ASK Star readers between 1973 and 2009 what page they turned to first every week and it’s a pretty safe bet “Whalley’s World” would be the answer on most lips.

Alan Whalley kept St Helens smiling over four decades as he served up a magic menu of larger than life characters and nuggets of nostalgia every week with his sublime storytelling skill.
 

Alan passed away last October, but we’re sure he’d be tickled pink to know his award winning words were making a timely comeback to the Star’s pages to inject a little cheer in these days of unprecedented darkness, tragedy and fear. 

This week’s piece shares some memories of a stuffed tiger who caused a stir at a school.

THE school cleaning ladies thought they had a real-life tiger by the tail when they clocked-on with dusters, mops and brushes at the ready.

Screams rang round the assembly hall until they realised that the magnificent beast of prey was a stuffed one!

That comical little incident is recounted some 20 years later by Vic Smeltzer, retired head of Windlehurst School, who also adds a belated confession.

Vic, from Rainford, picks up on a query from Haresfinch reader Tommy Rafferty who wanted to know what happened to that stuffed tiger after its disappearance, first from the Victoria Park Museum of fond memory, and later from the top of the stairs at the St Helens central library.

 “I’ve a little more news on the beast,” says Vic. “It was certainly ‘alive and well’ in the late 1970s.”

The local education department’s infant adviser had arranged for Windlehurst school to borrow the tiger for project work.

“It was duly delivered – apparently causing quite a stir when carried by workmen in daylight across the town hall square – and placed in a side alcove of the school hall.

“Unfortunately,” Vic adds, “I forgot to tell the cleaning ladies that it was there. Very early next day, when they arrived and switched on the hall lights, you can guess what happened. They had the fright of their lives and told me that they ran out screaming!”

The kids had a great time with the tiger and much interesting work was generated.

But now for Vic’s confession: “I must tell you a secret . . . some naughty child pulled off the poor tiger’s tail and one of the teachers had to sew it back before we returned the animal to the care of the education department.”

VIC regretted that the tiger trail then goes cold. He’s no idea what happened to it later. Anyone else have a clue?

Touch of the Sweeney Todds! 

HOPE that Nora McGuire will excuse me for saying so, but I had half-formed thoughts of the Sweeney Todd kind in reading her delightful ‘look-back’ letter to this cobwebby page.

For Nora tells me that the wife of old-time Thatto Heath undertaker Tom Wilcock “used to make the most delicious pies which were sold in his shop”.

But away with such levity, let’s have a little peep into Nora’s teen years and the local scene of seven decades ago. Picking up on the earlier Thatto Heath reminscences of another pensioner reader, Nora, from St Helens, writes: “The lady remembered the Dromgooles business where I used to work.”

Leaving school at 14, Nora was employed by that family firm of drapers for five years, working in both their Scholes Lane and Elephant Lane shops.

At the rear of each of these was the pawnshop section. “I can still remember the names of some of the regular customers though, of course, at that time we were not allowed to divulge any names.”

For the princely wage of seven-and-six (35p in new money) Nora worked 57 hours a week. Weekends were hardest hit with an 8pm closing time on Friday and 9pm on Saturday.

From the Whalley’s World archive, first published in 1998