ALAN WHALLEY'S WORLD THE great missing boulder mystery is solved at long last . . . For old Bob Cunningham's giant polished stone, which once stood under his front parlour window, was dumped into the St Helens Canal 40-odd years ago. The revelation comes from Terry Meara of Parr Stocks Road, who writes: "I don't know how it came to be there, but the boulder existed when my family moved to Earl Street, Fingerpost, around 1952."

It was then a dirt road - but a few years later, when the street was tarmaced, Bob's landmark stone, which must have weighed several hundredweight, was shifted to its watery grave.

Says Terry: "My dad, Joe (nicknamed Joe Marr) had a home-made iron barrow. I don't know how he got that stone on to this - he couldn't have done it alone - but I remember walking with him down to the canal in Pocket Nook and seeing the stone dumped into the water."

Terry was responding to a request for details about the stone and its disappearance, by Bob's grand-daughter Pauline Cunningham of Gillars Green Drive, Eccleston. She could vaguely remember being told about it by her father who said that the family was so proud of this unusual possession that her granny used to give it a regular dusting and polishing.

And Terry concludes: "You can now tell Pauline where that stone is. I just hope she doesn't want it back!"

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