FEAR of the 'bogey-man' cast a long shadow through the early childhood of a pair of pensioner pals whose occasional accounts of pre-war times have kept customers of this column greatly amused.

Today's kids are, of course, too sophisticated to fall for it. But when Norman Owen and Harry Worthington were enaged in their urchin mischief and pavement games, the mere mention of the bogey-man being at large was enough to send them scurrying home in the gathering gloom.

And our pair of happy codgers vividly recall one dramatic consequence of those scary warnings, bellowed from the doorstep by parents anxious to get their reluctant offspring indoors when the sun went down.

"We'd shoot in, go to bed and pull the blankets over our heads, so that only our noses poked out", they recall.

Panic often set in when the kids were left alone for a short spell while mother called at the late-opening corner shop for a last-minute purchase.

"Suddenly, the lights might go out and one of the older brothers would shout 'Bogey-man!' We'd rush outside to stand under the illuminated gaslamp until our mam returned home and put another tanner in the meter".

Norman remembers when two of his brothers, Jack and Jim, decided to explore their 'cock-loft', the space between roof slates and upstairs ceiling. Little Norman was holding the step-ladder while his brothers squeezed into the confined space.

He heard a cry of 'It's the bogey-man' from the darkness above, followed by frantic scurrying and a sudden crashing sound.

"I went to the front bedroom", Norman remembers. "There was a big hole in the ceiling and my brothers were sprawled on our parents' bed. Jack was wailing: 'My dad will go mad!'"

When mother arrived, first parent on the scene of this sudden destruction, the brothers blamed the damage on the bogey-man being in the cock-loft.

Father, suspecting perhaps a break-in, went up into the roof space with a torch to investigate. "He came down again carrying a pair of old, soiled overalls which must have been left hanging from a roof beam by one of the workmen who built our house".

Jack and Jim had mistaken these for a ghostly apparition, triggering off their panic.

And, when the truth finally emerged, the young brothers earned a clout around the ear-hole from their father . . . "almost hard enough to make our heads spin on our necks. And I can tell you we never went up into that cock-loft again".

THANKS Norman and Harry. There'll be more from them again in the near future.