Barry

I've no idea mate - didn't realise - I'll find out and get back to you.

Just dug this out of me old posts - from 2009: "I remember I was generally very much a 'bus home' type kid after Wigan. It was cheaper, dropped me off virtually outside my house and didn't involve dealing with too many people the morning after. The problem with living in Warrington and being in Wigan that early on a Sunday morning was that there was a only a single bus that left Wigan Bus Station at 6.30am, then none 'til 12.30pm, which generally pre-empted the (bugger of a) walk home. It wasn't too bad as I'm sure it was all fields then and eternally sunny . The bonuses of leaving for the early bus were liberating a pint of milk and a paper from the knotted packages left outside the newsagents in the Arcade - anyway I digress. This particular morning I had no money left at all and was in a bit of a state as the preceding night I had been at the contents of a small enevelope I had taken with me to sell - I seem to remember up around 3am as Searling announced that M's would be open in five minutes, then nothing til the moment I was outside The Casino in the daylight. Having no money and being in a state left me with one option - jumping the train, as there was no way I was going to be able to walk the nine mile home this morning and there was no obvious way past the single decker bus driver without my fare home. I recall wobbling down Fishergate in me long leather and bag and upon arrival at the train station, after a little recce, working out that I could get up to the platform by scaling, Spiderman-like, a massive piece of corrugated sheeting that was leaning from the base of a small wall up to platfrom-heaven. This had no doubt been placed there by some other gimp for that exact same reason. There's a blank again here but I must have alighted the train as the next thing I recall is being near the toilet inbetween carriages, arms leaning out of the window and approaching Winwick Junction (Winwick being the village just outside Warrington where I lived) - all with an amount of dread within me, as I knew what I was about to have to do. Now Winwick Junction is a place where the Wigan-Warrington train slowed down to about 10-15 miles an hour as it was crossing a junction/tracks and was the only point on this hairy-journey that would be forgiving enough for me to attempt some kind of parachute jump-like exit from the train. Not good. Anyway, there was no way round it, I'd come this far. I remember biting my lip, grasping the 'Communication Cord' (the 'Use Only In Emergency' brake cord that ran the length of the train)....and pulling!? F*ck me, I don't know if you've ever been on a train when a 'Communication Cord' has been pulled but it's a pretty violent way to stop a 107 tonne, quarter mile long of rampant iron and steel. "SCREEEEEEECH!" - "BANG!" I got threw against the bog door - and then the other way - and then back again....as the train attempted it's non-standard Winwick Junction stop. Now fully alert, as the fear and the thoughts of the possible consequences of my actions had seemed to morph into an imaginary hand that dove right down the front of my early 80's underpants, grasped my knackers and shoved them up my a*se. Thetrain was almost at a stop now so I grabbed my bag, leant out the carriage, opened the train door and jumped. I landed like a sack of sh*t and rolled through a load of gravel and weeds into a wire fence. I stood up, looked down the length of the train toward the engine and to my horror saw about three or four guards hopping off the now stationary train and heading, rather noisily, my way. I jumped the fence into a very dewy cornfield. It was as I was wading red-faced and fear fraught through this wet cornfield with my bag held above elbow height and a number of pissed of British Rail workers in tow, that I realised how badly the lining in long leathers handle the addition of water to their make-up. It was like playing that bloody game on Crackerjack whereby when you answered a question wrong they stuffed cabbage upon cabbage on your already straining person (don't now if that makes sense? but anyhow.) I could see in my immediate view on the other side of a fence an upcoming copse, a small wood and, the irate voices behind me getting nearer and (GET HERE YOU LITTLE BASTARD!!) louder, I began to think I may have an escape route of sorts. In the distance I heard a BANG!!!, then another but in my present predicament it didn't register as anything life threatening at the time. I jumped the fence and (BANG!!! again??) dragged my sorry wet arse into the first hiding of trees, there was enough cover for it to mask the sunlight and it became a little twilighty in there. "Great!" I thought as I headed a bit deeper in and looking around (BANG!!! again, louder this time - wtf) I could see our hi-vis wearing be-capped fiends (no spelling mistake, I was scared rigid) beginning to realise this may not be working out in their favour - and they began to bluster and swear at me as they gave up the chase. I was now in a wood. And the wood went BANG!!! a lot. It was at this point I saw my first farmer, out with his mates on a Sunday am hunt!! BANG!!! F*ck me, I'm gonna get shot now. So, adopting a pose somewhere between a Ninja, an SAS infantry man on a mission to nowhere and a piss wet, drugged up teenager in ridiculous coat -with a bag - I set off deeper into the wood, my aim to somehow traverse the local pig-pickers out on their shoot, without getting a hole in my ass. BANG!!! "Hey you!?" I was spotted - "Arse!". My mind had forgotten the little triumph that was losing our friendly BR div-jumping team and I was back to square one - exept these f*ckers had guns. What I would have given for the fear of a hi-vis jacket now!? With a group of unhappy farmers on my heels ("Get Orf My Land" an' all that) I went tree to tree, skulking, dipping and diving until I could see the light getting brighter - I must be approaching the other side of the wood at last. Then ahead of me I could see the white painted wooden fence that I knew to be the fence that skirted the road opposite the old Winwick (Mental) Hospital (read into that what you will. I WORKED there, alright!), a mile or so from my house and with the voices of my irate hunters tailing off in the darkness behind me, I reached the fence. "Thank f*ck for that!" I breathed deeply, cobbed me bag over it, steadied myself and with a final mighty effort jumped over the fence and onto the main road. Then I got knocked down by a car. Suffering for your art? David Blaine don't know the half of it."

Limited me arse Nick - every bloody indie shop carried GGM releases - they were a big concern. They are out there - it's the tracking 'em down.

Just checking

I'm proper getting family with these replies and am made up to see the people behind the Soul (ies) - sorry, had a drink but cheers for the recollections, it makes you so much more....human

Would injuries include being on drugs, jumping off trains and being shot at?

Joe Sample & Michael Franks

No but they work by the 20/80 rule - 20% of the units make 'em 80% of their profit...plus it'd be a bit dull watching 'em clear an owd bed and general crap out of a locker ay?

Auction Hunters, Cajun Pawn - I'm knee deep in 'em to mate haha

Last Words Of The Great Explorer Sharmo

Yeah, I seen it a few month back - was quite a few bits/labels I saw when they scanned his singles.

Lot of youngsters were happy when they opened the right hand entrance taking Hilda out the equation.

I know what you mean. I suppose the bus station and cinema have gone, the roads in and out have completely changed and they have whacked up the big arcade but there is still enough to ring a few bells wi me. I still get that feeling when I go.

I must say a Wigan Casino Annie would be better for me if you could reminisce around it's town centre, go for a pint where you used to (not that I did - last bus up), get the train etc

I went to Wigan once on a Friday and woke up in Skegness on the Sunday - Bermuda Triangle?

Just the fact that you lot frighten me sometimes

You've got to add the 'Disco' word into that though.

So I'll not get lambasted for playing it out on this press!?

I'm not saying it wasn't, of course it was but you could state the same for other forms of music too. (This thread has gone Pete Tong already haha)

Three artists/bands Davie?

Christ! I've hi-jacked me own thread.

But was it Davie? Soul music had The Beatles, Stones thing (R&B related I know) to oppose it in the 60's, the Pink Floyd rock thing early 70s, punk in the mid/late 70's, New Romanticism in the 80's - all extremely popular forms of music in their own right - surely Soul Music was in the mix and more commercially popular than now but was it the 'big thing'?

dp