A 120 years ago, where only scattered stones now stand, Withnell Moors was a thriving community.

Farms and cottages were thronged with families who lived and worked there - among them stone mason Richard Robinson.

Born in 1883, he later wrote of the place and the people where he lived his entire life - and his grand daughter Barbara Butler has brought these memoirs of a lost society to light.

Richard tells of his schooling, his childhood games, his first incredulous visit to Blackburn and recalls the mills and their workers and the customs and character of the moors.

Brought up by his grandparents at Botany Bay Farm, known locally as Summer House, he began working half time at Marriage and Pinnocks Mill, the first place to be lit up by electricity in Withnell, at the age of 11 and by 13 was an apprentice stone mason to his father - helping carry out work on Darwen Tower, Hoghton Tower and Blackburn Cathedral.

A father of two daughters at the onset of WWI, he was the eldest of six brothers who served in WWI, but was discharged with the rank of Regimental Sergeant Major after being wounded.

He was still working at 73, building two vestries and a porch at St Paul's Withnell, and died in 1963 at his home in Brinscall.

Richard attended St Paul's school where no boy was considered a man if he couldn't smoke by the age of 10 and he recollects that it was quite common for the boys to 'light up' their pipes in school: "They paid money to attend school in those days, but much of that money never reached school as there were too many sweet and tobacco shops by the way."

He added: " One scholar Harry was very unruly and when the teacher Miss Hull offered to cane him he would pull a large live frog out of his coat pocket and hold it by his back legs, so she dare not go near him."

He continues: "My grandparents used to go to Blackburn to buy in their groceries in the old horse and cart.

"I was four when I went on my first visit; I can still remember the shop in Victoria Street and the shopkeeper named Hayhurst.

"I reported back to my aunts that I had seen ' hawses runnin' away wi'heauses' - these were the old horse trams and 'windas on t'top o pows' - street lamps.

One character of the moors was Owd Besom Harry, who used to make his brushes out of dried heather and one little printing works in Belmont used to buy 16 dozen at a time to sweep out their buildings and yards.

When Harry got his order he would ask Richard's grandfather, known as Owd Jemmy, to cart them for him - but their journey was always done in stages ...

Setting off on a Monday morning the first ended at the Hare and Hounds Inn at Abbey village, just a mile and a half away, the next stage began the following morning to Piccadilly, a little inn about two miles up the road.

Wednesday morning saw them set off on the last leg of their journey where they would unload the besoms and be paid half a crown a dozen.

They would then adjourn to the Black Dog at the bottom of the valley in Belmont, before returning via the Piccadilly and Hare and Hounds again, arriving home on Saturday.

A journey of five miles each way took almost a week and most of the besom money...

The farmhouses on Withnell moors were visited each week by a variety of vendors, drapery sellers who strapped their wares on their backs and traders with tripe, trotters, cow heels, cockles, mussels and red herrings.

Some carried tea or cocoa or needles and buttons; then there was the oil lamp men, who also sold salt in blocks, which you crushed with a rolling pin, the scissor and knife grinders, the saw sharpeners, the tub hoopers and the rush bottom chair menders.

Parish school walking days were held every year at Whitsuntide and processions would be led by Brinscall and Withnell Fold Brass Bands, and afterwards there would be tea and buns on a nearby field.

Blackburn Fair was another big day in the calendar with a ghost show, Tom Thumb, swing boats and roundabouts.

One year, Richard recalls, there was a new attraction - four wild men from Peru - billed as the last of the Incas.

But it rather gave the game away when, one lunchtime, an old lady arrived at the wigwam and demanded to see Big Chief.

It was his mother would had 'browt him a gradely Blegburn pie, wi' a crust on an pleny of meyt an' gravy in id'...

* Recollections of a Moorland lad, by Richard Robinson, published by Merlin Unwin Books, costs £12.