THE ghost of Owd Salt flits across this page once more...

Beattie Hardman from Moss Bank, whose parents ran a chipshop at Pocket Nook, recalls buying blocks of salt from the big handcart of the pre-war peddler -- a tall, gaunt character well known throughout the length and breadth of the borough.

Beattie, who used to prepare the blocks for use in the chippie's salt shakers, also recalls that Owd Salt had a rather downtrodden wife who used to lend a hand between the shafts of the heavily-laden handcart when the going got tough on a sales round that extended as far as Parr, Sutton and Haydock.

John Marsh, now 79, of Junction Lane, Sutton, also remembers the harmless eccentric, who used to 'giddy-up' himself, as if talking to a horse, as he toiled between the cart shafts. He recalls his long shabby coat and battered Laurel & Hardy-style bowler hat.

And John mentions another, vaguely-remembered character from the area's past -- the old knife sharpener who plied his trade around the network of terraced streets, once abundant in the town centre and outlying districts.

"He had a sort of portable treadle machine which operated a grindstone upon which he would sharpen scissors and knives for a few coppers," says John. "I was always fascinated, watching the sparks fly off the grindstone like bonfire night sparklers."