ON April 1, the administrative counties of Avon, Cleveland and Humberside were abolished and their areas returned, for ceremonial, cultural and related issues, to the traditional counties from which they were separated in 1974. England's smallest county, Rutland, has also been restored.

However, parts of Lancashire will remain in the artificial counties that were created in 1974 - Cumbria in the north and Greater Manchester and Merseyside in the south.

Many people believe that these areas should also be returned to their traditional county of Lancashire for ceremonial and related issues.

This could be done without affecting the present system of local government in these areas, especially as the county councils were abolished in Greater Manchester and Merseyside in 1986.

The Royal Mail has already made provision for these changes by removing the requirement to include administrative county names in addresses. They are, however, quite happy for people to include their traditional county name, in our case Lancashire, providing that the correct post town and post code is used. Readers can obtain more information about the campaign to restore historic Lancashire by sending a sae to The Friends of Real Lancashire, 1 Belvidere Park, Great Crosby, Lancashire L23 0SP.

B WARREN (Mrs), Whalley Road, Langho.

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