REGARDING your story headlined 'I eat tripe, not talk it!' (LET, April 30), I think Blackburn with Darwen Lib-Dem leader Councillor Paul Browne (right) did the right thing to put executive member for regeneration Coun Andy Kay in his place.

Do I know about tripe? My father worked at Mitchell's tripe works in Helmshore when I was a child.

Did he smell? Oh, yes, the house never got rid of it. Yet tripe was, and still is, delicious with plenty of 'alliker' (vinegar) on...

It's a gradely sight

Is a plate of tripe

I wish I'd a ton

Id'd aw soon be gone!

As children, we would stand outside the British Legion Club in Deardengate, Haslingden, next door to which was a tripe shop and, after having had their fill of drink at the club, men would nip in the tripe shop and we would watch them scoff the stuff down. It was supposed to sober them up a bit. I'm 88 now and I still love fatty seam tripe. It helps me glide through the water when I am doing my lengths for the 22-mile charity swim for muscular dystrophy research, which I hope to complete at the end of the year.

ADA GIBSON, Grange Street, Clayton-le-Moors.