MOTHER'S Day can be quite busy for Radcliffe born and bred Irene Mallalieu, who could teach a thing or two to the old woman who lived in a shoe.

For Mrs Mallalieu (72) has been a mother to hundreds of children, so many, in fact, that she stopped counting after 200!

It all started 41 years ago when Irene and her decorator husband, Leonard Hall, who lived over his decorating shop in Stand Lane, were approached by social services.

"They asked Leonard to take on a temporary apprentice. He was a young lad with nowhere to live so he stayed with us," explained Irene.

"Afterwards, social services asked us if we'd like to consider fostering. I said I didn't know the first thing about it, but they said we'd obviously done a good job looking after the apprentice."

Despite already having two children of their own, Jean (now 52) and Roy (50), the couple agreed, but hadn't banked on just how much their lives would be altered.

"The first foster children we had were two little boys. They were brothers and, even though we were only expecting to look after one, we didn't like to split them up so we had both."

Because of their refusal to split up siblings, Irene and Leonard quickly found themselves looking after three children, then four.

"It was chaos from morning to night," she laughed. "We ended up with nine foster children plus the two of our own. We had to split up bedrooms and social services provided us with bunk beds." After one short holiday to Butlins with the band of children, Irene arrived home to find the social worker sitting on her doorstep.

"She had five children with her and asked if I could have them for a couple of days. I said I had no beds, but she said that didn't matter and I could let them sleep top to tail. I didn't see the social worker again for a week," laughed Irene.

Catering for the foster children became a lot easier when Irene and her husband moved to a larger, five-bedroomed home in Spring Lane in 1968, along with her mother and father.

"Fostering became a habit. As one child went home, another one would arrive. My mother and I knitted clothes for them and I sorted them out with places at St John's School and the New Jerusalem Church's Sunday School."

A lot of the foster children were babies and this obviously tugged at the heartstrings. "We took in a six-week-old baby and his 18-month-old brother who had been locked in a house on their own for a week. The police had to break in to rescue them. The older child was completely wild and he would go to attack you if you went anywhere near him. At the beginning we had to keep him in a play pen."

It was when Irene had to return a baby to a mother who "couldn't care less about him" that she decided to become a more temporary foster parent -- up until then she had looked after the children for days, weeks, sometimes even months.

It was a brave decision, especially as her husband died in 1968 and her mother had to be nursed as well.

"After Len died I couldn't cope financially. I only received £1.50 a week to clothe and feed each child. A friend knew I was worried and asked me what was up. I said: 'I've lost a husband, I don't want to lose all the children as well'."

The friend arranged for a special meeting at Irene's house with social services bosses and Irene was designated a "special foster parent" which meant she received an additional £15 a week.

Things became even more manageable when Irene married her second husband, Norman Mallalieu, who was a friend of Leonard's and a fellow member of Radcliffe Anglers.

"One time the washing machine and the vacuum broke and I was at the end of my tether," said Irene. "He mended them and started calling round to see if everything was okay.

"He said there were plumbers, electricians and joiners in the angling club and to give him a ring any time I needed help.

And 18 months later Norman took on not just Irene but nine foster children as well as her own children, when they finally married.

"My own children never got jealous and never complained, after all, they were never short of new friends," said Irene.

"My daughter used to come home from school, put on a turban and help me bath the ones who were covered in vermin and burn their clothes. Her experiences must have inspired her because she ended up a social worker!"

A major operation in 1975 forced her to give up fostering, but the many children who passed through her happy household still keep in touch, visiting, writing and telephoning.

"I have no regrets," said Irene, who now lives in Denton. "I got a hell of a lot of pleasure out of it and I wouldn't have changed a thing. I think the most important thing about being a foster parent is to treat the children exactly the same as your own and remember that they are all individuals."