JOCULAR reference to "the place where they killed dead horses" certainly proved a major memory-jerker for reader Maureen Davies whose girlhood recollections were spurred on when she recently spotted a snippet on this page mentioning that extraordinary locality.

Norman Cullen had originally written in to say that his granddad, Francis James Cullen, a canal lock-opener, had often mentioned that he once lived near to where they killed dead horses. Just a child at that time, Norman is now keen to learn more and he invited any information about the old canal system that once flourished in the St Helens area.

Maureen, from King Edward Road, Dentons Green, was immediately on the ball. She was able to reveal that old Francis had obviously lived close to what was properly called The Tan House. This tannery thrived in the Islands Brow area of St Helens during the 1920s and for some time before that, as Maureen had learned from her mother.

The slaughtered horses were skinned for leather, while their bones and hooves went off to be made into glue and fertiliser. This gruesome little factory stood close to the canal, at the lower end of Islands Brow where a canal bridge leads into Merton Bank Road. Visible evidence of that knackers-yard enterprise still remains.

"The premises later became a pottery run by a couple named Blake", explains Maureen, "and at the present time, the old yard area houses a car repair business. The old pottery chimney still stands".

During its tanning days, the place employed a slaughterman of nightmarish appearance, says Maureen. "As a young girl, my mother remembered seeing him standing outside the yard gates, wearing a large, blood-soaked leather apron. He was a towering, well-built man and the local youngsters were terrified of him".

According to Maureen's mother, who died three years ago, aged 87, this character (who might have slotted perfectly into a Hammer House of Horrors film) contracted a fatal disease as the direct result of his gory job.

The Cullens were well known to Maureen's family, being, in fact, close friends. They lived, as lock-opener Francis had indicated many years earlier, in a cottage close to the Tan House. "My mother used to go there, visiting her close friend, Annie, one of the three Cullen children. They attended St Mary's, Blackbrook, together".

It was thought that the Cullens lived in the Greenbank area before moving to Islands Brow, and they emigrated to Australia in the late 1920s. Maureen's mother, then schoolgirl Ellen Farnen, received one letter and photograph from Annie, revealing that they had arrived in Sydney. Then contact was lost forever.

This brought a sadness to Ellen that remained to her dying days.

Responding to Norman Cullen's request for old-time canal details, 68-year-old Maureen says: "The canal used to be functional from Gerards Bridge and onwards towards Redgate, Blackbrook and Boardmans Lane, Parr. The double-locks have been renovated in recent years and a great deal of conservation work is still to be carried out in the area.

"The section flowing down from Pocket Nook into the main-stream canal, running along the bottom end of Islands Brow, is still to be seen to this day". But gone is the lock keeper's cottage, which stood by the double-locks, and the scene has changed dramatically during Maureen's own lifetime.

Wasteland (once known to local folks who crossed it as "Going over the Globe") is now occupied by industry. And the Fosters glassworks, which cast its reflection into the canal's still waters, has been replaced by St Helens College Campus.

HOPEFULLY all that family and canal detail will be gratefully received by Norman Cullen.