Retro Yakking

This website does not normally do serious posts, but for a local legend, the Hindleyak shall make an exception.

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It is a sad time… but… one of these days I am going to pop my clogs — Walter Hurst, 2001

Lancashire has this morning been left mourning the death of a local legend.

An ambulance was called to Walter Hurst’s house in Hindley last night where he was found dead at around 7.15PM. Paramedics, family members and neighbours rushed to help, but could not revive him. A black police car arrived around 8PM.

Walter Hurst - An Obituary

Walter Hurst was one of Britain’s few remaining clogmakers and the third generation of a family business spanning over a hundred years.

Hurst’s grandfather, also named Walter, began clogmaking in 1898 when he was 26 years old, earning his first wage of thirty bob (around £1.50). Along with his son (Hurst’s father) he opened a shop on Wigan Road, Hindley in 1926, which would serve Wigan and the whole of Lancashire for 75 years.

At one point, the shop would turn out over 10,000 clogs a year for local mine and cotton workers in the area. However, after the Second World War demand decreased as gradually the mines began to close. The business saw a brief revival in the 1970s as morris dancing became popular once again, but Hurst always knew that clogging was a dying art.

Two generations later and Hurst Jr. kept the family tradition going strong, operating out of the Hindley shop with the very same tools and equipment his grandfather used almost a century earlier. Though the shop closed down on 17th September 2001, Hurst continued clogging from his house in Hindley with equipment in his garage.

The family would have been sad but they would realise that all good things come to an end. Eventually… there will be no clog makers left, as there is nobody coming into the trade. — Walter Hurst, 2001

Hurst made many television appearances discussing and displaying his craft and as a contestant on game shows.

He continued to be active as the President of Hindley St. Peter’s Cricket Club, ceremonially opening new practice nets and a scoreboard in 2004, and was later present at the opening of the St Peter’s Pavilion in 2009. He was 69 years old when he passed away on 24 March 2009.

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