HOW many old-timers remember Roberto, the Italian toffee man, and Giuseppe, his bow-tied pet monkey?

The intriguing question comes from pensioner Peter Uttley, via the pen of his son, Richard, who tells me they are both avid followers of this page of colourful reminiscences.

Richard says his father has often relayed the following story to him:

"In the 1920s a store opened in Greenfield Road that was first meant to be a general business. But quickly its stock trade became toffees.

"Sweet-toothed children of Dentons Green area would flock to the shop to gaze at the confectionery treasures on display and buy what they could afford."

The shopkeeper, originally from Dufenza, a small village near Naples, was an Italian named Roberto. But he quickly became known as 'Bob the Toffee Man.'

A well-travelled character, he had, somewhere on his journeying, acquired the monkey companion which was to make the toffee shop locally famous. It was said that he had come by the pet one summer in Algeria.

"When word got round that there was a real, live monkey in St Helens, the shop was flooded with people wanting to catch a glimpse of the creature," says Richard, from Green Folds Drive, Rainford.

"Every day, hordes of children crowded around the shop, with the cheekier ones shouting out: 'Toffee-man Bob, show us your monkey!'"

Roberto was naturally delighted with all the attention, since it brought him lots of extra custom; and the monkey didn't mind, either, as local kids brought scraps of food to feed him. Richards adds: "My father remembers that Roberto trained the monkey well. It was very tame and would sit on the counter just watching the world go by."

Roberto was always immaculately attired and even saw to it that Giuseppe wore a little bow-tie.

"I'm not sure what today's health and safety inspectors would make of a monkey roaming around a food shop," Richard goes on, "but those were very different days."

Roberto got many offers from zoos wishing to buy Giuseppe. "They realised that, because he was so tame and used to people, he would be a big attraction."

His owner turned a deaf ear, explaining that the monkey was "like his left arm."

When the pair of them left St Helens in the early 1930s they were sorely missed, especially by youngsters who could brag to one another that they had touched a real live monkey,

"My father would love to know of any other Dentons Green youngsters of that era, as there must be lots of people who remember Roberto and his pet," adds Richard, whose dad is now not sure which property on Greenfield Road the toffee shop occupied.

He wonders if anyone can pinpoint it and add a few tales about the popular man-and-his-monkey pair.

"Today's youngsters, of course, probably wouldn't understand what all the fuss was about. They can just nip to a safari park or even look on their computer screens and see all sorts of wildlife."

BUT somehow, those simple childhood experiences from earlier times seem to have been more natural and joyous than all of today's theme zoos and electronic visuals put together.