FAME at last! Thumbing through a glossy magazine, dedicated to environmental matters, I've found myself unexpectedly mentioned in despatches.

This homespun old column also gets a pat on the back.

Presumably it's in return for 'lifting' a piece I wrote, all of five years ago, about how the uniquely-named Red Rat at Sutton (long since erased from the scene) came by its rodental title.

The current 76-page edition of Environment Times digs out a quote or two from my 1995 interview with Rainford's Brian Tarry, retired lecturer and now dedicated pub-book author.

During this, he'd spelled out how the Red Rat, which stood in Ellamsbridge Road, earned its weird monicker . . ."from the fact that rats in the nearby Stinking Brook were dyed rust coloured by all the industrial pollution poured into it".

The mag's St Helens-born owner-editor, Duncan Ashcroft, who rather flatteringly claims me as his journalistic inspiration, apparently keeps a beady eye on my page, especially if it happens to mentions his pet subjects of pollution and environmental improvements.

But I was just a little miffed to discover that he took another of my earlier yarns, about the health-giving properties of the Parr section of the old Stinking Brook, "with a pinch of salt"; until he had the facts copper-bottomed by Bill Highcock, an amateur historian who researches the area's canals and streams.

Though it might be a bit of an exaggeration to say that the 'Parr Spa' attracted multitudes to its healing waters, Bill kindly backed up my story that the banks of the brook were much visited by the mums of sickly children who firmly believed that it had Lourdes-like properties.

They used to dangle their infants over the foul-smelling watercourse, convinced that the fumes would clear up such infant complaints as blocked noses and wheezy chests.

In fact, Harry took it one step further by informing doubting Duncan that the aroma -- at times strong enough to fell an ox -- provided the finest hangover cure in Christendom.

A brisk walk along the banks of the Stinking Brook (proper name Sankey Brook) taking in a lungful of the vapours was guaranteed to clear the head and banish any lingering beer-fuelled headaches.

Happily, with no more chemicals to gush into it, that waterway is now free from its staggering stench and is gradually returning to its early 18th-century glory when trout were reputed to have joyfully leapt in its pellucid waters.

Duncan, who describes his page in the mag as being "rambling jottings" (about right, that, I'd say!) pays some pretty compliments to your truly and the Whalley's World page . . . "which for decades has put a colourful human face to the town's history". His words, not mine.

But I'm not so sure about his description of me as "a tale-telling pub man of the old school" or the comparison he draws between myself and the late hell-raising Oliver Reed. I'll have to have a good think about that.

Duncan himself has left me with a bit of an ongoing 'legacy'. While working for an enviromental group in St Helens, he smooth talked me, about a dozen years ago, into giving up part of my large side garden as a wild-life sanctuary (I think he was desperate at the time to justify his existence).

Trees would be planted to attract flora, fauna, birdlife and butterflies, and these saplings would be supervised and pruned on a regular basis. It all sounded quite idyllic -- but today, with the wildlife gang long vanished over the quango horizon, I'm faced by a miniature forest which has cost me a small fortune to have kept in check by a gang of private chain-saw experts.

Still, that's Duncan. Once a youthful dreamer whom even his family sometimes despaired of, he's ended up producing a magazine dedicated to improving the environment.

WHICH can't be bad for any of us!