The Way We Were
STANDISHGATE, WIGAN, LANCASHIRE
Wigan, spring 1960
A game of car-spotting at the bottom of Standishgate in Wigan town centre wouldn’t be nearly as much fun today
Bus lanes, taxi ranks and pedestrianised zones mean that cars are few and far between on Standishgate today. And the smell wafting from a nearby McDonald’s has replaced the comforting aroma of leaded petrol exhaust fumes.
Looking up the hill leading to the high street, modern speed bumps don’t do as much to slow traffic today as this queue did outside the huge scaffolding-clad building (now a branch of Primark) 57 years ago.
You’re unlikely to see a chap in a suit and hat today, and any surviving Silver Cross pram is considered a collector’s item. Outfits similar to the one being worn by the woman in the left foreground can still be found in the vintage shops of the nearby Makinson Arcade, though.
The cherry blossom to the right and lightweight jackets worn by passersby suggest that this is possibly early spring, meaning that Wigan’s rugby league team was in the middle of a four-match winning streak in a season that would eventually see them lift the Championship trophy.
Turning left into Standishgate in the foreground, left trafficator all aglow, is a Wolseley 4/44, which went out of production four years earlier and shared panels with the MG Z series. Sadly, both it and the Morris Minor in front of it are no longer listed with the DVLA, suggesting that they’ve gone to that great A-road in the sky; fewer than 200 of the nearly 30,000 4/44s produced survive – while obscured number plates make it impossible to tell the fate of the Morris Minor Traveller or suitcasecarrying Ford (we think it might be an Anglia 494A, to judge by its chromed fuel cap) further along.
These days traffic is stopped by traffic lights around where the shop awning is on the right in the middle distance, and unable to turn left on to what is now a bus lane. But the high street further on towards Market Place is still recognisable today with the mock Tudor fronts intact and the parish church still dominating the skyline. Back then, a left turn towards the top of the hill would have taken you to the Empress Ballroom, home to Wigan Casino’s Northern Soul all-nighters, 13 years later.
Stopped in the other direction is a Bedford CA van making a delivery outside a fireplace shop, which, along with the neighbouring church have since made way for a row of shops. The van is at least two years old, because its split windscreen was changed for a single screen in 1958.
The offside rear wheelarch of yet another Moggy is just in view in front of the van, with what looks like a Ford Popular 100E behind that.
But enough car-spotting; we’re off for a pint in the Dog I’th Thatch. And if you have to ask how to pronounce that, then you’re clearly not from around these parts…