THE dramatic rescue of a child from a frost-bound pond remains sharp in the memory of Gill Edwards - who witnessed the incident during the early 1950s - if only for its rather amusing aftermath!

The deep pond then existed where the Windle Hotel now stands in Hard Lane, St Helens. "In winter it sometimes froze over, to the delight of us local kids", recalls Gill, from Huncote Avenue, Laffak. "We were always warned not to venture on to it unless the ice was three to four inches thick, but you always get one rebel".

A young lad stepped on to the thin ice and promptly crashed through, disappearing from view. Some boys, aged around nine or ten, formed a human chain and managed to grab the victim by his hair and hand. A man from the houses opposite suddenly appeared on the scene with a ladder and completed the rescue.

After the child had been stripped of his soaking, icy-cold outer garments he was wrapped in a towel and an excited bunch of gibbering kids accompanied him home, where he got a rollicking for his pains.

Then came that unexpected postscript. "I remember being amazed after hearing the 'janglers' (mums who stood on street corners for a chinwag) expressing their concern at the whiteness - or rather lack of it! - of his vest, rather than the poor lad almost losing his life.

"It must have been the influence of a certain washing powder advert of the time. It apparently wouldn't have mattered if your vest was full of holes, but it was a real social stigma if you weren't blinded by its whiteness".

Gill switches seasons to recall the summer holidays of her childhood. "All the street, more or less, used to go pea-picking. We'd walk along the footpath by the side of the local Ford dealer's petrol pumps and pass under the East Lancashire Road to the farm there. The name of the farm now slips my mind".

It's the atmosphere that Gill recalls most. "Up at crack of dawn, breathing in all the lovely unpolluted air, with your flask and butties in hand, looking forward to filling your hamper at half-a-crown (12p in modern money) a time".

WONDER how many others recall helping to bring in the harvest during school hols?