CAN any of our greenfingered gang remember Ron Foster and the magic he worked with self-prepared plant feeds?

The question is posed by a Carr Mill reader who explains that Ron's business premises were once located in Barrow Street, St Helens - next to Spaven's wet fish shop, which has also vanished from the scene.

"It was a tiny gardening shop, selling the usual stock of gardening feeds, but these particular ones were mixed to Ron's special secret formula," writes Mrs I.S. (she begs that her full identity not be revealed). "And, oh, how good these were! That little shop was always busy."

She also recalls that a shabbily-dressed elderly gent, shod in clogs, used to call there to beg any spare bits of wood and paper . . . "with a cuppa on the side!"

He used to plod from Fingerpost, pushing an old wooden box on pram wheels.

And he spun a tale about having been awarded the Victoria Cross.

"He regaled us with his tales of flying a craft he operated, made from two barrels lashed together with string and fitted with flimsy wings," Mrs S recalls with amusement.

Then, Ron 's shop closed and he opened a larger premises in Westfield Street.

"I did not see that interesting old character again, I'm sad to say." And she asks: "Would any other reader remember and be able to identify him?"

She also wonders if anyone could put a name to the first black gentleman to be regularly seen on the streets of St Helens, some time in the late 1940s.

Mrs S remembers: "He was tall and carried a very large suitcase, calling house to house to sell silk ties, handkerchieves, scarves, socks etc."

Anyone able to identify these two fondly-remembered characters from the past may kindly drop me a line at the Star.

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