No, not read that book - will keep an eye open for it in the Red Cross shop downtown. The atmosphere the writer evokes is very similar to that of Smithills and in prehistoric times we could have watched the smelting furnaces of Alderley Edge, in the distance, from Hole Hill, Adam Hill, Winter Hill and Counting Hill. I am trying to catch some of it in photographs - unsuccessfully.

My latest find is http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/7924 , which is behind where Halliwell Road bus shelter used to be. The playing fields still have a 'strange vibration', probably psychosomatic, and leads me to think about druidic bards. (I worked in the adjacent mill for a few years a long time ago). My next task there is to look for individual bits of stone, particularly in and around the old church (Cloister Street !) and to look at the Iron Church, on Blackburn Road, as that is in the point of view, from Toothill to the winter solstice sunrise.

I had an email from the editor of the Bolton Evening News before Christmas, but nothing has appeared in print. I have a couple of unopened letters from the arch. officialdom - that will contain meaningless nonsense. One was 'to sign for' and I am seeing how long I can leave it unopened - another couple of days, perhaps. I've found some stuff in Harwood that is identical in style to the Smithills sites but have no time to investigate further - again the trail leads into a churchyard. I'm looking for the site of a stone circle round about the bottom of Harpers Lane as that's where the Two Lads cairns are best seen from - found one fragment of a stone so far. Slowly clearing debris from the Thurstones and they are 'emerging from the bank'.