I GREW up in Dixon Street in the Bank Top district of Blackburn, moving in 1971 to the Montague estate when the area was compulsorily purchased.

Bank Top started at the alms houses and went to the Griffin pub. There were the Turners Arms, Wellwishers, Corporation and Redlam pubs, two banks at the top of Haworth Street, three butchers and the Ritz cinema.

The streets consisted of Turner Street and Dixon Steeet, where there was Hargreaves' corner shop at the bottom, Bank Top weaving mill; Pink Street, where there were the foundry and Bank Top club, Throstle Street, Chicken Street and West Street, where Bank Top school was and India Street, where Simpsons warehouse occupied a building, behind which was Neale's scrap yard.

As children, we nearly broke our necks squeezing through the railings and scrambling down to the brook, where we would spend many hours playing. All that is left is Dixon Street, which has been re-routed and which used to be India Street and Throstle Street.

Over the last couple of years, someone has 'moved' Bank Top to the Wensley Fold, Devenport Road and Montague Street areas, but, to me, Bank Top is and always will be, the streets in which I grew up and no one can tell me any different.

TONY VANDERLINDEN, Oakenhurst Road, Blackburn.