Looking Back, with Eric Leaver

FRIDAY night may have been Amami night - when the ladies gave themselves a set with the hair lotion of that name - but in this part of the world it was also the time for them to participate in a much more widespread ritual...donkey stoning.

No, kiddies, your grandma did not engage in animal cruelty.

It was good old-fashioned cleanliness that lay behind the now rare custom of scrubbing doorsteps with a donkey stone - a briquette that left its colour behind.

Why "donkey" stone?

Take your pick of two explanations, says East Lancashire social historian Benita Moore.

One is that the stones were named after the Donkey Brand hearthstones, seen here in an old advertisement dug out by Benita.

Another is that, as most housewives got theirs from the old-time rag and bone men, the name comes about because many of them had donkey carts. But whether the virtual demise of donkey-stoning came about with the disappearance of the rag chaps or just through changing habits, there are those who regret its passing.

"It showed you were house-proud. You could tell who was clean and who wasn't just by looking at their doorstep," said 85-year-old Margaret Halton, of Blackburn, who still gets down on her hands and knees once a week to spruce up her front step.

"It was lovely to see a street with all the doorsteps donkey-stoned and the stone flags outside swilled clean with washing soda and water." "With a donkey stone, you could make your doorstep look like marble. Everybody used to do theirs for the weekend. Even the poorest of the poor would stone in those days"

Nor was it a case of a show being put on just at the front.

"The steps all the way along the back streets were stoned - and the outside lavatories. I do mine yet," said ex-winder Mrs Halton, of East Street, Griffin. Indeed, it was not just at doorways that the donkey stone left its mark.

It was used on steps, ledges, lintels, portals and anywhere where bare stone showed.

Now almost 90, ex-weaver Mrs Alice Haworth, of Belgrave Street, Rising Bridge, said: "I still do my step at the front when it's a nice day.

"But when I was a young girl living at home we had a flagged floor in the kitchen which every Friday night, before I could go out, I had to scrub and then stone all the way around the edge to make a border. I used to get my donkey stones from the rag and bone man and we used to get blocks of salt off him as well.

"But these days you can't the stones anywhere. The last time I saw some was on the market at Ulverston while I was on holiday about 20 years ago." According to authoress Benita, social status was also reflected in the colour of donkey stone chosen.

"Yellow was working class," she said. "White was used by those whose husbands had better jobs, such as office workers, and if you were the crM- me de la crM- me, you used a cream stone."

Benita regards Rossendale as one of the last bastions of donkey stoning.

In a 1993 investigation she found 10 house-proud ladies still regularly carrying it out.

And as she has amassed a collection of 50 assorted stones, her friend Alice won't be stuck for a new one when her current well-worn one runs out. As for their availability, you can still get a donkey stone these days - but only just.

One of the last outlets is Dawson's hardware store, in Clitheroe.

"A gentleman delivers us a couple of dozen stones two or three times a year, so you can tell how few are still using them," said a spokesman for the shop.

"It is mostly the old ones who buy them.

"In fact, a lot of customers nowadays haven't a clue what they are and ask us what they are for."

The gentleman in question is possibly the last donkey stone middle-man in the business - retired representative traveller Chris Fawcett, of Keighley Road, Colne, who first began dealing in the stones 15 years ago when he was still on the road.

In those days he sold dustbins, tins baths and all sorts of galvanized ware.

But, more than that, he is privy to a remarkable trade secret - where the last donkey stones are still begin made and by whom.

"I can't tell you," said Chris. "I'm sworn not to tell.

"It's just a fellow in St Helens who just makes a few now and then in his greenhouse when he has nothing else to do.

"I don't know why he still bothers because they are of such low value - £1 a dozen wholesale - and he's not hard-up anyway.

"There's just me, I think, taking 13 dozen a time off him.

"In fact, I don't know why I still bother with them as I don't even make my petrol money out of them."

"I haven't got many left and I keep them all in the boot of my car.

"There's no real call for them any more, but if someone rings up for some and it's a nice place they are at, I'll go. Otherwise, it's not worthwhile turning out."

Chris could only name Dawson's and a shop Fleetwood, which he called in at during his holidays last year, as being stockists in the North West, although in the past he has dealt with inquiries from shopkeepers on Tyneside and Scotland.

"There's very few still selling them - under 10, I'd say. There might be more but I can't afford to run the stones to them any more."

Thus, the invisible hand of economics, as well as changing domestic habits, are slowly putting paid to the last vestiges of a custom that, even 20 years ago, was still widely observed.

These days, says Chris, many of the donkey stones still on sale are bought by people not for use, but simply because they had not seen one in, well, donkey's years. The ones he wholesales are in white and cream and retail at 35p a time.

But what are donkey stones made of?

"I don't know," said Chris.

"That's another secret - the chap who makes them won't tell me.

"Anyway, I'm not bothered - after I've got rid of the lot I have now, I don't think I will bother with the business any more."

So, as they say, hurry while stocks last.

NEXT WEEK: When an M&S wool jumper cost £1.62

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