SENT to Looking Back by reader Mrs J Kitching, who found the photograph in a clear-out, this view of a fish seller in a Blackburn street is evocative of a vanished era.

Grey, grim and damp though the scene may appear, it is, however, redolent of an age when cheery coal fires blazed in the hearths of chimney-topped terraced rows of working-class homes and the pastel glow of gaslight pierced the night's gloom.

Captured, too, with the camera's click at least 50 years ago are memories of doorsteps donkey-stoned by house-proud neighbours, the clatter of weavers' clogs on the flagstones and the rumble of cartwheels on sett-paved streets like this one.

Alas, the date and location of the picture are not known. Mrs Kitching thinks it may have been taken in the Mill Hill area but agrees with my guess that it may have been taken in long-gone Fisher Street in the Toll Bar area.

If so, the fish man may have been Walter Gorman, of Palm Street, or Walter Heaton, who lived on Whalley New Road near Skew Bridge. Both, according to 73-year-old reader Tom Kennedy, whose family traded for generations at Blackburn's old fish market, were fish sellers who had rounds in the vicinity.

Perhaps readers can identify the location and the old-time trader whose cart includes not only a box of best kippers but also rabbits hung from its canopy.