Steve:
As I remember it, Boracic Lint is that white medicated cloth that the school "nurse" used to stick over your cut knee with that terrible purple plaster strip that really hurt when it was removed. The lint also meshed with the scab and ripped open the cut again unless you soaked it off in the bath.
(This still reopened the cut but didn't hurt nearly as much.)

I really wish I had no memory of this :)

alison:
I thought "hal-yen" might be an Ulster accented "Hellion" but I've no evidence.

Toao_Dai:
In Manchester it was "A-rab" (heavily accented A). I actually never associated with the word arab until I much later saw it written.

AndyG