JUST an update on a couple of subjects which appeared in this column last Friday.

You may recall that Mrs Judith Prentice of Stockport asked if anyone had information about a Bolton firm called Snowfecta. I had asked around and no-one seemed to know of it, and I must admit I thought that we were perhaps on a wild goose chase.

However, I have heard from Mrs Marjorie Worthington, of Crompton Way, who tells me that in the 1940s, she recalls visiting her grandparents in Eckersley Road, Astley Bridge (behind where Kicks snooker hall now stands, but at the time it was Mayoh's Garage), and nearby was a firm which made Snowfecta soap powder. It was owned by a Mr Kenyon, who also lived in Eckersley Road, and Snowfecta was the brand name of his product. Mrs Worthington checked the details with her friend, Miss Lottie Warren, of Sherwood Street, near Seymour Road, whose brother David worked at the firm, and Miss Warren agreed with her. I then received a call from Mrs Doris Hackney, of Sharples, who also remembered Mr Kenyon and Snowfecta, but said the firm was going well before the 1940s. The firm was a wooden construction on the banks of the River Tonge, she said, "and my husband told me that on one occasion the shed slid into the river!" I bet there was plenty of lather around that day!

Also on Friday I printed a photograph of the gasometer in Lum Street. This has brought a message from former Bolton councillor John Monaghan, who tells me that during his apprenticeship at Leigh Tech, in 1951, "my tutor took great pains to inform me that a gasometer or manometer are instruments for measuring gas pressure. The tank which contains gas are called Gas Holders. This may be the reason that a street off Spa Road is called New Holder Street. The tutor also said that the word meter ending with 'er' indicated an instrument for measuring, and the word ending 're' a unit of measurement".