I TOO agree with Tom Sharratt and Simon Entwistle (Letters, November 13 and October 31) about the book, "The Road to Nab End." I can pick lots of holes in William Woodruff's autobiography and I think his "photographic memory" is more a case of poetic licence than fact.

I lived in the Griffin area of Blackburn from 1936 to 1971 -- part of the time in Scar Street, just off Griffin Street.

True, none of us was well-off though some were better-off than others, but none was as poor as William Woodruff describes and some of the houses were "little palaces."

Most had a least linoleum and maybe a carpet square in the front room and if you were really posh, a best hearth rug. In the scullery, or kitchen, went the old carpet square when it was getting shabby and you were lucky enough to afford a new one.

Everyone had lace curtains up at the windows and well-scrubbed and stoned front doorsteps and, in lots of cases, stoned and scrubbed steps in the back alleys too -- not at all like the run-down area that William Woodruff describes.

Regarding the "Parade" that he mentions, could that have been the stretch of Preston New Road from town up to Corporation Park? That's what it was nicknamed and it was where you went to get noticed by the boys on a Sunday afternoon.

I, too, was puzzled by the view his mother had from her front window in Livingston(e) Road -- of Pendle Hill and Wilpshire? No way! -- Darwen Moors or Hill maybe and even that's pushing it a bit.

As for the mystery of "Nab End," hopefully I can solve it. Go along Livingstone Road towards town and it becomes Downham Street; further along it changes again -- to Johnston Street. Travel to the end and running up to Preston New Road is Montague Street. Turn right and go down and almost opposite St Paul's Working Men's Club is the Park Hotel or pub and, there, you see it -- the street sign "Nab Lane." Could this be Woodruff's "Nab End"?

I, too, found the tributes to his book excessive and thought it a very disappointing read after all the hype that it got. It was nothing like my Lancashire childhood which was about the same time.

I am in my seventies now and have seen many changes; some, but not all, for the better and a lot for worse.

EVA KAY (ne Crozier), Brookway, Blackburn.

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