TALES of witchcraft, the Rowley Boggart and the stocks were all recorded by Worsthorne's 'Owd Tat' - Tattersall Wilkinson.

Now his memories of Worsthorne have been put together in a new book by local historian Ramon Collinge.

Wilkinson, known as 'the Sage of Roggerham', was born into a family of hand-loom weavers in 1825, the youngest of 21 children. Despite limited education he became a keen astronomer - he lived to see Halley's Comet twice - and historian, recording tales of Worsthorne in newspaper articles and lectures.

His writings give an insight into life in Worsthorne and the surrounding area in the 19th century, including being so poor that his family ate porridge and milk three times a day and a time when there was no postal service to the village and so people collected letters from the window of 'old Jim Rawlinson's shop' in Yorkshire Street, Burnley.

The collection has been a three-year labour of love by Mr Collinge, of Daisybank Crescent, Burnley, who first came across Wilkinson's writing at school.

Mr Collinge said: "I've known about Tattersall Wilkinson since I was a youngster. He was quite a character in these parts.

"He was a little bit of an eccentric. He had to leave school at 11 yet he was a very well-read man and was mostly self-taught. He once heard a foreign language being spoken in Worsthorne and found out it was German so he bought a book and taught himself.

"There's a lot more to Tattersall Wilkinson than what's in the book. He wrote extensively about Briercliffe and Cliviger. But nobody's ever written a history of Worsthorne, so I thought it would be interesting to collect together everything he wrote about it."

The book is made up of articles Wilkinson wrote for the Burnley Express, Burnley News and Burnley Gazette. Mr Collinge also worked with one of Wilkinson's descendents, Barbara Bailey, who kept his notebooks but died before the book was finished.

The foreword is written by Burnley historian Ken Spencer, who had previously compiled a bibliography of Wilkinson's works which helped Mr Collinge find much of the material he needed.

The project started when Mr Collinge went on a computing course and wanted to practise his new word processing skills.

He said: "I wanted to get more proficient and so I started typing all the articles up. Once you start something like that it gets hold of you. It was hard work at times and I did get fed up sometimes but I just forgot about it for a while and then started up again with renewed enthusiasm.

"People have been very helpful and supportive."

Memories of Worsthorne and District by Tattersall Wilkinson is available from Badger Books, Burnley library, Towneley Hall and Border Bookshop, Todmorden.