SELF-confessed ex-tomboy Pauline Harrison takes us on a four-wheel plank ride to the days of her adventurous childhood.

She has been sparked off by the fond reminiscences of Moss Bank reader Harry Bradbury who whisked us back (this page, September 9) to the 1950s heyday of the boneshaking tut-tut.

This was a shove-along trolley made from a timber plank, fitted with two sets of pram wheels and with a bit of rope to work the rudimentary steering mechanism.

The tut-tut boasted no braking system or warning device as it sped perilously downhill on the steeper slopes of St Helens such as Moss Bank Brow and Croppers Hill.

Urchin driver and his pint-sized passengers would cling on for dear life, hoping to avoid being pitched off to endure all the accompanying bumps and bruises.

Pauline, from Hard Lane, Windle, has fond memories of a time during the 1940s when her 13-year-old brother used to create his own tut-tuts. She was nine at the time and recalls that big brother's tut-tut was used for commercial, as well as pleasure purposes.

"He used to help a local allotment holder who had a plot at the back of the Saints ground, on the other side of the rail track which took staff to Triplex."

This fellow had a horse and cart with which to deliver firewood around the district, and Pauline's brother accompanied him to Pilks' timber-yard to pick up supplies. The scrap wood was then chopped and bundled.

On his travels, the plot-man allowed Pauline's brother to collect potato peelings and other food scraps in sacks, by way of payment (no-one had cash to spare then).

She recalls: "When brother had a good supply of bagged scraps he'd ask me and my eight-year-old sister to help deliver them to a farm in Moss Bank where they were used for feeding pigs."

That's when the old tut-tut was pressed into useful service as a delivery vehicle. The journey began at the family council house in Alder Hey Road, Eccleston, and the route took in what was then a very bumpy, often puddle-dotted dirt road. Kiln Lane offered a smoother surface, but Hard Lane, further along, was then little more than a dirt track.

At this point in the journey it was great fun, recalls Pauline, to go whizzing along the downhill stretch towards City Road. A reward for the earlier upward struggle with the heavily-laden tut-tut.

The trip carried on past the Ford car dealership and over the East Lancashire Road (then known locally as the New Road) before arriving at their farm destination close to the old Railway Hotel.

While big brother haggled a price with the farmer, the two sisters waited patiently in the background for their own reward for helping.

"We would get a threepenny-bit each," says Pauline, "and our brother was then free to go off on his next quest for a bob or two while we took the tut-tut home."

But there was extra fun to be had before that return journey. The girls enjoyed thrilling rides down the steep slope of a Moss Bank Brow that was then virtually traffic-free.

"The hard pull up the hill was well worth the ride down," says Pauline, "but before we got back home we'd have to clean ourselves up a bit at the brook by the end of our avenue.

"We were happy knowing we had threepence with which to buy a stick of liquorice and a seat for the Saturday matinee at the Palladium Cinema (the 'Pallad') on Boundary Road."

Fondly-remembered B-movie westerns highlighted the usual penny-crush programmes, with singing cowboy Roy Rogers and Johnny Mack Brown among the white-stetsoned heroes.

"Most things were delivered by horse and cart then," Pauline remembers. "Milk from the big churns was measured out with a ladle and poured straight into the customer's jug."

Then there was the salt man who sold his wares by the block. Says Pauline: "It had to be sectioned off and crushed with a rolling pin to make it fine and smooth-running enough for the salt-cellar. It was always kept in a lovely salt-box with a fasten on it like a sea-chest of old."

And Pauline signs off: "I'm writing this letter to prove that not all the girls were left to play skipping games and hop-scotch while the lads went tut-tut riding. My thanks to Harry Bradbury for reminding me of those good old days, not too long after the war years."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.