Thanks to this good Samaritan

MANY thanks to the kind person who handed in my handbag to customer services at Asda Accrington on Tuesday 23 August when I carelessly left it on the hook of the shopping trolley and drove home. Very much appreciated and thanks also to Asda staff. Libby Benson Address supplied

PUT CAMERAS AT HOTSPOTS

REGARDING ‘Put Cameras on Tippers’, Letters, August 26, Jim Oldcorn is quite correct in his opinion that the council should adopt a proactive approach to the problem by hiding covert cameras at hotspots as prosecutions seem few and far between.

Heavy fines would also speak louder than words and deter these culprits. The only thing wrong with this is that cameras - whether private or by the council - have to have a warning sign that informs people that cameras operate in the area, until the laws are changed on the positioning of cameras. Secret ones are not allowed because it may infringe on the culprits’ human rights.

This doesn’t seem to matter that these people are affecting the environment or causing a nuisance to other people, or the cost to the taxpayer to clean up their mess, isn’t taken into account. It’s the criminal element that seems to be being protected by silly laws.

The honest law abiding citizen wouldn’t bother about being caught on covert cameras if they are doing nothing illegal. Mr A. P. Moxham Great Harwood

MEMORIES OF SOMME TRIP

I WAS reminded recently of my trip with Bill Turner to the Somme in May 1986.

Although there were many items to comment on, two stand out in my mind. The first one came when we had just arrived on our first trip to Albert, as we pulled into the car park, a man came quickly to the coach door and said: “Where are you from, lads?”

We said: “Accrington,” and he replied that he had just recently put 600 tons of Accrington Bricks into the Thiepval Memorial.

Apparently, he was with the War Graves Commission and we met him during the week.

The next item was when I was looking into a German cemetery which had, of course, iron crosses on each grave, but in one corner was a small collection of graves with rounded stone heads. I went in to check on their stones and found they all had Jewish names of German-Jews who had lost their lives on the Somme. Mr Barnes Accrington

REMEMBERING LA-MODE SHOP

ONE of the pictures Garth showed in today’s Observer (‘Charity team show bottle, and hats off to shop boss’, Looking Back, August 12) was a lady modelling one of the hats in La-Mode hat shop.

I remember the shop, 67 Abbey Street, very well as my mum, brother Tom and myself lived at 65A Abbey, which was behind the shop from 1938. I left there when I got married in April 1949.

I bought my white wedding hate from La-Mode.

My mum lived there until the middle 1950s.

The lady who owned it then - I don’t know if it was the same lady as in the 1979 picture as she had dark hair and was younger then - her mother was the owner or maybe the manageress of Nuttal Bros high-class ladies fashion clothing shop in Little Blackburn Road. I think it was the same block as Argos is today.

She owned our house and mum paid her rent to her. She actually lived in St Anne’s. Our front door was halfway down the passage which led to a back which you crossed then went past a yard and gable, and a house on the right, and a builders yard and workshop on the left.

This right of way led to Pitt Street which is now Eastgate. The houses have all gone.

The passage is no longer in use, there are railings at both sides of it.

A few yards past our house was our backyard door and we shared our yard with the National Mill Store which was next door to La-Mode in Abbey Street.

They sold curtains, curtain materials, bedding and more. It was much bigger at the back and it reached the wall in the back.

Their door, at the back of the shop, faced both our lavatories situated just below our yard gate. One year, when the snow was very deep, we had to dig our way out at one end of the passage. Mrs V Rigg Great Harwood