I thought Deanery was Wigans premier school?

Going back to places with an identity crisis, i live in Barnet, Barnet council being one of the big 'London' councils, yet my address is Hertfordshire and my postcode is EN5 which is Enfield, Enfield being in Middlesex?

Get the kids a good foundation in RL and choose St John Fisher not far from the area you are looking at.

It was always the best none RC school.

Always seemed to have the best looking girls

Standish is the place to move too (lived there for 30 years)

The Redrow houses, as nice as they look, aren't in a great place. Right on the Saddle Juntion, opposite Asda, and the timber they're decorating some of the houses with looks great now, but will look terrible in a couple of years.

But that's just my opinion - Redrow's build quality is generally very good as is their after-sales service. I would, however, exercise a little bit of caution buying brand new in this market as you tend to pay a premium for new houses which is lost as soon as you move in. You'd need to stay there a few years to break even, I reckon. They're also hard to sell on in the first three or so years - why would you pay more to buy a house that someone's already lived in, when you can buy something identical but brand new?

In terms of where the best place to live is, it really is a matter of opinion and of what is important to you. Invariably the 'best' places are the most expensive, so if you only have, say, £100k / £450pcm a month to spend, thenrather than looking at places like Orrell, Standish, Billinge etc (because you won't get very much for your money, especially if you have kids and need the space), you're probably better looking in Winstanley or Hawkley Hall.

Similarly it depends on if you want to travel or commute, and if so, where, and what local facilities are important to you, if any.

I went to Upholland High and it was all right. Pure Wiganers seem to think I have a slight scouse twang to my accent (scousers think I'm as Wigan as they come, as it happens) and given that most of my mates are from Skem and Upholland it's perhaps not that surprising that I've picked a little of the lingo up.

A certain Stuart Cummings was our games teacher, and really not the t055er people seem to make him out to be.

Oh yes, I know all about that. I'm from a place called Crawford Village originally, which is between Upholland and Rainford. Skem address, Wigan post code, St Helens phone number.

My Grandparents lived in crawford all their lives and I'm pretty sure that their postcode was always and still is WN8 which is a upholland/skem postcode. They had a St Helens phone number because the houses and numbers where there long before the telephone exchange in skem.

Yes, WN's Wigan, onto which Upholland (which historically was Wigan) and Skem (itself historically a mining village linked to Wigan) were tacked.

As for the phone number though, I'm not convinced. I think it had more to do with the conversion to digital exchanges around 1990ish. My dad developed the Crawford Manor site, and the site office had a 01695 number, hence why we were surprised to recieve an 01744 number when we moved into a house on that site.

Crawford village the main village not the redeveloped manor site (which as you say was only redeveloped in the 90's) as had a 01744 dialling code long before the 90's. My family have lived and even still live in the village pre 1900 and living family only know of having a 01744 number.