COMMUNITY spirit was well to the fore in the early 1950s as highlighted by this photograph of snow shovellers ready to clear the pavements.

With the horrors of the second world war still a vivid memory people tended to look after one another.

Perhaps none more so than Kaz Jabkiewicz a Polish man who moved to England in 1948 as a teenager after enduring the nightmare of being sent to graft in a forced labour camp in Germany.

Kaz, who lived in Oxford Street, Leigh, is pictured sixth from the left in this shot of trainee miners preparing to clear a pathway along Leigh Road, Leigh.

He died in 2005 aged 81.

"I think the photograph was taken about 1952 or 1953," said Kaz's widow, Lucy.

"Kaz would have been about 22 or 23 when it was taken. The photo is of trainee miners called in to help clear the streets. People really did help each other in those days."

She recalled how her late husband was a real Anglophile.

"He used to say 'people in England don't realise they live in the best country in the world, what a pity it is being ruined'. He was a good worker and spent 20 years as a tunneller for ATC at Lowton. When he retired he used to clear rubbish from the backs in Oxford Street. And people appreciated what he did," said 74 years-old Mrs Jabkiewicz.