ALAN WHALLEY'S WORLD

FOR Sculley, read Friar! Puzzled? Well, so was I until I dug deeper into a fascinating letter from a pensioner reader who was brought up in the rough-and-tumble Donkey Common area of pre-war times.

His name-switch information comes in response to a plea on this page for any information about a half-remembered old-time character from Thatto Heath. Known merely as Sculley, he'd a fearsome reputation for fist fighting.

Now, it seems that there was more than one battling Sculley in that neck of the woods and that this was actually a nickname. It turns out that their correct surname was Friar.

Search me how this all comes about!

But let our correspondent (he chooses to be known as Dorothy Street Lad) attempt to explain.

"The Friars (nickname Sculley) lived, I think, in the old Roughley Square at Thatto Heath," says DSL.

Three Friar brothers attended Thatto Heath Council School. In adulthood they were all about 5ft 8ins tall, well-built and worked down Lea Green Colliery.

One of them was a real tough handful who relished a boxing booth challenge when the fair came to town. There was quite an incentive to take on the old gnarled pros lined up inside Len Johnson's tented arena.

Survival for three rounds earned the then glittering reward of ten shillings (50p in new money) which would buy something like 20 pints of beer or 300 fags.

And this particular Sculley was hard enough to shorten the bout, even against experienced old pugs!

It might have seemed a lot for the money, but, as DSL explains: "This was a time when the old man, on a five-day week down the pit came home with 38 shillings (£1.90) after stoppages which included paying for his own lamp oil."

DSL believes that the district boasted three Sculley (Friar) families, one branch of which was noted for its fiery red hair.

"Like most of us Elephant Laners, they were a hard-working family ," he adds. And they shared the few social delights available in those 'between-the-wars' times, including a visit to the Empire cinema, admission fourpence.

DSL and his young chums couldn't wait for the dark months when Silcock's Fair came to town. Len Johnson's boxing booth was a major magnet.

"One of his fighters, Darkie Chad, was always getting hammered by the tough local lads, Sculley among them," says DSL.

But his best memory is of the party trick which Johnson performed to attract a crowd. He'd get a kiddie volunteer, like DSL, to step forward and place a potato on his hand.

Then with incredible expertise, the old battler would bring a sharp sword swishing down, to split the spud in two, leaving the urchin unscathed.

THE reward was free entry into the booth, which normally cost tuppence!

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