LOOKING Back's recent recollections of the era when the Co-op had tens of thousands of members in East Lancashire societies brought forward this plate, a 100-year-old souvenir belonging to Blackburn reader Mr C Pritt.

The plate -- complete with a transfer -type illustration of the impressive building -- commemorating the opening on March 22, 1902, of the new central premises of the Daisyfield Industrial Bees Co-operative Society.

Mr Pritt, of Melville Road, who bought the plate a couple of years ago, was puzzled as there was no mention of it in the list of 52 of the Co-op's old-time branches in Blackburn, supplied four weeks ago by former employee Mr D Mooney.

But it was included -- being the Blackburn Co-operative Society's Peter Street branch named by Mr Mooney.

When the building opened it belonged to the then-separate Daisyfield society, but came within the enlarged Blackburn (Amalgamated) Co-operative Society in 1920 when the merger of the Blackburn Industrial, Grimshaw Park and Peter Street-based Industrial Bees societies created a new combined Co-op with 14,000 members. Many readers will still remember the grand Daisyfield building even though it is now 34 years since it was demolished. But when it opened some members of the Industrial Bees complained about how much the society had spent on building it -- £8,000. For, at the opening ceremony -- performed by the society's president, Mr J C Sharples with a silver key presented by the architect, Mr J B Thornley -- the Daisyfield Industrial Bees' manager, Mr James Grunshaw, said there had been grumbling in some quarters about the cost of the new premises. But, as the Northern Daily Telegraph reported, he added that, "in erecting a building of such substantial character, he thought the committee had done the right thing." The NDT described the new premises as "very imposing" and said that it consisted of "five large and commodious shops with workrooms and storerooms." Its opening was celebrated afterwards with a dinner at the Old Bull Hotel in town-centre Blackburn.

Another five old-time Blackburn Co-op branches are added to Mr Mooney's list by 66-year-old Oswaldtwistle reader Mr Brian Nuttall, who tells me he was the society's very first plumbing apprentice when he left school in 1950 to begin work with the society's maintenance department.

The branches he adds are: Scotland Road, Livesey Branch Road, Abbey Village, Mellor and Whalley New Road/St James' Road. I would also add the one in Lambeth Street that was part of the old Excelsior Co-op until 1957.

Brian says that, in his day, Blackburn Co-op also had two bakeries which were possibly the first to introduce sliced bread to the town. He also recalls that the society's shoe and clog repairing workshop in Blakey Street employed more than 50 workers.

And two more branches that possibly complete the list are added by ex-Co-op employee Bill Baldwin, of Cherry Tree, Blackburn, who worked for the society in the 1940s -- they are Hollin Bank and Nova Scotia.

This picture (bottom) shows an artist's impression of the new supermarket at Mill Hill, Blackburn, which the Co-op planned in 1962 to fashion from the disused Palladium Cinema (top) which closed in May that year. Completion of the £20,000 remodelling operation in the spring of the following year gave the society its fourth supermarket -- then Blackburn's largest -- in addition to 20 self-service stores.