Pagefield

Surely this is a police matter?

That was more by luck, John. I don't know who told your son about the assistance on Thursdays (possibly a lady boater on Wednesday afternoon), but they were unfortunately mistaken. The guaranteed assistance previously offered by C&RT had to be booked. It was no longer available after the 2019 season. 'From Date: 01/04/2019 00:00 To Date: 31/10/2019 23:59 inclusive' Assistance on the Wigan Flight, Leeds and Liverpool Canal | Canal & River Trust (canalrivertrust.org.uk) As has previously been mentioned, volunteers are often around, but not always. As has also been mentioned, it's worth having a look at Wigan Flight Crew on Facebook. Really pleased that you have seen an improvement in Wigan. Cheers.

It is a shame that C&RT don't now offer booked assistance on the Wigan flight. Seasonal staff who used to assist are no longer employed at Wigan.

That one has now also been fixed recently

The busted ground paddles and leaking tailgate at Henhurst meant the lock was filled very slowly, meanwhile losing water from the pound above. All the more so if only one gate paddle was used.

Drifting C&RT workboats - mystery explained.

Facts not opinions. Telling it like it is.

1968 Springer found on moon.

Freddie Starr ate my handspike type of thing? ?

Fake news?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHDRaNAn7rU

If arriving or departing Wigan on a Saturday afternoon, worth checking football fixtures. DW stadium is by Lock 88. Many people join the towpath at Seven Stars bridge (50) to walk to the ground. Others take a different route but cross the nearby footbridge over the canal. (49b). ie, worth avoiding just before, or after a match.

I was being generous with 'somewhat'. And no, not a place to moor. Either go beyond Ell Meadow Lock 89 into Crooke Village, or stay in the Wigan Pound, as has been suggested.

Absolutely. So sad to see the decline in the area. In 1986 the Queen opened the renovated area. The current redevelopment plans look promising.

I remember a winter afternoon in the dreadful environs of Wigan. All round was the lunar landscape of slag-heaps, and to the north, through the passes, as it were, between the mountains of slag, you could see the factory chimneys sending out their plumes of smoke. The canal path was a mixture of cinders and frozen mud, criss-crossed by the imprints of innumerable clogs, and all round, as far as the slag-heaps in the distance, stretched the ‘flashes’— pools of stagnant water that had seeped into the hollows caused by the subsidence of ancient pits. It was horribly cold. The ‘flashes’ were covered with ice the colour of raw umber, the bargemen were muffled to the eyes in sacks, the lock gates wore beards of ice. It seemed a world from which vegetation had been banished; nothing existed except smoke, shale, ice, mud, ashes, and foul water. But even Wigan is beautiful compared with Sheffield! G Orwell We now have double glazing and central heating. Since that pic was taken, the 'pier' has been somewhat renovated.