Six Steps from Wigan Pier

A collection of tales, all connected in some way with Wigan, which has always been a rich source of pies, tripe, coal, cotton, culture, rugby league and, above all, stories.

Some of the stories start and finish within a cock-stride of the Pier. Others take us to Gallipoli, the Deep South of the United States and the humid jungles of Spanish America during two bloody civil wars. What would a Wigan book be without the Latics and the Warriors? But who now recalls that Puccini’s greatest Turandot is buried here or that one of Hitler’s favourite singers was a Wigan lass who spied for MI6? Some secrets are revealed here for the very first time, as in the American Dream of Uncle Alf, Wigan collier and Henry Ford’s right-hand man in Europe, who lost his chance of a knighthood when a deserted wife exacted a tragic revenge on Blackpool sands. You may already have met Dicky Nutt, Paddy Gore, Pop Skirrow, Old Merryballs, Madame Teapot, Bloody Wogdin, Hoppy the Coroner and the Mad Clapper, if not, you are in for a rare treat as you embark on your own Six Steps from Wigan Pier.