A READER who now lives in Arnside has sent me a photograph of 'damaged tarmac' (one of the now infamous potholes in our roads!) in Barcroft Road, Bolton.

'I wonder if you or any of the residents now living in the road realise its significance,' writes J. Clayton, of Lawrence Drive, Arnside.

'I was born in Bolton in 1935, but shortly afterwards my father, who worked for Bolton Gate Co., moved to London to oversee their work down south.

'We moved back to Bolton at the outbreak of the war, and spent the war years living at 31 Barcroft Road, before we moved back to London for my father to keep on with his job.

'Despite the fact that I haven't lived in Bolton since, it is very much my home town. During the late 40s and through the 50s, my father and I seldom missed a Wanderers' match at the various London clubs. Since then I have lived in Lancaster, Carlisle, and North Yorkshire, but whenever time and money allowed we have travelled to Burnden, and now the Reebok.

'This Spring, I had brought my grandchildren to a match, and as one of them was doing a project about the war, I took them to show where I had lived; I noticed in particular this damaged tarmac, as it was where we held the bonfire for the celebrations at the end of the war about 55 years ago. We had a great night, and the fire was so hot it blistered the paint on the front gates nearest to it.

'If my memory doesn't fail me, I seem to remember a picture in the BEN of the wood on the ring road at the bottom of Smithills Dean where the vandals of the day had chopped many trees down! Times might have been hard for parents, but as children we had a great time.

'Looking back, the freedom we had as very young children as compared with those today, doesn't seem believable.'