IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 6 - 12 JANUARY 1925
This week's many stories include the New Year's Day breakfasts for poor children, the Higher Grade Girls New Year parties, the patience with a Doulton Street tenant wears thin, the man who claimed his punch up was not a disturbance, the opening of Newton Cottage Hospital and the lodging out in a Sutton brickworks by a man dubbed a recurring decimal.
We begin with the weekly hearings in the St Helens County Court (pictured above) which took place in East Street every Wednesday and were adjudicated by a judge. Large numbers of cases were dispensed with at every sitting and the judgements could be harsh. Any generosity shown was limited and could not be expected to be repeated.
In February 1924 the owner of a house in Doulton Street in Eccleston had applied to the court for possession of his property because his tenant called Arthur Whittaker owed him a lot of rent. With the housing crisis in St. Helens, the judge said he was reluctant to grant the order as long as Mr Whittaker paid his rent regularly and a small sum weekly off his arrears.
At this week's County Court hearing on the 7th it was revealed that Whittaker had fallen further into arrears and now owed a total of £25. The tenant said he had a family of six to support and one son was out of employment. The 1921 census, incidentally, shows 12 family members were then crammed into the small house but one married daughter and her family must have since found a place of their own. Arthur Whittaker insisted that he had done his best under the circumstances to pay his rent and promised to pay off his arrears as soon as he possibly could.
But the solicitor acting for the landlord said Mr Whittaker had made the same promise in court last year. As a result the judge remarked that the defendant had been allowed plenty of time to pay off his debt and made an order for possession of the house in a month. Whittaker now had the very difficult problem of finding somewhere else for his large family to live.
During the evenings of the 7th, 8th and 9th, the junior, intermediate and then the senior pupils at Higher Grade Girls School held their annual New Year's parties. The Reporter wrote:
"Appropriate games and dances were indulged in each evening, and refreshments were provided from funds raised by the scholars themselves. Many parents of the children attended and watched the fun, which was heartily enjoyed by all, but the most striking feature of the affair was the number of pretty and ingenious fancy dresses worn by the young dancers. Besides the usual gypsies, fairies, etc., there were many unique dresses."
On one night young Molly McEvoy dressed as a cabbage won the first prize. Another contestant was Red Riding Hood and a further girl was dressed as Autumn leaves. And Mary Howson was dressed as a window with swallows flying near her pane and another girl appeared as a snowball.
Since 1877 Joseph Bethell Leach had organised free New Year's Day breakfasts for poor children in St Helens. In 1917, only one week after being knighted, the 76-year-old auctioneer and estate agent had died but the breakfasts involving a good feed and entertainment were continued by his son Wilfred. On the 9th the St Helens Reporter reviewed how well this year's event had gone:
"The long-established New Year's morning free breakfasts to poor children of St. Helens, so intimately associated with the name of Sir Joseph B. Leach, took place as usual, and were characterised by all the foresight and skill in organisation that has distinguished them in the past. Over three thousand children were entertained, and the magnitude of this fine voluntary enterprise is shown in the fact that there were eleven centres scattered about the town at which the children were provided for, and at each of them the scene was touchingly happy, many willing helpers giving their services to minister to the needs of the little guests."
The centres were the Ragged School, Arthur Street; Sacred Heart Schools, Borough Road; the Gerard's Bridge Mission Hall; St Austin's School, Thatto Heath; Holy Trinity Schools, Parr Mount; Parr Stocks Schools; the Wesleyan School in Park Road; Salvation Army, Milk Street; Salvation Army Citadel, Thatto Heath; Catholic Temperance League Hall, Gerard's Bridge and St Anne's School in Sutton.
The Reporter also described the annual Christmas and New Year party that had been held at the Engineer Hall on Croppers Hill (pictured above). The event was for the children of serving part-time Royal Engineers or those whose fathers had died in the war. The paper said a "jovial time" had been had and the building had rung with the "merry laughter of the young folk, who hailed Father Christmas (Sergt. A. Eccleston) with wild delight."
