"Those were the days", I observed wryly as we sat having lunch in Clitheroe.

"We" were three long standing pals going back to the early 70s, perhaps a little later. No, said Mike, "These are the days, those days are gone"! John chuckled.

It was a rum reflection, we'd wiled away an hour or three, we'd chewed things over, put the world to rights, etc etc.

At one point, almost in perfect unison, my companions chipped in "my Mum always said, never a borrower or a lender be"! How many if those aphorisms were we brought up on?

We had some set stories that we'd all heard many times before, but like them. We had some medical & hospital stories to swap &, of course, there was the smattering of nostalgia to mull over.

I've bumped into some great Blackburn personalities recently. They've a story or ten to tell.

Ian Brown of a Graham & Brown invited me to the family globally renowned wallpaper factory on Harwood Street.

He told me stories about his Dad & Granddad (& the Graham side too, of course). He showed me round design, the factory & the "board room", still set out as it was in the 1940s).

Mark Smith of Exchange Coffee can tell a yarn too. He got me down to his excellent coffee place on Fleming Square to tell me about the BID (Business Improvement District) he'd led on establishing.

But his stories included about his Mum & Dad, his baptism into the retail world some 40 + years before as a young teenager.

Then after some years, now Councillor Phil Riley bobbed by to tell me a few things, ask my advice. Our time as Labour Party folk goes back 1/3 of a century now. He'd taken over some of my previous roles over the years. It was interesting as we exchanged understandings of how things were/might be.

But the character with the richest, most diverse set of experiences & anecdotes was Nick Nunn, & our wives, one evening. Nick had been a high up in journalism for a very long time.

He'd worked abroad, around Britain, then more than 30 years ago on this local paper. We swapped stories about people long moved on or gone. The evening went by in a blink.

So, name your characters? Tommy Ball, Ken Pilling, Jack Walker? I've met them all a few times.

Are there new characters, waiting in the wings or already centre stage?

Tell us all!