WHEN Alan Rigby's 11-year-old grandson Sam Bedford wanted to find out more about his family tree it seemed a perfect opportunity for Alan to write about his life.

So he has spent the past seven months compiling a book about his boyhood in Darcy Lever and Lever Bridge and has dedicated it to his three children and four grandchildren.

Now he wants to share his memories with Looking Back readers as he believes his own recollections will be familiar to others who grew up in the area.

The period of time Alan, who is 72-years-old and now lives in Sharples with his wife Pat, also aged 72, is talking about is from 1942 to 1960 and starts in Bentley Street in the Haulgh in Bolton.

"We lived eight houses away from Darcy Lever railway station at the Bolton end of Darcy Lever Viaduct. I have always considered myself a Darcy Lever boy," says Alan.

The family lived in a terraced property on the older side of Bentley Street — a side built in the mid 1800s. The house had two rooms downstairs, a pantry, three bedrooms, but no inside toilet or bathroom. The living room was accessed from the front door through a vestibule and was dominated by a large black cast iron range, says Alan. "The oven was mainly used for hot pot and casserole type meals to utilise the heat from the fire," he says.

Alan's father would light the fire before he went to work using a gas poker while he got ready and ate his breakfast.

"The gas poker was a long rubber tube from the connector on the gas oven in the kitchen all the way through the house to a metal tube with holes in the end that was lit and placed in the coal. This was, of course, before the days of health and safety but never caused any problems.

"Coal was stored in a shed at the bottom of the back yard and delivered every week by the coal man. There was, also every week, a visit from the oil man whose call was "lamp oil". He had a mobile hardware shop with paraffin tanks underneath."

Alan says his father had a regular order in winter to run paraffin heaters that heated the house. On a Saturday he would service the heaters (clean and trim the wicks) except the Tilley lamp heater which was a pressure heater and sometimes needed a new mantle he says.

Saturday mornings were also shoe cleaning and mending day when his father checked all the shoes. "Phillips stick on rubber soles were his favourite money saving product he put them on all new shoes to make them last longer.

"He mended the nail on studs when they came through on the inside of our football boots and re repaired the stick on soles when they started to come off."

When Alan was very young his father was in the Home Guard and Saturday was the day he would brush down his uniform and polish the buttons with brass polish and he used a special metal plate to stop the polish getting on the material of the khaki uniform of East Lancashire 15.

"Saturday was also the day he would play in a four piece dance band called the 4Ks playing tenor, saxophone and violin.

Alan recalls food the family ate. "You knew what tea would be depending on the day and how many ration coupons we had.

"The meals would be, cheese and onions grilled on an enamel plate or, similarly, baked eggs, tripe and onions in milk, hot pot or "tayter ash". At weekend there was, for many years, a roast half a lamb shoulder and cakes for "alters". Mrs Nightingale, the butcher's wife, made the cakes and we had either a vanilla or chocolate sandwich and five cream cakes every Saturday, five because grandma always came to tea on Saturday.

"There was a big change in meals when mum got a pressure cooker. My favourite was pigs' feet broth with suet dumplings."

Darcy Lever was affectionately known as Dolly Tub City by Alan and his pals and was described by him as "the centre of our world". It was the area either side of Radcliffe Road stretching from the top of Hag End Brow to Long Lane.

"We used to say that we were going down to the village or to the top shop not to Darcy Lever or to Hag End Brow.

"Once it was the main road to Radcliffe but now that place is much more conveniently reached by way of Bury Road and, at one time, by Ainsworth Road. It has evolved from a mere field path which began at what was in the early 1800s known as lane ends where Mule Street now joins Bury Old Road.

"In its early days it was known as Haulgh Lane from Lane Ends to Hag Lane End which is where Darcy Street now joins the road.

"The steep descent to Lever Bridge was known as Hag End Brow. Hag End Fold has long ago disappeared. It stood where Wardle Street and Bentley Street now intersect each other. Until 1898 the Bolton boundary was at Lever Bridge but the extension of the borough then brought in Darcy Lever and a still larger portion of what had, about the middle of the 19th century, become known as Radcliffe Road.

"Around 160 years ago there were only about half a dozen a dozen houses along it from Lane Ends to Hag End. These included Haulgh Cottage, High Bank, Vale Bank, The Hollins and Wheatfield

"Wheatfield Street was then known as Slater Lane. The cinema at the Bury Old Road end of the road has long gone. It was, previous to that, a Methodist chapel.

"I do remember the Palace Cinema — we used to go there to watch Flash Gordon, in episodes on Saturday mornings for 3d. We sat on wooden benches at the front of the cinema."

Alan believes Darcy Lever can be seen not only as an historical area but also as being at the fore front of the Industrial Revolution and the building of the railways.

Find out more about life in Darcy Lever during the 1940s and 1950s as told by Alan Rigby in next week's Looking Back.