Wanted: Wigan Stories

ThickSkin Charity recently became a resident company at The Old Courts. To celebrate, they’re creating an alternative audio guide App for Wigan town centre called Walk This Play, and need stories about the local area.



More info: www.thickskintheatre.co.uk/wtp-wigan-stories/

I'm sure nordic would have a few.

Do you have any more info on this, jo-anne?

I can write some stories, but am not sure just what they want?

jo anne, this is my Wigan story. If anyone has a similar story, you will be welcome to post it here....

A Wigan Story, c 1958

A severe caning

It started with me as a ten year old lad, growing up in Pemberton. I attended St John’s C of E school in Pem although it was actually called Lamberhead Green which we found out much later.
I had a lovely family, mum, dad and a younger brother. We lived in a council house on the new Norley Hall Estate. We were the first ones to live at number 74 Helvellyn Road and were surrounded by lovely neighbours from all over. I had some good mates and also some very nice female friends.
I started at St John’s in 1952, aged six years.
At age ten in 1956, I went to school as usual on a Monday morning and the teacher told us that we were taking a test, called the eleven plus exam. They had not told us about this so that we would not fret or worry about it, over the weekend.

So, we settled down and completed all the exam papers put in front of us. When the results came through, I found that I had passed, (I still have the report) and was then going to attend Wigan Grammar School in the new term, whilst all my mates and classmates were going to the local state schools.
I had to have a uniform and sports clothes, etc, which cost money. My father did his best to buy them and I looked smart in black and red with a tie and a cap. (Photo attached). However, I missed my mates as I had to catch a bus to school while my mates just walked across the fields to their school.
At the Grammar school, the level of education was simply enormous. We studied Latin, Chemistry and Physics as well as Maths and English at a high level. I didn’t realise just what I had available to me.
Our maths teacher was very good and was actually called a ‘Master’, and wore a black gown and sometimes a mortar on his head. I cannot remember his real name but we all called him, ‘Pobbles’.
One day someone passed me a piece of paper and on it, someone had written, ‘Pobbles is an idiot’ or something to that extent. ‘Sign your initials if you agree’. I was proud to sign my initials even though I didn’t agree with the statement. Of course the piece of paper was discovered by Pobbles as it was passed around.
He read it and called on us to identify ourselves by the initial’s written on paper. I owned up as did all the other lads and we were sent down to Joe Bozwell for a caning. We all got six of the best, and it hurt like hell. Joe Boz was, in today’s terms, a sadist. He enjoyed caning us lads and was a complete and utter sadist which we did not know the meaning of back then. Today he would of course be charged with assault.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh…the good old days…………….I never told my parents......