AS a Bolton exile of some 40 years with family still in the town, I was called back to the North, as my mother was seriously ill.

I was very taken by the standard of nursing and care my mum received.

The nurses were all local people with the associated Bolton sense of humour and fun.

It occurred to me that what served to make my mum feel valued and secure in a familiar environment, would not necessarily have worked in the South.

They probably wouldn't have comprehended the "Bolton Banter".

I remember an old colleague in Dorset cancelling his newspapers because the lady in the shop had the audacity to call him, 'love!'

David Ingham

Poole