Joyful dip into lake of memories MOST of Teresa Doyle's most precious childhood recollections revolve around the spacious, lake-adorned Taylor Park at Toll Bar, St Helens.

And now, she's been inspired to jot down some of those girlhood highlights from her playground of a million happy memories.

This stroll down memory lane will no doubt appeal to countless readers who also experienced so much innocent parkland fun back in those summery days of the 1940s and 50s. Here's how Teresa, from Kimberley Avenue, Sutton Heath, now looks back on them:

Summer days in Taylor Park,

Days of long ago,

Where all our gang would go,

Walking on a Sunday

Dressed in our best clothes,

Boys and girls together,

All of us would pose,

Sitting on the grassy slopes,

Eyeing one another.

Looking out towards the lake

Rowing boats we would see,

Watching couples rowing there

And wishing it was me,

Then the gang of girls of course

Would flicker eyelids so

That when the boys came walking by

We girls would give them all the eye!

Teresa also recalls the delights of visiting the park aviary, picking clover-bobs and scampering down the grassy slopes to the lake; the first to reach its shores claiming the bench seats.

In her mind she can still hear the splashing and excited screams of children as they stripped off their shoes and socks and took the plunge for a paddle in the lake shallows.

"First in would get a soaking," Teresa recalls. Then in the style of Esther Williams (romantic film star swimmer of that era) Teresa and her girlhood pals would form a circle and kick water high into the air.

"Then, shivering, we would leave the pool, towels wrapped around us. Cold chip butties when we were dry . . . and pop, if we were lucky!"

MANY thanks, Teresa, for that lovely peep back to the recent past.

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