14
Life
through the lens by Nicola Gray Andy Warhol famously stated, the best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do. To capture and preserve a moment in history surely leaves you with many great memories of your own, so I caught up with Wigan lensman Frank Orrell, to ask him just that. Frank has taken thousands of pictures of Wigan, the people who live here and local events, spanning a career of more than 40 years with the Wigan Observer. Frank started life at 84, Shevington Lane on 21st of January 1949 born to his Irish Mum, Foila, and Dad, Jim. Frank added, “I have a sister, Kathleen and a half sister, Ann. Ann’s mum died giving birth to her and my mum died of tuberculosis in 1954, my paternal Grandma, Annie,
Wigan Casino demolition, 1983
helped to bring us up while my dad was working as a joiner.” Frank travelled about a bit in his younger years and spent some time in Ireland, “My Granddad, Thomas, had been killed in action on the Somme in the last months of the First World War. When mum was ill, Kathleen and I were taken to live in Corrinshigo, in Northern Ireland with our maternal grandparents. We were there for about a year.” When talking about some of his earliest memories, many of them centre around the happy times he spent in Ireland, but Shevington was always home, Frank added, “I remember coming home to a then very rural Shevington with few houses and hardly any traffic. Old Lane was just across from where I lived and as a child it was a bit scary, it was a mysterious and dark tree lined track.”
