TIME has stood still for at least 30 years, since the old Clock Face Crisps company finally put up its shutters.

Arguments still rage, among our yedscratters, as to the exact time recorded on the clock-face logo, which dominated the crisp packets.

The Clock Face crisps were once highly popular, and many of our upper-age St Helens snackers felt it was a tragedy when the label petered out, and the giant crisp companies surged in to devour the market.

Familiar

I was reminded of the packets by Steve Beesley, secretary of the Billinge Chapel End Labour Club, during a special preview there of a fascinating professional 'memory lane' video, covering the twin zones of Moss Bank and Billinge.

And he produced solid evidence as to the time on the clock, by digging out a battered square tin box which years ago held the club's ration of Clock Face crisps.

On it was that familiar, trademark timepiece. And the fingers pointed to 18 minutes past one. A strange time, but true.

Steve boasted a club collection of eight of these tins. "They're real collectors' pieces", he says. And all bear the old firm's four-digit telephone number (4313) so unlike the familiar six digits of today.

But when exactly did the firm fold up? Some say it was the late 1960s, others that it happened in the 1970s.

ANYONE out there got an accurate answer? If so, drop me a line at Whalley's World, St Helens Star, 23a Hardshaw Street, St Helens WA10 1RT