WHERE will those old St Helens mineral bottles pop up next? Two readers living as far apart as Lowton and Australia are the latest to enter into the frame following my earlier piece about how an old Codd bottle - complete with glass marble stopper - had been unearthed from the foundations of a 70-year-old Blackpool house which was being extended.

Former Haydock shopkeeper Brian Winfield had been puzzled by the maker's name, Nuttall and Co., St Helens, and our knowledgeable readers last week chipped in with the answer. Nuttalls was apparently a forerunner to the Ravenhead Glass Company that closed in recent times.

Now, Pam Brisco, formerly of St Helens and now settled in Australia, and one-time Earlestown FC ace striker Jim McKiernan of Bradwell Road, Lowton, throw three other mystery bottles into the mix.

Pam e-mails to say: "I have an old green bottle with a pit wheel on it and what looks like a bucket going down a mine-shaft". The name impressed on it, in capital letters, is Ryders of St Helens, and it also bears the inscription N & Co plus the serial number 2285.

Pam obtained the bottle from a scrap merchant over in Australia and would like to know whether the Ryders firm was from St Helens, or whether the bottle came from St Helens, Tasmania. (Personally, I've a sneaking suspicion that Ryders were in business in St Helens in far-gone Lancashire days).

Jim McKiernan found his old Codd bottle about 15 years ago while walking near Beeston Castle. On one side it says The Buxton Mineral Water Company. But the St Helens connection emerges from the other side, bearing the name of the bottle manufacturer - Cannington Shaw and Co., Ltd., St Helens. It is numbered 3116.

Our Lowton chum also has a bottle without a stopper, which says Lion Brewery, Blackburn. Underneath this is the name of the UGB glass company of St Helens.

CAN anyone throw light on those Ryders and Cannington Shaw companies, and perhaps add to the ancient-bottle theme?