My great grandmother, born in the 1850s in Adlington, used to make wine out of the bilberries (whartleberry, but that's a Scots term) as no doubt her mother before her. Whimberry pie and whimberry tart did used to be a delicacy in Bolton up to the 1950s, as did Sadcake or Sweetcake.

Whimberry Pie, and here I am falling back on what my great grandmother taught my mother, was all part of the Victorian/Edwardian high Sunday tea in Bolton. Bolton used to be surrounded by vast moorland 200, 300, 400, 500 years ago. So I'm told Bolton-Bowl-town the township nestling in the bowl of the moorland?

There are or were, a lot of old Viking terms used around Bolton, Norse etc.

I think a lot of these have gone the way a lot of things go, have been replaced, corrupted or fell into misuse as a lot of the lost arts have. I know a lot of old Boltonian dialect is strained from the old Norse language.

OK! Bilberry or Blueberry may be the generalised term in the rest of the country, but for some reason it clings on in Bolton. My great-grandmother could have told you exactly but, unfortunately, she has been dead for 70 years (1856-1929).

K Moran

Clough Flats, Heywood.

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