1970: Is WIGAN Becoming TOO MODERN? | Nationwide | Voice of the People | BBC Archive

“It’s trendy, it’s swinging, it has all the signs of a go-ahead town determined to get on the modern map and to show that this is where it’s all happening. And where exactly is this architectural apocalypse, this town of tomorrow? Would you believe, Wigan.”

Jack Pizzey reports from Wigan, where folk singer Keith Roberts is mounting a one-man, musical resistance movement, against the urban planners that are determined to modernise his beloved town. Keith mourns the vanishing cobbled streets and the removal of the tramlines, he despairs at the rising concrete jungle and the town’s seemingly inexorable move towards trendiness.

Keith takes Jack to the former site of the infamous Wigan Pier, which was likely a coal-loading staithe. Despite being the butt of countless jokes, Keith believes Wigan Pier is a significant feature of the town, and should be preserved. More than anything, Keith fears that the people in charge of redevelopment, in their haste to modernise, might unwittingly take away the character, and the very heart of the town.

Clip taken from Nationwide, originally broadcast on BBC One, Tuesday 22 September, 1970.

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It’s Stark it’s clean lined it’s modern this is what concrete AED man believes he should live in in the 70s every inch of high-rise dwelling every pre-stressed layer says that this town is modern where are we from the faces of the buildings it could be any upto-date City

From Los Angeles to Liverpool from Rotterdam to Rio it’s trendy it’s swinging it has all the signs of a go-ahead town determined to get on the modern map and to show that this is where it’s all happening and where exactly is this architectural apocalypse this town of tomorrow would you believe

Wigam yes Wigan that was part of Wigan but says this awful dreary grimy unlovely wigam the place the musicals have been joking about for years the place that no one was proud to come from the natives of Wigan haven’t even invented a name for themselves you never

Heard of a Wigan perhaps the people who come from here would rather forget it but now things are happening to Wigan there’s a new breed of men here who’ve noticed that these days any modern city worth the description has to have its share of deep holes and high cranes and

They’re pushing poor El Wigan onto the bandwagon and giving the town a facelift but the planners aren’t having things all their own way there’s at least one citizen who says they’ve got it wrong the Cobble streets are sleeping under a my shroud the feet which war your surface smooth are shadows in the

Clouds tell me Mr planning man how long my house will stand how will the byass swallow me digested by the sand the Cobble streets are Vanishing the Trum lines are all gone the concrete jungle Rises up my god what have we done Keith Roberts folk singer and school teacher is not impressed by

Wigan’s headlong tumble into trendiness and he says so in song in his collection the road to Wigan Pier at Back Wigan Pier of course is an old joke at wigan’s expense there isn’t a pier usually a pier is a pretty frivolous thing on a seafront so pretending that Wigan has a pier is a way of underlining the town’s ugliness like putting a Beauty Spot on the face of a plain

Woman well the original Wigan Pier was just over there so I believe uh you say the original one was there actually a structure well I think that the ceries used to bring coal down to the pier and they had a Depo over there and there was

A an iron structure which they used to use to run the coal trucks down to load the barges up in the canal and you’ve placed some value on this wig and Pier oh yes it’s very valuable in in fact this famous wig and Pier of ours we hope

Is going to have a preservation order on it very very soon we’re hoping to get the people uh going about this but it’s not there of course it’s there anyone could see there’s a peer there it’s where the barges tie up and uh all the machinery and everything is just like

Any other ordinary conventional peer it’s obviously very important to you whether it’s there or not very important very important yes now what about all these protest songs of yours what are you really on about well I’m a little bit worried in case the people who are

Trying to rebuild our Wigan are going to take the heart out of the place and it’ll it will I think just become another northern town with no real character about it at all saving old Wigan isn’t Keith Robert’s only Crusade He makes himself a thorn in the Authority’s flesh whenever he sees fit

Like over wigan’s River the Douglas he says that the water’s so thick that they have gangs of men shoveling it down to the Sea if you want to Sunan go to wig Town dive into the river Douglas come up mkey brown hey upy brown upy brown into the river come up Mony

Brown oh mighty River Douglas with swirling Rippling tide your roaring pounding waters are in places 4T wide in places 4T wine in places for wine your roolling founding waters are in places 4 wine now you won’t catch a summon bre or r or Pike but you might catch tyho or a

Rusty iron bike rusty iron bike how rusty iron bike you’re my custy I am through Wigan lovely Wigan the Rippling Douglas flows and if you want to kill yourself forget to hold your nose forget to hold your nose forget to hold your nose if you want to kill yourself forget to hold Your Keith Roberts throws cold dust all over wigan’s New Image and over its planners he doesn’t want wigam to lose its roots the backto back houses and Cobble streets from the great days of the co mine the planners believe in their vision of a new city wonderful Wigan a little

Vision wouldn’t do any harm either old Wigan is a downed Hill sort of place with all the signs of a dreary defeated view of Life there aren’t many towns of 70,000 people where they’d gloomily tell you in the main hotel’s restaurant that peaches are off because we can’t find the tin

Opener when all said and done the planners and the folk singer both want the same thing really a better town to live in Keith Rob Bert’s only fear is that in their rush to push away the past the planners May overdo it and Wigan will end up not with a new identity but

With none at All two centuries ago laner Town discovered a fortune deep down underground some Called It Black Gold some Far worst names but it last to all all Wigan came fortune and fame conditions improved and prosper came wi men worked with their hands and their brains the country grew rich with its Tes and

Cars but the land round the co field was butter and Scar you’ve cast off your Shaws on the cloaks from your feet raised up the M away from Cobble street but please don’t forget all the values of old and the man who helped build you world out of Gold