NOSTALGIA fan Barbara Marshall tells me she loves reading the amusing old Lanky-twang tales appearing regularly on this page . . . "cuz I were browt up on it!" And she provides a couple of superb memory-jerkers of her own.

What, asks Barbara, has happened to the long wooden benches to be found in the old-time chip shops, a handy perch to squeeze on while the fish and chips were being fried.

And she also sweeps back to the 1940s and 50s in recalling the council's mucky grid-cleaning ritual, bringing kiddies flocking to the gutters in search of 'treasure'.

"Do you remember, too," she asks, "when we mainly visited the chippie on 'Bally Ann' day (the day when family finances had almost petered out) because it provided the cheapest meal available? How times - and prices! - have changed. Now we have to go on pay day!"

Chip shop queues were often long and slow moving..."but when you managed to eventually find a place on the wooden bench you knew you were well on your way to being served.

"These benches were something of a community item, as well", recalls Barbara, "Anyone living along the street who happened to be throwing a party would borrow the chippie bench when they hadn't enough chairs to go round".

Continuing the lip-smacking topic, she says: "I wonder what today's chip shop owners would make of it if we turned up with a pile of plates wrapped up in a tea towel? This was once the norm, and the biggest plates in the house were takenin the hope of getting loads of chips for our money."

Barbara skips on to a more sombre subject. At one time, neighbours would customarily draw their curtains when someone from the street had died. "I know this is supposed to be a sign of respect", Barbara observes, "but respect for what?"

It might well have been intended to offer privacy to the bereaved family, she adds. Yet, especially in bygone times, any privacy was invaded when the hearse rolled up and all the street came out to gape.

Another macabre tradition, which I personally recall, involved inviting neighbours to view the dear departed, customarily laid out in the front parlour.

Now, back on to a more cheerful note. "We must have had a sad childhood in the 1940s and 50s", says Barbara, "because a major highlight of the day was the arrival of the grid cleaner. We watched in fascination as the rubbish was removed. Obviously, hygiene was not a priority, because when the truck drove off, we kids would delve in the muck left behind, to see what we could retrieve. Usually a treasured stoney long-lost, but not forgotten, down the grid".

Reflecting on hot summer days of childhood, Barbara wonders how many folk can remember getting a good hiding from mother after playing at bursting bubbles of melting gas tar, oozing from stone-slab gutters and cobbled street surfaces.

"Invariably, the tar ended up all over hands and clothing, and your mam had to rub margarine on it to remove the stuff. But not before giving you a clip around the ear-hole for playing in the tar, after you'd been warned of the consequences".

MANY thanks, Barbara, for those recollections from a more innocent age.