MR BROCKLEBANK’S peregrinations have often taken him along that most ancient of Liverpool streets, Spellow Place.

Roads like High Street and Dale Street may claim priority on the maps, but Spellow Place surely lays claim to be the oldest street surface in Liverpool.

It is, Mr B thinks, the one remaining example of true cobbles to be found in the city.

As a nipper, he recalls being bounced up and down in the family Brougham as it lurched from one stone to the next, all expertly fitted together by craftsmen stone cobblers of a breed no longer to be found. Come more modern times, and the road surfaces were replaced by rectangular granite setts, still dubbed “cobbles” by Liverpolitans of a younger generation.

Now, of course, Tarmacadam rules and Spellow Place is a lone survivor of an earlier craft of road-building.

But what a sight befell Mr B’s eyes this week when he discovered that Spellow Place is missing several of its stones, replaced by concrete after some excavation or another.

What happened to the requirement that road surfaces be restored to their original state after the utility companies have had their little dig? Can it be that the necessary skills have died? Surely any roadbuilder of a retro bent would rise to the challenge of being able to declare on his letterhead: “Cobblers to the Council”.

SO SHAKEN up was he by the state of Spellow Place that Mr Brocklebank was forced to repair to the sanctuary of St Nicholas churchyard, a mere cobblestone’s throw away.

There he was able to bathe his fevered brow and relax, away from the bustle of the metropolis.

In the corner is one of Tom Murphy’s finest sculptures, depicting a child clutching a toy plane while being implored to come indoors by his distraught mother.

It is a memorial to those who died in the Liverpool Blitz, but has long puzzled the plane-spotting community as the aircraft in the child’s hand appears to be a German bomber.

Mr B’s nephew Herbert, a fully paid-up aeronautical anorak, assures him that the aircraft is a Heinkel He111 of early wartime vintage – surely not the most popular of toys in 1940s Liverpool?

NORTH West Ambulance Service NHS Trust has recruited seven Patient Transport Service Car Drivers to ferry non-urgent patients around in a new fleet of Toyota Prius cars.

They have been trained how to deal with an emergency, in understanding patients and in recognising illness, the Trust says.

In view of the much-publicised Prius problems this year, a quick course in hi-tech automotive braking system repairs may not go amiss.