WILL I ever come back to Bolton? This question haunted me just a week ago as, together with my wife, I stood on Platform Three at Trinity Street Station waiting for a train to Manchester Airport. We had been in Bolton to say goodbye to my Mum who had died peacefully in her 98th year.

I have returned many times since leaving Bolton 40 years ago, and have witnessed with interest, and with both pride and sadness, the changing face of my home town. This time however, there was something strangely different. My Dad and now my Mom had gone. An era had ended. Would I ever return again?

Now that I am back in Canada, a country that we both love dearly, I find myself, in quiet moments, thinking a lot more about Bolton. I think of my youth, spent around flagstone sidewalks and cobble stone streets, of trams and steam engines, of huge cotton mills and tall chimneys, of entrancing names like Doffcocker, Halliwell, Daubhill, Breightmet, Astley Bridge, Barrow Bridge, Dunscar, and of course Great Lever and Weston Street where I grew up.

I have always felt privileged to have been born and educated in Bolton, and to have known and experienced first hand the warmth and hospitality of its people which has never changed. I will always cherish these memories. Thank you Bolton.

Will I ever come back? I don't know. Only time will tell.

Bryan Hubberstey

Chartwell Road, Oakville, Ontario, Canada

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.