LARGER-than-life characters are pretty thin on the ground these days, but the St Helens district once had them in abundance, as Billinge reader Roy Lally can testify.

For he can trot out a list from his boyhood without even pausing to draw breath. "You'd find 'em in every side street in the borough," says 64-year-old Roy, of Hillside Close, who has particularly fond recollections of the old lamplighter of Gerards Bridge where he was brought up.

"I never knew his name," says Roy, "but he was a grand fellow. He was like a Pied Piper, with all us kids following him and calling out 'Have you any souvenirs, mister?'"

These were odd little hand-outs eagerly clutched by schoolboy palms - old army tunic buttons, cap badges and the like. "I don't know where he got them from," says Roy, "but he always seemed to have a plentiful supply."

Roy's thoughts drifted me back to the era of my own Haydock childhood, trailing after a similar old lamplighter (it seemed that a bloke had to be ancient to be considered for this particular duty).

But in our case we were begging for moths which had been attracted by the glimmering gaslight and trapped overnight inside the glazed lantern. Our fluttering collection would then be proudly carried off in a jamjar specially taken along for the purpose.

Roy also recalls an incredible, strong-armed character named Bill Sumner.

Following afternoon chucking-out time at the Black Horse, Moss Bank, says Roy, he'd ankle over to the village green opposite and wrestle with a donkey kept tethered there. Bill was a powerful character who could turn the donkey on to its side, presumably to win a pint or two from the admiring regulars.

This mighty performance was matched only by a couple of characters who were crowd-pullers at Carr Mill during its postwar heyday when families gathered in their hundreds on summer Sundays to spend a few sunny hours by the dam banks.

One of the duo lay on his back with a paving stone across his chest while his mate smashed it across him with a sledgehammer. After the unscathed escape, the hat was passed around the gaping onlookers.

Returning to the Black Horse, Roy wonders how many locals recall the legend of Old Ben, said to be the pub's resident ghost during the days of landlady Skeath, but about whom very little has been heard for decades.

Another who haunts Roy's memory is an even more scary character, this time of the flesh-and-blood type. Known only as Johnny, he lived out his bachelor existence in an old cottage built into the long-since demolished surrounding wall around Victoria Park, St Helens.

"I don't know how he earned his reputation, but he scared the living daylights out of us kids when he suddenly materialised, usually around dusk, inside the park."

ANYONE able to add to the Old Ben legend, tell us more about the daredevil pavement smashers or bachelor Johnny? If so, please drop me a line at the Star.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.