UNLUCKY Wilf Grundy was a kid who always seemed to be getting into scrapes. And on one memorable occasion he became a real-life 'stick in the mud' when he was speared head-first into a polluted pond.

At the time, Wilf, a tall, wiry lad, was a key member of the Thatto Heath youth gang of bygone years who regarded every street corner, plus the wide expanses of neighbourhood parkland, or any odd parcel of spare ground as their adventure playgrounds.

Our popular pair of owd codgers, Norman Owen and Harry Worthington, whose occasional saunters down Memory Lane have delighted customers of this column over past months, recall a couple of hilarious, though rather scary, episodes concerning their old pal Wilf, now settled down at Haydock in his retirement years.

The long-memoried duo recall wandering down to the Delph Lane woods at Rainhill where, along with Wilf, the White twins, Larry Pilkington and a character known as Podger, they played trekking games under the canopy of trees, eventually coming upon a clearing with a rope swing. This bordered an old pond, reduced to a mudflat and with just a skimming of water on the surface. The single-rope swing proved irresistible to the young daredevils.

They took turns to grasp the short piece of tree-branch handle, tied to the end of the rope, and after a sprint down the slope of the steep banking, made Tarzan-like lunges across the mudflat. Each of the gang made a sure-footed landing on the return swing. All, that is, except Wilf, who was given a particularly vigorous push-off by his mates. Norman and Harry recall: "He shot high in the air, lost his grip on the stick handle and went flying like Superman before landing, like a spear, in the deep mud. He entered head-first and was submerged up to the shoulders. It seemed ages before he toppled over and started to wipe the mud from his eyes and mouth".

Wilf's first words, as he inspected his clothing were: "Me Mam'll kill me!" But there was little sympathy from his audience. "We were in hysterics", admit our pair of tale-spinners. "He was covered from head to toe in mud, but in between laughing we tried to clean him up with handfuls of grass. It was to no avail, and with the summer sun blazing hot, poor Wilf was baked in the stuff. It looked like he'd been coated in treacle".

And Wilf's earlier utterance was prophetic. As he loomed into his mother's view, her reaction, punctuated by the sound of a couple of clips round the ear-hole, went something like this: "Get in 'ere" - crack! - "You'll not be going out any more." - crack!.

Unlucky Wilf was at the receiving end again when he got a job as a bread-boy with the Lugsmore Lane Co-op., delivering unwrapped loaves in a covered handcart. Before setting off on his round, he first had to catch the freshly-baked bread, chucked to him, rugby-pass style, by store employee Johnny O'Brien. With the loaves then carefully stacked in the handcart, Wilf stepped between the shafts and plodded off around the Thatto Heath beat.

The steep slope of Upland Road was a particular hazard, with brief parking accomplished by angling the handcart wheels into the kerb edge. Even so, there was some risk involved.

Wilf had made one such short pause, to deliver a loaf to one of the houses, when he heard a rumbling noise. Swinging round, his worst fears were confirmed. His heavily-laden handcart was careering out of control down the street. Our chuckling codgers recall: "It finally came to rest after ploughing through some garden railings. The loaves rocketed into the air, landing in front gardens, on top of privet hedges and into the roadway".

Housewife Maggie Jones, alerted by the commotion, emerged from her front door and, on spotting bread on her lawn, calmly said to the hapless delivery boy, who by now had arrived on the scene: "No, Wilf, I didn't order any bread for today."

Neighbour May Pilkington, the local knitting champion busily clicking needles at her front gate, was quick off the mark. "Hey, Wilf, if you've any damaged loaves I'll have some!"

But all had been pre-booked. "So everybody from round about helped Wilf to re-load his cart", say the old chums, "knocking any bits of dirt, privet leaves or loose gravel from the loaves".

And you know what? None of the customers seemed to notice the difference...for nobody complained to the Co-op about the state of their daily bread. At last, a lucky break for unlucky Wilf!