THE proud Lancashire tradition of donkey-stoning the front doorstep has not, I'm amazed to discover, quite died out yet. It's still kept alive at a cosy, old-world pub in Billinge (where else?).
Licensees Vint and Barbara Smith are still prepared to get down on their knees -- chiefly Vint! -- to give their step at the Masons Arms, better known to locals as Owd Mo's, a welcoming and pristine daily make-over.
The couple had picked up on my ongoing donkey-stone theme in which it was implied that the last local doorstep to get the old step-sprucing treatment was in Thatto Heath about 10 years ago.
Barbara tells me: "We've always kept the tradition going, although it looked like it was about to come to an end when our stock of donkey-stones began to run out and we couldn't trace a fresh supply". Then, to their relief, an elderly local lady came up with the goods. "So", says Barbara, "we can continue at least for now".
It's quite astonishing how the customers of this column have responded to the topic. Half-a-dozen other readers, including Teresa Doyle of Kimberley Avenue, Sutton Heath, a Mrs Swift of South John Street, Fingerpost, and John Foxton of Laurel Road, West Park, have chipped in.
Mrs Swift pens a brief thank-you for restoring happy memories of the time when she used to donkey-stone her mother's step when she lived in Wilson Street, St Helens.
She also answers the earlier query about ashley stones, also used for step-cleaning. These gave a reddish finish, and were little chunks of sandstone, she says.
Teresa Doyle recalls that, well into the 1940s, her family used ashley-stone not only on the step but to form an apron of colour on the flagstones just outside their front door .
And she had another far more exotic use for mother's ashley stones, during those times of wartime shortages. "My sister and I, and a lot of our girlfriends, used to crush the stone until it looked like sand, then add water to turn it into a paste.
"Then we'd smooth it on to our legs, let it dry and brush the surplus off. The result? A lovely leg tan . . . but if you got caught in the rain, disastrous results"!
John Foxton raises the old step-cleaning ritual to an almost exact science in providing a wealth of detail on the subject. He kicks off by mentioning ashley stones. "My first experience of them was after my parents moved to St Helens just before the second world war. They were a natural version of donkey-stones and of similar, but more general, use".
These small lumps of sandstone, being freely available locally, were used as a scouring aid for larger areas of stone floors, as well as for doorsteps and window cills. Water was added to form a slurry which was then either wiped off or left to dry out as a finish in itself.
The man-made donkey stone (having to be bought) was used more sparingly, "to form a lovely white edge, or 'nosing' to to the front of the doorstep or window cill".
These labour-intensive finishes were later replaced, in some cases, by the use of red Cardinal polish or similar products.
Adds John: "Whereas ashley stone was available almost anywhere (old sandstone walls being a favourite source) donkey-stone was either bought or obtained from the rag-and-bone man".
In exchange for a bundle or rags, he'd offer a selection of items . . . "such as a piece of donkey-stone, a balloon or even, in one instance I remember, a day-old chick!"
Street vendors abounded in John's fondly-recalled earlier days. Men used to tour the area with open handcarts, selling ginger beer or dandelion and burdock pop in large stone bottles, or large blocks of salt which rested on straw.
"I have drilled knife-holes into, and broken up, many a block of salt in my boyhood", says John. "This salt was used for cooking, preserving runner beans and on paths against the formation of ice in cold weather".
And John rounds off with his own theory as to how the word ashley may have come about. "I have always been led to believe that ashley is a curruption of the word ashlar, which is a descriptive name for large, square-cut blocks of masonry, normally used as a facing material to rough brick or rubble walls".
WHICH surely must be the last word on the subject. My grateful thanks to all, including Liz Marsh and a regular correspondent who likes to be known as LOS, who joined in the great donkey-stone debate.
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