COUNCILLOR Harkin deserves everybody's support, for wanting to remind potential investors in Bolton that the town has always meant much more than just hard work and industry.

But to revert officially to Bolton-le-Moors would be a backward step.

To quote myself in a different context, it was as long ago as the 1960s that the local authority "began again to invoke the old name Bolton-le-Moors, as indicating the favoured environment now available for the newer, less polluting industries, and their healthier more leisured workforce".

Fact is, however, that le-Moors in the old name probably refers not to the breezy uplands around Bolton, but to the unpleasant peat bog (Morass) of Bolton Moor, that seeped right into the heart of the town.

This is still commemorated by Moor Lane bus station, and the true Bolton "bog" can still be enjoyed (?) by anybody who walks across the sodden lawn behind Le Mans Crescent, or notices the green slime on the steps in front of the law courts on Black Horse Street.

Out of this difficult environment, "Bolton" established itself as a world centre of invention and industry or sterling human character, and of political and spiritual ideas, respected by foreign geniuses like Leo Tolstoy and Walt Whitman. It no longer needed to call itself "Bolton-le-Moors" to distinguish itself from Bolton-le-Sands or Bolton-by-Bowland, or any of the lesser Boltons you can still find on the map if you look close enough.

To my knowledge, "Bolton" still means a lot among interested people from New Jersey to Japan.

So, let's go forward with the best of Bolton's dynamic traditions, not back into the past with a "new" name. I suspect stirring up debate and awareness is what Cllr Harkin intends.

In that respect, he deserves support.

Malcolm Hardman

New Hall Lane

Heaton