LIZ Marsh just couldn't resist it! After tuning in to our ongoing theme concerning the old-time Lancashire ritual of sprucing up the front doorstep, she went in search of scrubbing supplies.

And, to her delight, Liz, from Ward Street, St Helens, located a lump of what was once commonly known as 'ashley stone', lying in a town-centre back alley.

This was the name given to a piece of soft sandstone which was moistened with water by our bygone housewives and then rubbed on to the front step to give it a pinkish-red glow. The effect was then completed with a white-line border, produced by a chalky-textured donkey-stone.

"I hadn't used a piece of ashley (a corruption of the word ashlar, referring to masonry) since I was a girl", says Liz, "but, just for the memory, I got on my knees and coloured a patch on the flags in my back yard". And, despite an overnight downpour, it was still there in all its pristine glory next day.

Liz explains that broken sandstone gateposts and fractured lintels over backyard gates once provided a rich source of ashley. Which sometimes made those old posts and lintels vulnerable to a bit of hacking, under the cover of darkness. But a few of these have survived the 'ashley raids'.

Says Liz, who regards her flag-scrubbing comeback as a definite one-off: "I can point out a couple of ancient back-gate lintels just a stone's throw from where I live".