LIP-smacking 'wet nellies' were inexpensive Monday morning treats served up at the local bakery when Nora Giubertoni was a lass. For those members of the younger generation who haven't a clue what these were, Nora (nee Birchall) provides an explanation.

They were confectionery treats. "And I think they used bits left over from the weekend to make them with", she says. A Miss Hughes handed them out, over the counter of an old Thatto Heath bakery of fond memory.

Nora, from St James Road, Prescot, had been prompted to pen her own personal recollections after spotting earlier corner-shop recollections, on this page, from Jim Mayor whom she suspects may have attended Thatto Heath primary school at the same time as herself during the 1940s.

Nora discovered many touch-points among Jimmy's lengthy list of vanished family businesses - from humble front-parlour enterprises to well-stocked corner shops -- that had thrived in the Toll Bar/Thatto Heath area during his boyhood.

"I well remember Nanny Platt's chip shop in Owen Street", she says, "because she also sold pigs' trotters, displayed on a large white-and-blue plate in the shop window and costing sixpence a pair. I used to get them for my granddad. They were wrapped in newspaper which was sodden by the time I got them home".

A rival chippie was that of Mr Greenall who employed Ada to peel and chip the potatoes. "We used to ask her for 'scraps' (crispy, fat-loaded bits that fell off the fish batter) to go with out threepenny bags of chips".

If you were 'posh', adds Nora, "you got your weekly order from Brown's shop. But we voted Labour and read the Daily Herald, so we went to the Co-op at the bottom of Leslie Road. I can still remember our 'divi' number".

The Co-op had a bacon counter at one end with two other long, wide counters on either side. "You always went to your 'own side', and a man named Jimmy always served my mum. There was also a little cubby-hole off to the left where potatoes were served from a big chute. A young lad always served in there and the girl used to fancy him ... although I think those lads changed regularly. They probably went off to do their National Service".

One of the greatest treats was a visit to the Thatto Heath Empire, just past the dam. If an A-film (for the over 16s and accompanied children) was being screened, the kids would parade up and down the cinema queue asking: "Will yer tek us in, Mister?" Observes Nora: ""Can you imaging that happening today?"

There was plenty of other local entertainment way back then. "I remember learning to dance at West Street Church to Mrs Wiggins and her son, playing piano and violin. We then practised in the 'backs'".

Ravenhead had a concert party of which Nora was a member; and she recalls that, dressed as gipsies, she sang a duet with a boy called Kenneth Hall from Lugsmore Lane.

The kids could learn to do 'cork work' at the Salvation Army or watched lantern-slide shows about missionaries in darkest Africa. They might join the Brownies at Toll Bar Congs or attend socials at the Campbell Rooms in Elephant Lane.

"They were really happy days", Nora signs off. "I loved every minute of it. Little money, few cars, few holidays but a great sense of community. And if you were really hard-up, there was always Lena Hogg's in Leslie Road. She had a great range of second-hand goods to buy and sell".

Bill Rigby of Brookside Avenue, Rainford, also picks up on the old corner-shop theme. To Jim Mayor's list, he adds Heyes the butchers of Lugsmore Lane, Ellisons the printers, and another Howard's chippy on the corner of Whittle and Bewsey streets. Chippies certainly abounded, with another one, Houghton's, at the other end of Bewsey Street.

And Bill's granny kept a general shop along that stretch (at No. 35) later run by his uncle and aunt. Norcross's dairy was tucked in a passageway off West Street. Now aged 79, he also recalls Bullen's shop in Owen Street. And our earlier mention of Brown's bake-house stirs delicious memories "of waking up in the morning to the sound of baking tins being emptied and the lovely smell of freshly baked bread wafting over".

Later, there was the noise of the driver and his mate stoking up their steam wagon before driving down to the brook behind Whittle Street to take on water.

As the morning progressed, the streets would eventually come alive with horse-and-cart tradesmen crying their wares. "The milkman, fishmonger, coalman, rag-and-bone man, fruit and veg trader, not forgetting the muffin man, knife-grinder and the paper-boys yelling out the headlines from the latest editions".

IT certainly was another world. And, arguably, a much better one.