CUP final-sized crowds always turned up for Merseyside's big occasions. Not the derby clashes between Liverpool and Everton football clubs, but events with a more macabre 'kick' to them . . . keenly-anticipated public hangings staged at the old Kirkdale Jail.

The gallows theme, arising from an ancient newspaper clipping forwarded to me and reporting on a double hanging at that long-gone prison (this page, September 20) is picked up this week by Eccleston reader Benny Wootten. He spotted that twin execution piece and my quest for further information about where the jail stood and when the last victim of the hangman met his fate there.

And Benny, of Seddon Close, comes up with some grim, though deeply fascinating facts and figures. He also forwarded a map reference, showing that the jail had existed, up to the back end of the 19th-century, on what is now the site of Kirkdale recreation ground off Orwell Road.

Benny, who, as a child, lived close to that site, writes: "Public executions regularly drew crowds of 40,000". The Kirkdale jail was demolished, to make way for a then new one at Walton.

He adds: "The last person to be hanged in Liverpool was Peter Anthony Allen, on August 13, 1964. His partner in crime, Gwyne Owen Evans was executed at the same time at Strangeways, Manchester. They had robbed and murdered a laundry-van driver in Lancaster".

And he claims that they were the last two people to suffer capital punishment in this country.

MANY thanks for that comprehensive response, Benny.