LOCAL historian Ken Spencer has this week revealed the Burnley connection to children's story writer Beatrix Potter.

Behind the tales of Peter Rabbit, her personal life involved a childhood sheltered to the point of repression, a long courtship with her publisher's son, and a late marriage to William Heelis, an Ambleside lawyer.

And this is what brings us to the Burnley scene - for Ken believes William was a relative of the family, who lived at Brown Hill, an early 18th century house, which once stood on Bank Parade, across from the grammar school.

Said Ken: "John Heelis, who lived there nearly all his life, was certainly a Burnley character. A full-time JP, he was neat and erect as a guardsman, yet neurotically cautious about germs.

"He insisted on his change in shops being wrapped up in tissue paper so that it could be washed at home before he handled it.

"He had a long and frustrated courtship. He lived with his mother at Brown Hill and she opposed any idea of marriage.

"For more than 20 years he walked every day up to Fence to see who we would nowadays call his girlfriend, Ellen Roberts. They were married only after Mrs Heelis's death."

Added Ken: "John died in 1873 and it was probably no coincidence that the new grammar school was built on what had been part of the garden, a year later.

"I remember the house only vaguely. It was demolished in 1969. I know that in my first year at the grammar school in 1930, its cellars were to be our refuge in case of an air raid and we all trooped across once or twice in preparation for an event which, fortunately never took place."