WAS there ever a place in Britain as busy and productive as pre-war Peasley Cross?

Tom Grundy, author of a splendid book, 'The Global Miracle of Float Glass (a tribute to St Helens and its Pilkington glassworkers)' very much doubts it.

That particular pocket of St Helens was Tom's oyster during the 1920s and 30s and he supplies a fascinating list of all the factories, collieries, repair and transport bases then enclosed by the Peasley Cross boundaries.

Tom's register is quite astonishing for such a small area, including as it does four clayholes for the brick-making industry, a biscuit factory, three collieries, a chemical works, two iron foundries and five glass factories.

Then there was the gasworks, red oxide and paint businesses, a railway engine repair shed, corn miller, the Corporation stables, two railway stations and four farms!

In addition, there were such landmark features as the aerial coal-picking tip (where a nightingale was frequently heard to sing, causing a local sensation in those more easily impressed times); a flash of water known as Colliers' Duck, the wood and stony tips, and an historic canal.

Keen spectators flocked to Peasley Cross Athletic football ground or the Mudhooks rugby pitch. And there were pubs galore in what is now virtually a 'dry' zone, the traditional watering holes recently toppling like dominoes.

Among local personalities to be proud of were a Victoria Cross holder and a Manchester United footballer. (Anyone able to name them?).

The travelling circus paid regular visits to a district famed for its community spirit (before that expression became a buzz term) where neighbours could pop in for a jangle or to borrow a cup of sugar.

Brass bands, jazz groups with their drums and 'tommy talker' instruments, church walking days and celebratory processions highlighted the year for those between-the-wars kids such as Tom Grundy, who now lives in retirement in Liverpool Road, Pewfall, and whose Pilks float glass publication I intend to feature soon.

The churches and Sunday schools of all denominations were always full in times when kids could play out in the dark streets, all chummy, happy, safe and sound.

"Yes", Tom rounds off emphatically, "that was the Cross of my time!"