CAN readers spare a penny for Jim Halsall, Blackburn's leading authority on the town's old street cars which rumbled to a halt 52 years ago.

Jim, a 64-year-old tram fan, has researched the trams for more than 20 years and has written a book that takes readers on nostalgia trips aboard the old iron monsters.

His talks and slide shows on them are booked up months ahead by clubs and organisations.

As well as a mountain of memorabilia -- including old-time drivers' and conductors' uniform badges and buttons -- he has a dinky model tram layout in a bedroom of his home in Accrington Road, Intack, just yards away from the depot into which Blackburn's last tram disappeared in 1949.

But what his collection lacks is a precious old penny -- one of the hundreds that were placed on the tramlines that September 3 night to be crushed as souvenir mementos of the town's trams as the final one, No 74, covered in coloured lights and bunting, made its way from the Boulevard to the depot as thousands lined the route.

Jim, then only 12, was one of the throng -- and one of those who put a penny under the wheels of the veteran making the swan song for 50 years of electric trams in Blackburn and 68 years of tram travel in the town altogether when the era of steam and horse traction are included. But Jim's keepsake coin disappeared.

"I don't know what became of it -- I must have left it behind when I got wed and moved house," he says.

"I'd dearly like another." And as there were hundreds marked by the tram's wheels to mark the occasion, it's possible that one or two are going spare among Looking Back's readership.

If so, Jim will think it's just the ticket if you tell him on 01254 720857.