Time was when there would be a regular tap, tap, tap on your back door as the butcher, baker, grocer and other shopkeepers delivered goods.

If my mother had forgotten to order something, Mr Wells, the delivery man, would jump in his little Morris Eight van and pop straight back to the shop to get it. I always hoped she had forgotten something as he let me ride with him in the van.

The baker's van was horse-drawn and his horse wore a feeding bag.

He nibbled his way along, moving on a few doors to the next customer quite automatically. He was so welltrained I used to wonder if he had once been in a circus.

The chimney sweep always called his clients outside to see his brush coming out of the chimney pot, but vacuumsweeping made it more lucrative for many of the old-style sweeps to pop up at weddings as a good-luck symbol.

Hearing a tap, tap, tapping at the kitchen door recently, I was most surprised, as I knew the steady stream of tradespeople of old has long gone.

Could it be the ghost of one of these old faithfuls? The grocer, perhaps?

Tap, tap it went again and I turned to see, through the glass door, a seagull's beak pressed against the glass. This clever bird was soon enjoying the tasty snack his ingenuity had earned him and reminded me of the That's Life television show some years ago when viewers' pets would perform their "party tricks".

Particularly memorable was a dog who could say "sausages".

How nice it would be to hear of others' pets who "do a turn".

-Michael Parker, Brighton