A FEW of weeks ago we rented a cottage at Cley-next-to-the-Sea. I know, I had never heard of it either, but after a long 300-mile drive we finally arrived at a lovely Norfolk village of about 250 houses very much like the Feniscowles of my childhood -- only this was by the sea.

There was a local post office, a pub and general grocers, all run by people who had been there forever.

Nostalgically proverbial pleasantries were exchanged - "Mornin' love," "No hurry love" - our purchases packed and, can you believe it, carried to our car.

No strange tongues, no strange clothes, all so achingly safe and it made me realise just how much life here in Blackburn has changed.

When I got back I began to look around. First the Boulevard: seems only yesterday it was full of green and cream buses.

Now it's deserted, just a big barren patch.

Church Street, once the high street, at the moment looks like the wide concrete entrance to a Russian mausoleum (if it had to close to be a pedestrian area, why didn't we have an Avenue of Trees?)

The oh, so desolate Lord's Square: hopefully soon, they tell us, it will improve. The biggest change of all is the people.

On going through the market, it's not the familiar Lancashire dialect one hears. No-one shouts 'come on luv tha'll not get nowt better' or 'e lass tha's look a fair treat hi this'. It's all vanishing.

Mullards, where I met John my husband, Foster Yates and Thom's, Greenbank where my dad worked, Howard and Bulloughs, Whitbread's, Lion Brewery, and the Fuse Factory - my eldest brother worked there, as I did at one time - are now all mere memories.

Thank heavens we've still got good old Thwaites.

I went the other week to Newmans (now closed as a manufacturers), and saw the sewing room with its rows of silent machines.

It made me think of the happy hours I'd spent there, and at Donshu on piecework sewing white canvas shoes.

And before that the Star Paper Mill, sorting big heavy sheets of Gold Star in the Salle' singing our heads off, no slow songs, just fast ones to make us work faster.

At dinnertime (we didn't call it lunch in those days) we used to dance between our benches to records played on an old wind-up gramophone.

I met a lot of gradely folk in those factories and in the pubs and clubs I've had since.