Alan

The farmer/butcher is spot on here with local information/news

The 1950s clogs has rounder toe-ends, some had steel toe-caps too. They also had thicker soles than the example shown, were generally matt black in colour and had steel studs on the soles too

Wasn't the clogger's business called Clare's?

There's a chemist shop about 8 miles away in a small market town called Wigton that still sells Isal lavatory paper

Those of a certain age will remember middens, the fore-runners of dust-bins. Basically they were an amenity of the old rows of terraced houses that comprised so much of 1950s St Helens. They were usually next door to the lavatory at the bottom of the yard and were a brick-built extension to the lavvie with an opening of maybe 2ft square about 3ft above the ground in the house yard and a much larger opening for emptying it facing the back-entry. Both openings were ideally equipped with wooden doors but in many cases these had broken away. The idea was that the house-holder chucked rubbish in through the smaller opening and then the bin-men would shovel it out into the bin-lorry through the larger opening on a regular basis. They were well populated by rats and scavenging dogs and stunk to high heaven in summer. Then there were the mysterious midden-moochers who went through them under cover of darkness looking for anything salvageable or with a scrap-value such as old iron, or discarded clothes. Wonder what today's politicians would have made of those midden-moochers?

Donkey-stoned door-steps Black treacle butties Front curtains drawn when a funeral takes place in your street

Part of my history that pub, between 1963 and 1967 I worked at Polycell Tiles which was on the site of the former Penketh Tannery. It was normal towork Saturday mornings in those days and we all went to that pub for an end of shift pint or two

Is Fiddlers Ferry pub still going?

..........and the "club-book" that recorded your insurance premiums, usually in the front room under the piano lid

Bicycle chain cases Bike-clips for trousers

Stray dogs Leather patches on jacket elbows

My memories of Eccleston Hall are much more trivial. In about 1950, a neighbour of ours in Harris Street worked there. At her invitation, I and her own son were taken there to collect conkers from a couple of the surrounding trees

Wonder if he'll stamp out forward passes

Can't help you with dates other than that it closed some time in the early to mid 1950s. One indelible memory is that its frying range was coal-fired and we used to look down the street to see if its dedicated flue outlet above the shop-window was smoking. This told us the chippie was open

Did your grannie have the chip-shop and did her husband have a patch over his eye?