SIR - Philip Bird (T&A, June 30) talking about rain siling down' wondered about the origin of the word "siling".

Well, a sile was a sort of funnel used to filter milk after it had run through a cooling system in the days when cows were milked by hand.

The milk, straight from the cow, was poured into a header tank, from where it trickled slowly down a water-cooler, corrugated cooler, and then fell into the sile.

This was a funnel-shaped, stainless steel receptacle which contained a stainless steel sieve which was, in turn, lined with what was known as a "wad". The wad was circular, felt-like piece of material.

The sieve and wad were then clamped into the neck of the sile with a spring clip to keep them in place. The sile' was inserted into the top of a milk churn.

After a few milking-pails full of milk had been poured into the header tank, the sile would be gently lifted to see whether the churn was full.

The cooled and filtered milk could be seen running through the sile in about 50 streams - just like heavy rain.

Thinking of this procedure - which was commonplace in the 1940s - I can't help wondering what the Healthy and Safety wallahs would make of it today.

Frank Morris, Skipton Road, Utley, Keighley