THEN & NOW: BRIGG BLOG MAKES A MEAL OF RECALLING BRIDGE STREET CHANGES

How many meals have been served on these Brigg premises down the decades?
Today the ground floor of the building houses Simon Ho's long-established China Royal Restaurant, also offering a takeaway service. But in the 1960s and 1970s it was home to the Bridge Street Cafe, serving breakfasts and other filling meals, with a constant supply of cuppas.
Customers who bagged a seat near one of the front windows would watch every day Brigg life unfolding before their very eyes!
The board on the side of the building directed people down Manley Gardens to Stennett's popular produce auction, held every Thursday.
These sales were held on a parcel of land near the top of Manley Gardens (now occupied by housing) and attracted bargain-hunters from far and wide.
The auction had a covered area for eggs and other produce and a large shed from which staff directed proceedings and kept note of the items sold.
At about 2pm on Thursdays, the chief clerk furnished a visiting reporter from the Lincolnshire & South Humberside Times with a list detailing that day's prices for ducks, chickens, eggs, bacon, pigeons, butter, etc. The sheets were pre-printed but the prices were filled in with a heavy 'B' pencil. Impressively, the chief clerk had memorised all the relevant information.
Having walked back to the office at 57 Wrawby Street, the reporter telephoned through the prices to a copy typist at the Hull Daily Mail (no computers back then, just a trusty typewriter), and this was one of the last items of news to make it into that week's edition before it went on the press.
Even the correct punctuation had to be dictated, including 'points' (full stops) and dashes, where appropriate. Plus the instruction 'new par'.
Today it could be done in a fraction of the time by email using a mobile phone, if Stennett's was still operating.
The same process was also employed for 'live' football reports phoned through from Brigg Town FC home games (and Scunthorpe United matches) for inclusion in the Saturday Sports Telegraph, supplies of which were sold by a vendor located outside the Angel Hotel's front entrance in the Market Place, from about 6.30pm. Queues often formed to await the arrival of the delivery van from Grimsby, where these editions were printed.
Brigg football, cricket and hockey clubs also phoned through match results and highlights to league officials' homes from public call boxes within the town centre. Some pubs, such as the Black Bull, had phones on, or near, the bar but it was often too noisy and call boxes were a better option.
Brigg town centre still has two call boxes - near the former NatWest bank and outside the old Post Office. However, the boxes near the Steel Rooms and the China Garden takeaway have been removed. Today, of course, most people have mobile phones with texting facilities.