IN the late 1930s Bolton witnessed a ground-breaking social experiment that in 2015 we are still talking about.

Those who took part would most probably never have realised the impact this mass observation project would have on us both here in Bolton and beyond for so many years to come.

It was a chance for a team of 90 observers to record, in painstaking detail, the every day lives of ordinary local folk as they worked and enjoyed their social lives.

Photographs were taken in pubs, in dance halls, in factories and on holiday to provide a glimpse of life for these people as it really was.

Observers watched people going about their daily lives — taking notes about conversations they could hear and things they could see.

It could almost be seen as a perfect excuse to be nosey without having to apologise for it so little wonder it appealed so much to many of those taking part.

Harrisson encouraged those taking part to travel on the top deck of buses and listen in to conversations — it is a wonder they did not get their ears clipped in the process.

On one occasion, in an upmarket Bolton cafe, Tom Harrisson suggested to Humphrey Spender that he should try to get a snap of a "posh lad" putting a spoon in her bag.

Daily session were held to decide what to do on that particular day with Harrisson checking around half a dozen newspapers to settle on a theme.

Who would have thought a scene involving four friends and a baby in a pram would tell a story? But Harrisson would explain to his workers just how much could be learned from such a seemingly innocuous gathering on a street corner in Deansgate.

Things were changing in both Bolton and Britain as a whole when the mass observation project was carried out.

It was the time of the abdication of Edward V111, the Spanish Civil War, Hitler's infamous rise to power in Germany and, of course, we were soon to be at war with Germany as in 1939 World War Two would begin.

Tom Harrisson was the anthropologist who led the team. he had recently returned from studying, of all things, cannibals in the South Pacific and he was joined by surrealist intellectuals Charles Madge and Humphrey Jennings.

Students, artists, writers, photographers, unemployed workers and local volunteers helped to turn the pleasure of what has become known as "people watching" into a science.

Drawing on their vivid reports, photographs and first-hand sources (very little of which has ever been previously published) David Hall relates the extraordinary story of this eccentric and short lived but hugely influential project.

He creates a detailed and fascinating portrait of a lost chapter of British social history and of the life of Bolton before the world would change forever.

The photographs of Humphrey Spender are used in this fascinating book (these, of course are held by Bolton's Library and Museum Services) and they help to show how mass observation (from 1937 to the early 1950s as well as new material collected continuously since 1981) can tell us so much about our town and its people.

There are some interesting photographs and descriptions of them. For instance the landlord of the Saddle Hotel apparently spotted Humphrey Spender taking a photograph of regulars standing chatting at the bar and it resulted in an angry confrontation during which he demanded the film be destroyed.

In pubs and cafes throughout the town the observers' brief was to note down conversations and watch people's behaviour documenting like "cameras" everything that was seen.

Although up to 40,000 people would turn up at Burnden Park on a Saturday afternoon to watch Bolton Wanderers for some reason no match was reported on.

Although Spender did not like to take staged and posed photographs he did set up an incredibly atmospheric one of a baby in a tin bath. "The family didn't mind — as long as their home was not made to look impoverished. There had to be a fire burning to show they had enough money to buy coal."

The book is nostalgic yet informative — as fascinating as it is humbling. For local folk it is an opportunity to learn more about relatives and the lives they led in Bolton during the 1930s.

With more than half of Bolton's working population employed in the many mills it is no surprise that like in the cotton mills features prominently in David Hall's book.

Work Town tells the story of the people of Bolton but its main emphasis is telling the tale of how that story was revealed to the world and how ordinary Bolton folk became invaluable historical figures thanks to the painstaking work carried out by those taking part in this legendary project.

All photographs are by Spender from the Collection of Bolton Library and Museum Services