LIVING on Australia's sunny Central Coast a hundred miles north of Sydney, long-time East Lancashire exile Bob Pearson still has happy memories of boyhood years in wartime Clayton-le-Moors -- even though they include times when the night sky there was made deliberately darker by dense clouds of evil-smelling black smoke.

What caused this was the special smokescreen equipment stationed around the town to protect its giant Bristol Aircraft factory -- nowadays the Clayton Industrial Park -- from German bombers by hiding it under a canopy of smoke.

Settled ' Down Under' with his wife and family for more than 30 years, Blackburn-born Bob, spent only four years in Clayton, moving there at the age of 12 in 1941 to live in the town's 'bottom end' and still returns regularly to visit relatives.

"The strange thing is that although I had only a few years of my young life there, it was an important and happy part of my life," he says.

And eager to cram those Clayton years into an autobiography called 'Bobby's War - 1928-45', he hopes Looking Back readers can clear the fog in his memory about the town's smokescreen defences.

"I have only vague recollections of them and the awful smell. Some were located in Barnes Square. The equipment included a large metal drum and chimney and burned an oil-based mixture, possibly diesel.

"I believe they were only used on the odd occasion," adds 72-year-old Bob whose spell at Clayton ended when he left to join the Forces under-age.

Why they were seldom brought into action may have been for the same reason that another anti-air raids smokescreen scheme -- the idea of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill -- was abandoned.

Hush-hush at the time, householders in a number of industrial areas, including Blackburn, were given smoke-producing briquettes made of pitch and sawdust to burn in their fireplaces in the hope of hiding their towns from enemy planes. But the plan was ditched because high winds simply blew the smoke away.

But if you have clearer memories of Clayton's smoke defences, Bob will be delighted to hear at 20 Fernhill Avenue, Hamlyn Terrace on e-mail at mrrhp@acay.com.au