Bolton 12 Month On

9th May 2024

Click Here To See Our Route

The dark winter days were now behind us and Graham and myself were looking forward to the beginning of new our adventures of 2024 but the weather hadn’t be kind so tonight was to be our first adventure of the season. The weather forecast was favourable, warm with some sunshine, but I received a ,message from Graham “Putting a jumper on ?” a reference to our adventure “Ebay Wears A Jumper” back in August last year when Graham didn’t wear a jumper and towards the end he was feeling the cold. He had also enquired at what time I would be home and I told him 5.30pm , hopefully giving me enough time to be ready. However Graham had other plans he arrived just as I was pulling up in front of my house at 5.10pm. My wife Peggy Lou was stood outside chatting to him, I pointed out to Graham that I’d said 5.30pm, he then went on to moan about how long it took for me to be ready, there’s a lot of organising goes into our adventures by myself, Graham has literally just got to bring himself and his bike oh and grab his helmet.

Thankfully it didn’t take me too long to be ready and we were soon on our way whilst waving goodbye to Peggy Lou. We headed towards Bolton where we were going to follow the route we had taken almost 12 month ago in “Bolton in Decline”. The route took us down Gorses Rd near Leverhulme Park where there was a sight of the sad times we live in. A large ugly fence had been erected to stop “FLY TIPPERS” dumping their rubbish into the old railway cutting which is home to a vast amount of wildlife. Graham pointed out that sadly it was the lesser of 2 evils and I had to agree.

We continued to chat as we rode over the viaducts on our way to Bolton, we had been out with a group of friends a few weeks before and had our major catch up then. Soon we were at the first stop off point the Alma Inn which was opposite the old site of Parker’s garage where Graham started his profession as a vehicle technician many years ago, little had changed here so we continued towards the town centre.

We next came to Home Bargains the site of the old Wheatsheaf pub, little had changed here also so we decided to head towards Moor Lane where some major building works had been under way the last time we visited. There in fact had been some big changes here the flats and other buildings were almost complete.

As we looked around Graham pointed to some bricks that were missing from the walls, “ that works a bit shoddy pal “ but then we noticed on the other buildings there were scaffolding poles going through the walls “ Ahh that’s why they missing “ I explained. We then spotted a label on one of the insulation panels with details & specifications on it but someone had put a little note for Lewis on it , this gave us a little chuckle.

The site of the old Odeon cinema had been totally transformed from a boarded up derelict area to a lovely spacious green area with benches to sit and relax, so that’s exactly what we did. There were some information boards dotted around and one told us about Elizabeth Park, the old mill and the cinema in the 1960s. We said we remembered going then but soon corrected ourselves realising we were old but not that old.

We sat on one of the benches and chatted for a while about all types of things we’d been doing and Graham mentioned that he had a new shed. Normally this would just pass by but his old shed had been stood for over 20 years and had wanted replacing a long time ago, I’ll pop a couple of pictures in so you can see for yourself.

We checked the map and it directed us towards Deansgate to the furniture store where on our last visit we thought we had see a woman sat inside reading a book but it turned out to be a reflection from a billboard across the road, what a right couple of idiots we were .Suddenly Graham shouted out “ hey pal she’s still there reading her book ha ha ha “, oh you silly sausage. It was then I remembered Graham had pointed to some legs on a bed last time stating they weren’t suitable, it looked like the same bed was still there so we re-enacted the photo. We then passed Slater’s menswear we’re I did actually purchase my suit for my wedding to Peggy Lou, that’s nearly 12 months ago now ( note to self remember anniversary).

We were pleased to see that the ye olde pastie shop was still there a staple for all Boltonions. After a short pause we rode on up to our next stop the site of the old Gordon’s Ford dealers garage on Higher Bridge St, sadly the art deco building has been replaced some years ago with a more modern but worse one in my opinion.

Now it was time to head up to Queens Park but first we stopped off on Bark St to see the progress of the large housing project that was under construction last year. A lot of the houses were now complete and some were actually tenanted. We now continued up into Queens Park up the steep hill, we were both huffing and puffing as we rode up with Graham commenting that “ it’s hard work this pal!!” It was hard work but as Extreme Bikers we don’t give up without a fight and we made it to the top as I wanted to show Graham a memorial plaque I had seen when I visited the park back in January it’s a plaque for All the people killed on our roads, a poignant reminder of our fragility.

We rode back down the hill and stopped at the bottom for a well earned rest so we lay on the grass beside our steed to enjoy the last of the evening sunshine .

Soon it was time to head home, this we did along Moor Ln and then we picked up the Cycle Path on Newport St. As we rode along the path I saw a man riding alongside the path on the pavement dodging pedestrians as he did. I turned to Graham “ I don’t get some people why’s he on the pavement right at the side of the Cycle Path gobshite !!” Graham replied “ Maybe he’s scared” . “Scared “ I quizzed, “ yeah coz it’s a Psychopath, Cycle Path , get it pal. OMG Graham, it was definitely time for home, I think the sun might have gotten to him. It wasn’t long before we parted ways promising to message one another on our safe return home, until next week we shouted as we parted company.