RECOLLECTIONS of the mouthwatering kind were prompted by the reader who recently asked if anyone could pinpoint the location of the famous old Lee & Devanney bakery.

A number of long-memoried fans have now provided the address of that late, lamented St Helens business - speciality, piping hot, aroma-wafting barm cakes straight from the oven - as having been in Eldon Street, St Helens.

And one particular lady, from Dentons Green, ought to know. Because, as the young Nancy Kingsley, she was a van driver for the bakery partnership in pre-war times. Now 83, she recalls the full identities of the founding business partners, Jimmy Lee and Michael Devanney.

Mrs G.G. Painter of Holt Lane, Rainhill, recalls that for nine years her late hubby, William, delivered the L&D bakery products on a far flung pre-war round that took in not only the St Helens district, but Widnes and Warrington as well.

But she hasn't the happiest of memories concerning that early 1930s era. "One day, out of the blue, the staff were informed that one of the vans was being taken off the road."

Sadly, it was William's and in those unsympathetic times, despite nine years of loyal service, he was faced with joining the dole queue.

Arthur Redcliffe (85) one-time baker, lived nearby and used to pop his mother's home-made bread into the L. & D oven when the gaffer wasn't looking.

The bakery premises, which put up shutters some time in the 1950s, were owned, he recalls, by one of the most colourful business characters from St Helens' past, Charlie Kinns. (Any readers able to supply an anecdote or two about him?)

Reader Ernie Riley can hark back as far as the first world war when, with most able-bodied men having rallied to the cause of King and Country, his 11-year-old brother performed a rescue act for the L&D bakery firm.

Ernie explains that supplies to the bakery had become reduced to a trickle. At that time, his schoolboy brother Billy had a job operating a team of horses for another employer, picking up loads of sugar and flour from Liverpool.

"Mrs Devanney waited at the top of Borough Road at 4.30 in the morning for my brother to appear," says Ernie. A bargain was struck for Billy to cart in extra supplies for her, and Mrs D doubled his wages in return.

"So Lee & Devanney kept going through thick and thin," adds Ernie. "Not bad for an 11-year-old boy!"

Striding into more recent times, Albert Burt (68) of Laffak Road, tells us that he was born opposite the old Eldon Street bakery. And one of his early childhood memories is of the L&D delivery vehicles which were chain-driven and steam-powered from a coal-fired arrangement in the cab.

Which must have had the poor delivery man sweating cobs at the height of summer!

My thanks to all who responded to this toothsome theme.

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