From Wigan to the Riverside in 1981

No sound, but good video.

That is really good

yea,,

Nice one.


Love him, or loathe him, you can't deny the fact that WW's Mick Byrne is producing lots of similar stuff which will no doubt be looked back upon with great fondness in the future.

Excellent footage.

Watching that video is like travelling back in time.

Wallgate before it was duelled, with the Wheatsheaf just before the bridge and that was very nice building, something along the lines of the Pagefield for grandness and grand inside too, I used go in there and the Derby Arms, a couple of fav pubs.

Wallgate from the bridge uip to Library Street is largely unchanged today layout wise, apart from different occupants of the buildings, there were four banks on that stretch, gone now.

Going around the corner into Market Street, that is where the differences from today are, on the left you can just make out Blooto's and Halfords and turning right at the Market was brilliant and it is obvious that it is either a Sunday or Easter or a bank holiday, because the Market Hall was not open and  looking at the trees and how folk are dressed I would say it was around March/ April/ May

Now I remember all that on Wallgate and Market Street and going around in to Standishgate, like it was yesterday, but the road turning right towards Central Park with the Drill Hall and what looks to be a big mill, I can't remember that at all.

I doo think that building The Galleries as big as it is, was a mistake, because it has always been a white elephant and The Grand Arcade just made things forThe Galleries worse.

On about that time though in 1981 it was a very dire time in the country, the recession was biting and interest rates were sky high and factories were closing down left, right and centre.

There was no money about and although I can be nostalgic about pubs and stuff like that, I wouldn't go back to those times for anything.

Five years before, yes, 1976 and up to 1980 Wigan was awreet, but not in 1981 it had gone shit