Thanks but no it wasn't there.
I just remember there being a cafe or similar, maybe a Greggs type shop (although it was before Greggs became popular) that I seem to remember being on the front of the Arndale, to the left as you look at it, towards the Mothercare side of the Square.
I might well be wrong, its just that it is where I remembered it to be.
It's 50 years ago though now and I've proved to myself on here that my recollection of these things isn't perfect, so I'm not claiming I'm right about what I remembered, it is simply how I do.
As for the budgies they were only there for a short time, I think they got sick and died.
(I think the cage was restocked and they all died again?)
And the cage was left empty for years after that.
Well that's how I remembered it anyway!!!
Seems I was right, sort of...
Bolton Arndale Centre's new tenants revealed - 40 budgies!HUNDREDS of people crowded into Bolton’s Arndale Shopping Centre in 1971 to greet the centre’s newest star attraction - 40 budgies!
A large aviary had been installed in the centre and had previously housed a number of parrots. But when one of them became diseased, all the parrots had to be removed from the centre.
Manager Joe Ducker said that the cage had been given the all-clear and that it was safe for the budgies to be moved into their £1,000 home.
The birds were supplied by local breeder Mr A S Cooke who is pictured letting them loose into the main cage in the centre.
The centre had appointed a member of staff - Joe Howarth - as the man in charge of the new tenants.
“They seem chirpy enough,” he told an Evening News reporter as the birds were being introduced to their new home.
https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/19230363.bolton-arndale-centres-new-tenants-revealed---40-budgies/