WELL, just who was the town's last full-time lamplighter?

I understand that much taproom debate has revolved around this subject since a poem about gaslamp days, submitted by Joe Jones of Sutton, appeared in this column.

And now, reader Mary Arnold (77) of Brookway Lane, Parr, believes she had a strong candidate in her late father-in-law.

Wilf Arnold , who plodded his Parr beat before and during the second world war, was a rather remarkable man. Though born with only one arm, quick-striding Wilf, from O'Keeffe Road, Pocket Nook, was brisk and expert in handling the long ignition pole, lighting up the hundreds of lamps on his regular route.

And he certainly had to be. Because, as well as illuminating the lamps at dusk, he then had to return at dawn to turn them all off again!

It was, says Mary, impossible to calculate how many hundreds of miles he must have trudged during his lamplighting life.

ANY other readers got a memory to share from those gaslamp times?

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