The Ritz and The Casino are Gone, but the Spirit Lives On
*First published in The LINC magazine, Summer 2005.
Anyone taking a swing through Wigan town centre over the last few months will no doubt have seen the mammoth demolition job going on around Station Road.
For many, this holds no special significance. In a modern consumerist society obsessed with the new and now, the destruction of a few old buildings to make way for a big shopping centre is just another inevitability of life in 2005.
Yet these buildings, and that one little area of Wigan, hold a special place in the hearts of many people for whom the sight of a decaying old cinema and a nearby patch of rubble were the last icons from a period in their lives when they, and Wigan itself, were a part of something special.
The decaying old cinema and former music venue, The Ritz, was an important part of many childhoods, including that of local music promoter Dylan Harris.
"I remember being about five, and my mum and dad would take me down there about three times a week. But what really fascinated me was the stories my dad would tell. He'd talk about all the bands that played there, he'd describe the atmosphere and say how big it was. It could hold about 2000 people, it was a major venue like the Manchester Apollo."
With major venues come major acts, and The Ritz certainly had its fair share of the rich and famous gracing its stage. Buddy Holly, The Rolling Stones, T-Rex, and even The Beatles brought their legendary shows to Wigan.
"I was the envy of everyone in school the year The Beatles appeared," recalls local resident Joan Cerridwen. "Dad had a friend who managed to get free tickets, and she gave me hers, five rows from the front, I couldn't believe it! I had to go on my own, but did I care? No! This was The Beatles!"
These days, in a time when the likes of ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones seem old, possibly outdated and somewhat unfashionable to today's youth, it can be quite hard to fathom exactly why they caused such excitement when visiting our humble town.
Yet, imagine if the likes Oasis or Coldplay came and played Wigan Pier, and you will get an idea of the buzz that surrounded Wigan at the time.
Eventually, those sorts of bands stopped coming here.
However, thousands of young people from across the country were soon flocking to Wigan once again. But by this point in time, they were strolling past the cinema and dashing just around the corner to the Casino nightclub.
Throughout the late '60s and early '70s, music fans in the north of England were turned on to the sounds of black, American soul music, a sound which David Nowell and Casino DJ Russ Winstanley describe in their book Soul Survivors, The Wigan Casino Story, as "dripping with emotion, powerful vocals and massive orchestration"
Such was the enthusiasm and love of 'Northern Soul' (as it was to be christened) that, much like modern dance and rave music of today, dedicated club nights began to crop up all over the place.
The Twisted Wheel in Manchester was the first to kick off the 'All Nighter' events (discos that started in the early hours of the morning and went on till early dawn).
The success of Northern Soul spread throughout the country to venues such as The Torch in Stoke-On-Trent, which was widely regarded as one of the best Northern Soul venues in the country.
When The Torch eventually closed, Wigan DJ and dedicated soul fan Russ Winstanley decided to set up his own 'All-Nighters' at Wigan's Casino Club, and, before he knew it, had turned a once largely underground scene into a national (and later international) youth movement.
As the soul began to spread, young people from all over the country, from London to Scotland and beyond, made the massive journey to Wigan each and every week for no other reason than to dance the early hours away at the legendary venue.
The Casino cult continued to grow, and the nation's media were quick to catch onto the buzz, with film crews, journalists and even record company bosses desperate to get a piece of the action.
Sadly though, just like every movement before and since, Northern Soul's dominance over British youth culture ended, yet not before it had created legends out of the Wigan Casino and Russ Winstanley, who today is enjoying a revival of the scene that he helped turn into a world-wide sensation.
"The whole soul thing and the Casino just took off far better than anybody could've expected. We had so many young people coming down from all over the place to enjoy the music. Locally, there's never been anything like it since."
21 year-old Andrew Slater, whose dad enjoyed many nights at the Casino, agrees. "My dad told me all these tales of how incredible it was at the Casino, and it's started getting me really interested in the whole thing," he says. "I'm trying to convince some of my mates to come and check out a soul night."
Andrew is disappointed at having missed out on the scene himself. "You look at it, and you had that whole massive thing in the Casino, then you had all the mods and rockers, the punk movement, and all these really cool things where people can say, 'I was there'. It's a bit sad that this generation has nothing like that. We're kind of just here, with nothing to call our own," he says.
Despite Andrew's dissatisfaction at the lack of a notable scene, some believe Wigan is currently enjoying a resurgence in youth culture.
"Wigan's always been a musical place with so much going on, from the massive Bickershaw music festival in the '70s, to The Pier on Wednesday nights when Richard Ashcroft used to turn up with Liam and Noel (Gallagher). Now you see nights cropping up all over town and you can see the scene starting to build back up," says Dylan Harris, who, along with business partner Sean Doherty, puts on the increasingly popular Lupine Promotions nights in Wigan.
"I wouldn't say we're re-creating what it was in the days of the Casino, but we're building up something new. In the next year or so, things could be really big again. It's already better now that people are staying in Wigan rather than going out to Manchester and Liverpool to be entertained."
In fact, people are now starting to come into Wigan again for a night out. This was noticeable at a recent Lupine night, where Sheffield's Arctic Monkeys played to around 750 people at a sold out Nirvana. Standing in that club, surrounded by people from as far off as Sunderland and Carlisle, much as you would have done at the Casino, makes you suddenly realise that you are a part of something special.
True, we may never have another Wigan Casino and it is unlikely that the Rolling Stones will come and play the UGC Cinema, but what we have right now in Wigan is something we can call our own.
The last icons from a time when Wigan's youth culture was recognised and celebrated (The Ritz and The Casino) have now been finally laid to rest forever. However, with so much going on in the town right now, here's hoping that young Wiganers today are also growing up in a time that will be looked back on with affection. Maybe we will look back one day and say, "Yeah, I was there."
By Chris Skoyles