OUR readers have fond memories of a Bolton town centre in times gone by.

Many of the shops and businesses in and around the centre are well remembered and much missed.

Margaret Billington remembers “Toggs”, which another reader asked about in a recent article in these pages.

“I remember Toggs in Market Street as I used to go there sometimes for lunch when I worked at the TSB just around the corner in Hotel Street — it is, now Lloyds Bank.

“Toggs was owned by Tognarelli’s the ice cream makers. They had an ice cream parlour in Market Street, Farnworth which was very popular with young people, especially on a Sunday afternoon.

“ We used to see them going in after Sunday School,which we thought was awful as we didn’t go to places like that on a Sunday,” she recalls.

Bolton town centre was a very different place when Margaret worked there.

It was filled with all manner of individual shops and restaurants and all were busy, particularly at lunchtime.

There was a UCP shop in Newport Street which was short for United Cattle Products and apparently there were several such shops in and around Bolton.

They specialised in tripe, cow heel and other 'offal' that other butchers did not sell.

In the late 1960s there were hundreds of UCP shops in Lancashire. Today there are none.

It is still possible to buy tripe, cow heel and oxtail on Bolton’s Ashburner Street Market. Tripe isn't as popular as it once was - but oxtail and other cheaper cuts of meat have come back into fashion.

Tripe with onions was a popular dish during and after World War Two and its unique texture was, for many, an acquired taste.

Cheap meals could be created with such products, feeding the family for less, particularly during the war.