ALAN WHALLEY'S WORLD

IT'S absolutely amazing how the knowledgable customers of this old column keep coming up with answers to the most remote of brain-teasers!

The most recent double yedscratter, about an old time beer house in St Helens town centre and a long-lost chipshop at Moss Bank, drew immediate and fully-detailed response.

Regulars may recall that Gordon Lloyd, owner of local firm Majestic Windows, had asked whether his large wedge-shaped premises in Duke Street, recently converted into an award-winning showrooms, had ever been a pub.

His interest was aroused when an elderly lady customer told him that she vaguely recalled it having been a homespun watering hole but could not come up with the name of the pub or any other helpful details.

And a gang of froth-blowers from Moss Bank Labour Club had begged for details about the whereabouts of that village's original chipshop. Arguments had been simmering for weeks on the issue.

Now, two well-informed readers - former college lecturer and amateur historian Brian Tarry of Rainford, and William Huyton of Lord Street, St Helens, have confirmed that Gordon Lloyd's place was indeed The Clarence pub at one time. In the intervening years it has seen service, among other things, as a carpet shop and a car showrooms.

And Sam Bagley has chipped in with some fascinating facts about the old village chippie.

William Huyton is, in fact, an old customer of the anicent pub which shut just as the second world war broke out. It was the only pub he knows of which had a portable bagatelle table.

If anyone wanted a game, a regular customer named Jack Fairhurst of Atherton Street, would pop home to bring back a fold-up table. "Well it was better than nothing!" says William who has a flashback photo of himself and an old friend playing on that bagatelle table with Jack Fairhurst looking on.

That old chum was Harold McNaughton - "one of nature's gentlemen" - who was official collector for the local deaf society of which he was a member.

Which leads William to confirm another query presented by Gordon Lloyd. "He was correct in thinking that his showrooms were once a deaf society premises. It remained so for years, until they obtained new premises in Dentons Green Lane."

And William signs off by telling us that when Harold McNaughton died, a commemorative plaque was erected in appreciation of all his hard work for the society.

Brian Tarry provides some precise historical details, including its closure date of September 25, 1939.

Possibly beginning life as a beer house during the 1850s, Brian finds first mention of it in the Greenall Whitley deeds book of 1862. First licensee was a Stephen Robinson (1871), followed by a Margaret Shawcross (1876), William Spencer (during the 1880s), William Cash (1889 to 1898), and John Rimmer, until John Hull became landlord in the 1900s and up to 1924.

But there the trail goes cold for Brian, who is compiling a comprehensive alphabetical history of vanished local pubs (a tall order considering that there are at least 250 to go at).

"There are no Clarence licensees listed for the 1930s and up to its closure in 1939," says Brian, who has so far researched 80 pubs but has also hit another stumbling block in delving into the origins of the old-time Cuerdley Arms which stood at 86 Church Street, right at the heart of the St Helens town centre.

Brian's big question is: "Why Cuerdley? There is no family of that name listed anywhere." He'd welcome any clues on the subject.

Now back to the faint aroma of lard-fried fish 'n chips . . .

Sam Bagley of Broad Lane, certainly had his memory jogged by that quest for details about the original Moss Bank chippie. It existed, he says, for several years before the second world war.

"On what is now the car park of the Black Horse Hotel, and fairly close to the end house of Coronation Terrace, stood a small brick building, about 10ft square and 12ft high," says Sam. "This was the chipshop kept by a Mr and Mrs Jack Hewitt who lived close by in Birchley Terrace, overlooking Billinge."

Their youngest son, Derek, still lives there.

But Sam recalls that building for another reason, apart from the pop and chips dished out there. When the Hewitts gave up the shop it was taken over by the Rediffusion company "who installed a wonderful wireless receiving system (it wasn't called radio in those days). From that brick hut, the incoming signals were relayed by land-line, through the main local office in Barrow Street, and to all local subscribers in the St Helens area."

Sam recalls that this Moss Bank reception control was manned in shifts covering almost 24 hours a day, by two young fellows, Arthur Withington and Ken Mayle.

"It must have been one of the loneliest jobs around; and, strictly against the rules, we lads of the village quite often called in on whoever was on duty that night. This was partly to keep him company but also to hear him scan the ether on one of the stand-by sets - picking up programmes worldwide, but mainly the big band and show programmes coming from America."

Then came the most dramatic of moments. "On September 3, 1939 a small group of us, returning from Sunday school, called in on Arthur. And it was in that little station that we heard the declaration of war by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain."

Having neatly cleared up those pub and chippie posers, here's another brainbox challenge.

A group of Carr Mill Hotel regulars have been chewing the fat over what the rather spectacular building (now housing a couple of ground-floor shops and Applebys lofty nightspot) began life as.

The name Imperial Buildings is picked out in the brickwork well above Ormskirk Street level. And the three-decker landmark premises has two other unusual features - a classical balcony at roof level and a turret-like top with pointed roof.

That latter feature has rounded windows which have images which look like crosses. Could this, ask the Carr Mill quaffers, have some religious significance?

OVER once more to our erudite and long-memoried readers. Anyone with a clue or two could 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.