street. It was a long street by all accounts and I think she lived down towards the bottom end on the right. I know what you mean Maureen I very often stand on the corner of Belvoir St and Vauxhall Rd imagining myself playing with friends there. I always end up feeling depressed though at what has become and what was. I can remember all who lived in the houses that are left.... it doesn't do I tell myself! Till next time ....

Veronica,from our previous conversation re- where your Mum lived..I think she lived just a few doors further down from us which is more or less near the top of the Street.
I agree that it can be sad looking back but that's life isn't it..memories of our childhood is what makes us the person we are..it's strange isn't it,your Mum grew up in Wallgate and my Mam grew up in Scholes.
I could go on about this subject so I'll leave it at that lol....Dennis,you started something didn't you,and I'm so grateful.

Not been along this part of Wallgate for some time so hadn't seen this new build, am I right in thinking this was where the WHSmith News and Parcel Force Depots was at one time?

A lot of these home storage lock ups have opened up around town lately so wonder if we'll be seeing this gang going around them at some point. https://dave.uktv.co.uk/shows/storage-hunters-uk/

Keep on remembering those times Maureen and Veronica, it'll keep you sane in these crazy times.

"Wallgate in particular was a great place to grow up in,we had every shop we needed,no néed to go into town for anything"

If Wallgate isn't already "in town" I don't know what is.

There were more corner shops then so you did not need to go into 'town'. Especially in Scholes...all the way up to Whelley even... and pubs!
You are right Cyril, I'm just glad I was young at that time.

Thank you Cyril,the WH Smiths building was just further up in Great George St,right facing our house..I watched it being built,I'm not too sure but have a feeling it was built by Allen Brothers
And Bruce I totally agree with you,it was a great place to grow up in.

Dennis Cyril and Bruce,if by chance you were brought up in Wallgate..and you haven't seen it already there's a very long thread on 'Wallgate Streets and Families'you can find it if you type it in the search box..it is an extremely long thread and it's brilliant.

My grandma came from Wallgate and my dad was born there.Then when he got married they lived in Scholes.

Maureen, Bruce is quoting you ... then he disagrees!
There's a few nit pickers come on here lately. And why do they have to type out what has already been stated! Then adding on their disagreement! Baffling or what!

Veronica I just ignore nit pickers,they must have very sad lives...they're usually wrong anyway

Veronica, to be fair, I can see where Bruce is coming from. If I was brought up on Great George Street, I'd say so, rather than claim it was Wallgate.
As for 'you did not need to go into 'town', well, Great George Street is 'in town' and you can't get much closer to somewhere than being in it?
In fact, Great George Street is nearer to 'town' than Scholes Bridge is to Mick's pheasant photo.
I wouldn't class wanting to be correct as 'nit-picking'.
I live in Hindley and go 'to town' every day. I can't avoid it.

If Mick had been around in the old days, he would have had these run down semi derelict areas of Wigan recorded on his little camera.

When we were children George, the streets were our playground, the shops were part of those streets. We didn't need a map to tell us whereabouts we were. The big shops of 'Town' were just a bit further on, somewhere a bit more special. Through a child's eyes it was the world in miniature... we didn't need to know the exact parameters. I still don't need to know the exact position on an Ordnance map. It's all different anyway ... we look at the past how we remember it. Nobody will make me see it any other way. In fact my memory of that time I lived in Wigan is better than what I remember from last week. It's as if a fog descends when someone has to keep correcting where a place is and how many yards to such and such a place. Who cares anyway!

But George,the term going to town has always meant going to Wigan town centre,which is not in Wallgate,ask anyone..the difference is vast..it's like saying Worsley Mesnes or Kitt Green etc is going to town.its just all wrong.

George and Bruce,and this my last comment on this silly matter..I'm sure if someone asked me where I was brought up and I replied 'In town' they would have thought I was a simpleton,then ask but whereabouts in town..I would have replied Wallgate..they would then say why didn't you say that at the beginning..don't you see how silly all this is.

Veronica grew up in Scholes and Maureen grew up in Wallgate. Both areas parts of Wigan but separate from Wigan. Two little communities that were self sufficient for their everyday needs. But both thought of going to Wigan as ‘ going up town ‘. It doesn’t matter how anyone sees it now, it’s how it was seen then by the people who lived there at the time that counts and no one can tell them otherwise. Quite right too!

I think they walk round with rulers stuffed down their pant's/ legs. In the hope of finding something to measure !

Maureen, though I wasn't from Wallgate I have read the posts on the thread about Wallgate started by Dave, and wonderful they are too. We couldn't have wished for nicer neighbours when we moved into our first house and they came from Wallgate, their names were Ada and Rene Ratcliffe and Rene's brother Bill lived across the way.

James Hanson, a photo record of street scenes around Wallgate is on the Album, they were probably taken in the late 1950s early 1960s by Bert and Wilf Sharrock along with Peter Clegg, they also took photos of street scenes in Scholes.

Run down and semi-derelict? I don't think so, the folks would have been proud of their areas and I have even seen folks sweeping the pavement in front of their houses.

Too true Cyril, I still wipe the window sills and steps and sweep up outside my house every week. That was instilled in me years ago. Not often you see young women doing that....

Veronica, wow, that's a bit risqué, I can see a lot of comedians or even speakers making a mental note of that for a put down to male hecklers. ;¬)

Cyril,my Mam had always worked full time and as a child I would scrub the paving stones at the front of the step,polish step,clean all the furniture with Lavender polish..a policeman was walking by and asked our next door neighbour why was I doing the step and windowsill,she said to him "You try and stop her"..I carried that on into my teens,one of my School friends said even from the top of the street she could tell which was our house as the sill was so shiny..I think that people of a community had a lot of pride..they certainly did down our street..I must add that my Mam of course did the bulk of everything else,I still have a memory of her putting clothes through a mangle in the yard and it was snowing,but because she worked as well as my Dad we were never short of anything (Except a washing machine).my Mam and Dads photo is on People under the name McGovern if you wish to have a look.

I suppose it will alway sound silly to outsiders like me.
The same goes for calling an area by the name of a local pub.
"Halfway House" - "Saddle" - "Seven Stars" etc.

Wiganers, eh.? They're a breed apart.

Oooer! I didn't realise - I was thinking more about measuring distances!!! I had better stop there before I dig a bigger hole.

Bruce we forgive you - just take that tape measure from round your britches.

I can understand the views epressed by Veronica & Co & Dennis put the subject in a nutshell. Well said Dennis.

It’s a delicate job that is Veronica, taking inside leg measurements. Some important questions need to be asked before you rush in with your tape measure. One wrong move could be life changing.

Helen,I must say I have never been called a 'Co' before lol.

A bit like the Knights of old Dt with their swords clanking on their thighs....one false move

Haha! Shades of Monty Python, Veronica. “‘‘Tis but a flesh wound”.