Apparently George Orwell said in his famous book that nobody knew where Wigan Pier actually is/was (but they seem to have found it since.)

We thought we’d missed it but on the way out of Wigan we saw a sign for Wigan Pier and stopped for a look.

It’s a pretty nondescript ex-industrial canal area.

Someone had opened a bar/restaurant by the pier and called it the Orwell. We would have had lunch there but the premises have closed down.

The Orwell (as was) – by Wigan Pier:-

The Orwell and Wigan Pier:-

The reverse angle from the other end of the building shows the “pier” to be merely a canalside jetty:-

There’s still some life on the canal. We saw these two boats and people pottering about on them:-

Last week I watched a TV programme about Dave Davies of the Kinks. In it he said his brother Ray had been playing two notes on the piano and he (Dave) thought that he could do something with it. To get the right effect – not the clean recorded sound they had had up to this – he tried cutting his amp’s loudspeakers with a razor blade, not expecting this to work. The result ended up as You Really Got Me. So maybe it was Dave, and not Ray, who invented heavy metal. Maybe.

The following programme was a retrospective of Kinks performances from the BBC archive which included this gem.

Not a hit at the time – nor was the LP from which it came despite it being a critical success and now much revered – The Village Green Preservation Society prefigures Ray’s movement into the chronicling of Englishness. It hits perfectly that note of wistful nostalgia encompassed by John Major quoting Orwell’s remark about old maids bicycling to Holy Communion. But Ray’s lyrics are a bit more amusing.

The Kinks: The Village Green Preservation Society