THIS atmospheric photograph shows a wonderful scene in a Bolton drinking establishment in the 1930s.

It was part of a collection of Humphrey Spender pictures of working-class life that were finally coming home to Bolton in 1994.

Bolton Council chiefs agreed to pay £29,000 for the famous pictures which depicted people going about their daily lives.

They were included in the Mass Observation project conducted by anthropologist Tom Harrisson.

He came here, secretly, with a team of upper-middle class intellectuals, writers, painters and photographers and spent two years observing every aspect of local life.

Harrisson argued that while anthropologists were travelling all over the world to study primitive tribes, no-one had done such a study in Britain.

This particular image is fascinating showing men enjoying a drink in a bar — although we do not know where this is.

A couple of dogs have either accompanied their owners on the night out or, perhaps, just wandered in off the street.

Only one of the men is now wearing a hat or cap — a sure indication of the decade in which this photograph was taken.