THE fine art of 'donkey stoning' petered out when tiled thresholds replaced the traditional stone slabs which once adorned the front doors of our working-class side-street terraces.

For those too young to remember, I'd better do a bit of explaining.

Donkey stones were small tablets (three inches by two, and an inch thick) made from what looked like compressed ash and chalk.

House-proud wives made a Sunday morning ritual of washing their front step, before kneeling down to scrub away with the donkey stone. At the end of all that elbow grease, the step gleamed dazzlingly white.

An echo of those old-fashioned times has been brought back by Jean Glover, arguably the last of the donkey stoners, who used to whiten the Thatto Heath step of her widowed father, Jack Parr, who died three years ago at the age of 89.

"I suddenly realised, about 10 years ago, that I was the only person around who was still donkey-stoning. So I packed it in", says 57-year-old Jean from Blackdown Grove, Parr, who surprised me by forwarding a mint-condition donkey stone (with the impression of a lion on it) for inspection.

But she doesn't take all the credit for her front-step expertise. She was taught by the undisputed 'donkey-stone queen' of Thatto Heath, Lottie Martin, still going strong at 86 and living in Ainsdale.

She was an Elephant Lane next-door neighbour and the closest friend of Jean's mother, Josie. And she actually performed the duties of emergency midwife when Jean was born. "She brought me into the world, became my godmother and I've always thought of her as a second mum", explains Jean.

Lottie, an aunt of radio DJ Norman Thomas, who also lived at one time in Elephant Lane, was one of those special good neighbours whom folk used to call in to lay out the dearly departed or to assist with home births.

Jean looks back to girlhood years and her first novice efforts to donkey-stone her mum's step.

"Lottie asked me what on earth I was doing, and then let me into the big secret. This was to first pour an egg-cup full of milk onto the step to make the donkey-stoning adhere to it properly".

Veteran Donkey Commoners may still recall the once familiar sight of Lottie and Josie pushing a large cream pram along Elephant Lane. Josie's son, Colin, had long outgrown it, and the pram was then used as a 'delivery vehicle', containing the two friends' parcelled-up weekly shopping order from the local Co-op.

EEH, but they were grand owd times, even if all that donkey-stoning, plus the weekly black-leading of the old cast-iron fire range, proved a bit of a chore!