ALAN WHALLEY'S WORLD GIANT Cinema doorman Ernie Kirkman, who strode through the 1930s in size-18 boots, was a man who left a mighty impression on all who knew him.

For despite his towering frame (he stood a shade under 7ft tall) Ernie was the most gentle and courteous of souls.

Three readers who remember him well have responded to my earlier piece about this lofty pre-war character who cut an impressive figure in his gold-braided uniform as he patrolled the foyer of the old Savoy Cinema. That once-grand picture palace, the last to operate in St Helens, still stands in Bridge Street, a lingering ghost from the pre-TV golden days of packed cinema attendances.

Nellie Foster of Haydock brought memories of big Ernie back into focus (this page, April 9). But, although she had a clear picture of him in her mind's eye, she was unable to recall his name.

That's where reader F.M. (as he prefers to be known), Mrs Win Atherton, and a regular contributor who calls himself the Dorothy Street Lad, now step in.

The amazing size of his feet is what F.M., a regular arm-bender at the Holy Cross Catholic Club, remembers most about Ernie, whom he came across a couple of decades after his Savoy heyday.

"They were size 18," says F.M., "and he had his boots repaired at the old Co-op footwear department where I worked. Ernie then lived on a smallholding down Sherdley Road way."

Win Atherton (nee Webster) tells us that the towering doorman was actually named Aaron Kirkman, but was universally known as Ernie.

"He was a lovely man - a real gent," says Win, "as was his father.

"The family lived in a cottage which then stood where the Sutton Arms public house is now. Ernie planted lots of trees which grew quite large, but all of them had to be got rid of . . . as did his home and the cottage next door.

"He then moved to a smallholding further down Sherdley Road, but it must have been a sad time for him. My sister, Hilda, paid visits there and Ernie showed her some lovely old photographs of the old cottage and of Sherdley Road as it used to be before all the council houses were built." Thoughts of big Ernie triggered off another fond memory for Win. When she was 11, Ernie's sister, Dorothy, asked if she would take their weekly shopping list to the Co-op at Peasley Cross, so that they could deliver the goods.

She ventured forth on her newly-acquired second-hand bike. It was an exhilarating experience on the downhill journey to the store, but tough work pedalling back up the steep homeward route.

"But I did get sixpence for my trouble, which was a very good tip in those times."

Win recalls, too, that Goodison's Farm was almost opposite Ernie's cottage. "During the war a cluster of incendiary bombs were dropped on the barn, causing it to burn for about three days. We were told that a high-explosive German bomb has been dropped into Ernie's garden but had not exploded. I think it must have been true, because everyone was talking about it at the time."

Dorothy Street Lad recalls that Ernie appeared somewhat embarrassed by his outsized physique. "He always seemed to walk in the gutter, below pavement level, to try to disguise his height a little."

He was a classmate of DSL's elder brother, at Thatto Heath Council School. And from this DSL can calculate that Ernie would have been 88 had he survived to this day.

Our Thatto Heath correspondent also recalls Ernie's sister, Dorothy (better known as Dolly Kirkman) who, at about 5ft 4ins tall, stood beneath her big brother's long shadow. "I think she was an actress," says DSL, "and was always dressed in the height of fashion."

Picking up on another section of Nellie Foster's reminiscences on this page, DSL also recalls the neighbourly and happy rough-and-tumble times between the two world wars.

Hardly anyone had a bathroom in Thatto Heath's network of terraced streets. On bath nights the old tin tub - which was coffin-shaped, about 4ft long and 18ins deep - was plucked from its six-inch nail on the backyard wall. Dragged before the blazing open coal fire the galvanised bath was filled with hot water, ladled from a boiler in the scullery.

Saturday was usually the bath night for kiddies and they all got a good hot, soapy dip in turn - often the neighbour's children, too, if they happened to be visiting their playmates at the time!

DSL recalls a 1930s era when Woodbine cigs cost tuppence for five and Kensitas were sold in boxes of two dozen; a pint cost fivepence in old money, with a good shot of whisky at the "old wooden hut" (Thatto Heath Labour Club of that time) costing just over 7p.

"Not only prices have changed, but also a whole way of life," sighs DSL.

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