AN EAST Lancashire pensioner has been brought to her knees with gratitude after a Lancashire Evening Telegraph reader stepped in to solve a timely problem.

Ada Gibson, a well known TV celebrity and charity swimmer, wrote a poem lamenting her loss after using up her last donkey stone for cleaning her front door step.

But after the poem was published in Saturday's Lancashire Evening Telegraph a reader had three of the precious stones sent to Ada. Donkey Stones are briquettes that leave their colour behind.

Housewives used them to clean steps, ledges, lintels, portals and anywhere that bare stone showed.

In more recent years, they have become more and more scarce. Dawson's hardware store, in Clitheroe, was one of the last suppliers in East Lancashire. A spokesman said: "We don't know if we will be able to get them again as the supplier has not been in for some time. It tends to be the over 60s who ask for them and we have a lot more requests in the summer.

Ada, 87, of Grange Street, Clayton-le-Moors, said: "My mother always used a donkey stone to clean the front door step and I've always used one. There used to be a rag-a-bone man who came around with a donkey and cart and if you gave him a bundle of rags you got a donkey stone from him.

"Most younger people now don't get down on their knees to clean properly, so they prefer to paint the steps. But they make it lovely and clean. Donkey stones are worth more than gold to me and I will have to be very careful with these three now."

The stones were given to Ada by Marie Pollard, of Water Street, Accrington, who acquired four of them from an aunt several years ago.

Marie, 65, said: "I use them occasionally but when I read the poem I was glad that I had found a new home for them where they will be used more."