AS I am sure you know, this column gets sent all over the world, and I often get messages from readers in many countries saying how much they enjoy it, and how it brings back memories of Bolton to them.

Sometimes it takes a month or so from the article or picture appearing in Looking Back, and that is the situation in this case.

Alma Fitton has e-mailed me from South Africa to say that a friend sent her my picture from May 3, which was headed "Fun in Fleetwood for Coronation Celebration", and which showed a group of 130 children who had spent an enjoyable day in June, 1953, at the seaside resort as guests of the Astley Bridge branch of the British Legion.

"Low and behold," she says, "there I was, aged 16. It was great to receive the photograph, but I can honestly say that I don't remember going on this trip. My Dad, Cyril Brooks, was a member of the British Legion, and I suppose this is how I got to go."

Mrs Fitton tells me that she was born and bred in Bolton, and lived here until she got married and left for South Africa. "Although my life is very different here," she writes, "I love coming back to Astley Bridge, and visiting the Market Hall, etc. I still belong to Bolton." ANOTHER e-mail came from 34-years-old Darren Grundy, whose mother had phoned him on September 13 to say "Have a look in the paper tonight, there's a right cheeky little lad in it." The picture was of a boy on a trampoline in 1974, at a mobile play centre in Noble Street, Bolton, watched by a group of other children. "That's me on a trampoline," says Mr Grundy. "Three of the ragamuffins behind are my cousins Mark, Dave and Peter Eccleshare. I'm still a Bolton lad, up Morris Green in fact, less than half a mile from where the photograph was taken."