FEW, if any, of our old-time pitmen could boast the luxury of a bathroom with hot, running water. And pithead baths had not then been introduced.

But this didn't stop those gnarled hewers of coal from enjoying a nice warm plunge to to soak off the sweat, dirt and black dust of their daily toils.

Veteran reader Phil Reid steps back to between the wars times when working-class families had to make do with a tin bath filled with kettles of water boiled on the blazing open hearth. After the family's fireside bathing ritual, the old tin bath was once more hung from a sturdy nail on the backyard wall.

But the St Helens colliers working at Groves' Pit enjoyed a refreshing addition to their daily abultions.

"I'm speaking about the old colliers' duck, not a fowl, but a large pool of waste warm water flowing from the pit-head," explains Phil. "Miners coming off the night-shift enjoyed a pick-me-up swim there before heading off home to the cleaner water of the old tin bath."

Adds Phil, from Scholes Lane, Portico: "The duck was also used by other members of the public - especially schoolkids who fancied a dip and taking the risk that the cops didn't catch them."

Those were the days when King Coal reigned supreme in St Helens and the pit villages dotted around it. It was the era of the old enamelled tea-can and tommy rags, both indispensible parts of the pitman's equipment. The tommy rag, explains Phil, was a piece of clean cloth, about 14-inch square and almost always red in colour with white spots. 'Corned dog', jam or cheese butties were wrapped inside this for the jack-bit break.

Shift workers at the local glassworks also armed themselved with a tea can, swinging from wire handles. When empty, it was also handy, recalls Phil, for the dads employed at Cannington Shaws or Forsters to smuggle out 'stonies' (the posh word for marbles) for their grateful offsping.

Taking a chance on not being spotted, the glassworkers would fill their cans to the brim with these marbles, used in the production process. "They came in just three colours," Phil remembers. "Milky coloured, blues and plain glass." These had varying trade value among the back alley kids with a 'bluey' worth four plains.

Street games were all the rage. As well as marbles, there was top-and-whip, jacks, trundles and eldorada to be enjoyed in separate 'seasons' determined by the kiddies' whims.

Youngsters who stepped out of line could expect a clip round the ear-hole from the local bobby rather than being hauled before the juvenile court bench.

Then there was the ice-cream man with his pedal-driven container calling out: "Hokey-pokey a penny a lump . . . that's the stuff to make 'em jump!"

WONDER how that peculiar hokey-pokey term came about?

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