HOW lovely it was to hear from former Boltonian Peter Lees who has memories of Farnworth.

He now lives in St Albans but a Looking Back photograph of the town he remembers so well took him back to 1952 when he was a young lad, aged 11 or 12, living in Farnworth at 37 Church Street.

He was born on St Swithin's Day, July 15, 1940.

"We lived in an end terraced house — there were five in the row — built, according to the plaque on the wall, in 1853.

"My mates Alan and Freddie Radcliffe lived at the other end of the terrace. By the way number 37 is just 50 yards down from St Gregory's Club where, decades later, Peter Kay gave us the unforgettable Phoenix Nights."

In 1940, says Peter, the residents o number 37 were a "happy family of six" including Peter, older sister Pat, mum Gladys, dad, Harold and "grandma and grandad Lees".

There were two bedrooms between the six householders. The family was lucky and had an inside as well as an outside toilet says Peter.

There was a coal fire. "Sometimes we had good quality coal but all to often it was nutty slack. I cannot explain how the rubbish coal got this name," he says.

"Bath night for me and Pat (Pat first and me following in the same water) was in a two-handled oval-shaped tin — or zinc — tub with a greater circumference at the top than at the base.

"It was filled first with tap water then warmed with boiled water from the kettle and the tub placed so close to the fire that it would no way meet the exacting standards of the modern health safety brigade," he recalls.

What are not taken for granted in material possessions were, at this time says Peter "more conspicuous by their absence than in short supply".

"But then, as now, the key element for a happy childhood was a loving home.

"The absence of mobile phones, motorised transport, except for the trolley buses running along Market Street and I think Brackley Street and Longcauseway and the occasional car, central heating, refrigerators and televisions was not a problem.

"But we had radio, the pictures, the Palais de Dance, the annual holiday at the seaside, boys scouts and our mates," he says.

Church Street, Farnworth was, says Peter, "well named as, in those days, we had four churches. There was the Church of England churches St John's Parish Church, Farnworth and Kearsley as well as St Gregory's RC, a methodist church and at the top end a Baptist church".

"We were staunch Church of England folk. But I do recall as a youngster of may be 15 or so attending a packed to the rafters methodist church service when the visiting preacher was Donald Soper, a man of huge charisma and matching sincerity," says Peter.

We will be featuring more of Peter's Farnworth memories in next week's Looking Back.