THIS photograph from the Lancashire Evening Telegraph's archives stars long-gone character "Owd Chipper," the rag and bone man whose portable peep show was the delight of children in Victorian and Edwardian Blackburn.

The picture features today in a best-seller -- Child of the North, the life story of prolific Blackburn-born novelist Josephine Cox.

But how many know the link that the picture has with another of the town's famous name whose book sales passed the million mark long ago?

It is that of the late Alfred Wainwright, who was born on Audley Range, Blackburn, and earned immense fame through the walkers' guides to the Lake District that he wrote after moving to Kendal to work in the borough treasurer's department there.

For on the far left of this picture stands Wainwright's father -- then a youngster in knee-breeches and clogs.

Identified by Looking Back reader Fred Barnes, whose aunt, Minnie Oldham, is pictured back-to-the-camera peering into Chipper's peep show while her brother Joe stands opposite among others of the showman's young audience, Wainwright senior was then living in the same house where his famous son was born in 1907.

According to Mr Barnes, the picture-postcard photograph of which hundreds of copies were sold -- by Audley Range photographer W Smith, a great friend of the rag and bone man -- was taken behind a builder's yard at the top end of Walter Street where present-day North Road stands and its negative was presented by Smith's son-in-law to this newspaper after his death in 1949.

Chipper, real name Robert Reynolds, was born in 1824, but remained a legendary figure long after his death in 1912 -- not just because of his home-made peep show which featured candlelit toy soldiers and cut-out figures of historical celebrities such as Napoleon Bonaparte against backdrops of old war pictures.

Viewing of his makeshift dioramas was allowed in exchange for a handful of rags but Owd Chipper remained fondly remembered because of his curt "commentary" on his shows.

For if a child asked which of the figures was Napoleon, he would reply "Any on 'em!"