When Peter Crooks appeared in St Helens Police Court this week he attempted to distinguish between a punch up and a disturbance. "I was fighting, but I was not creating a disturbance," insisted the Derbyshire Hill Road miner. Technically, Crooks might have had a point, as the crowd watching him fighting with James Halliday were probably enjoying what they saw rather than being disturbed.
PC Drysdale appeared to be the only one bothered by what was going on outside an unnamed Sutton pub. He told the court that he had advised the pair to go home and be "sensible fellows" but directly the constable's back was turned the battle was renewed. Both men were bound over to keep the peace.
The Reporter said William Owen was a bit of an enigma to the local magistrates, as from time to time he "pops up like a recurring decimal". The labourer appeared in court charged with "lodging out", which could mean sleeping in the open air or on some premises without permission. In Owen's case his chosen venue had been the Sutton Road Brick Works.
But what puzzled the magistrates, the Reporter said, was why Owen had preferred the "unsympathetic floor" of the brickworks when he had already paid his money to sleep at Carney's lodging house. Two policemen had roused Owen from his "beauty sleep" at midnight and then locked him up in the police station. Clearly, sleeping in a police cell was not considered lodging out!
But the Christmas spirit was still abroad and the magistrates told Owen that they would only bind him over. However, the man was warned that if he came up before them again he would have to go to prison. The Reporter headlined their story "Eight Hours' Sleep Goes West", although as Sutton Police Station was only down the road from the brickworks, "interrupted" might have been more accurate!
William Blundell appeared to take the name "Boxing" Day a bit too literally. Edith Twist accused the man from Bewsey Street in Thatto Heath of committing a breach of the peace outside her home and damaging her door. Mrs Twist told the magistrates that Blundell had on Boxing Night "started a bother" and her little girl was terrified of the man, after he had threatened to kick the child upstairs.
Some hours later at 3am, Mrs Twist said she was awoken by a loud banging on her door and found Blundell threatening to burst it open. She ran to fetch a constable but by the time she returned with one the man had gone. "I am very sorry it has occurred," pleaded the defendant who was bound over and ordered to pay for the damage that he had caused.
The Reporter described how the large entertaining room in Rainford Village Hall had recently been "gaily hung with festoons and mottoes" for the 22nd annual whist drive organised by Rainford Cycle Club.
The paper also reported how there had been a curious "freak of nature" in Haydock on Christmas Day. A litter of nine pigs had been born on the farm of Harry Case at the New Boston Colliery Yard. The paper said that one of the piglets was found to possess what it described as a "miniature elephant's head, perfect in shape and form, except that the tusks were missing, though the trunk was visible."
The eyes were said not to have been in the usual position, with one being located where its mouth should have been. The two front feet of the animal also resembled those of a cow and had hooked toes. The Reporter said the "freak pig" was bald and three times the size of the others that had been born. Its body was now on show at the Commercial Inn in Platt Bridge.
On the 10th what the Reporter described as a "handsome war memorial cottage hospital, erected in memory of the fallen of Newton-in-Makerfield", was opened by Lady Collingwood. She was the wife of a director of the Vulcan foundry in Newton. The hospital was located in Bradlegh Road, on a site donated by Lord Newton.
Since Boxing Day the Theatre Royal in St Helens had been in panto mode with a performance of the "gorgeous comic pantomime" Red Riding Hood. And from the 12th an "up-to-date version" of Robinson Crusoe was performed while the Hippodrome had a play called Irish And Proud Of It.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the man who threatened to pull a policeman's liver out, Rainford Potteries fancy dress ball, concern over road safety and how a Christmas morning raffle of geese in Thatto Heath led to a court case.
In February 1924 the owner of a house in Doulton Street in Eccleston had applied to the court for possession of his property because his tenant called Arthur Whittaker owed him a lot of rent. With the housing crisis in St. Helens, the judge said he was reluctant to grant the order as long as Mr Whittaker paid his rent regularly and a small sum weekly off his arrears.
At this week's County Court hearing on the 7th it was revealed that Whittaker had fallen further into arrears and now owed a total of £25. The tenant said he had a family of six to support and one son was out of employment. The 1921 census, incidentally, shows 12 family members were then crammed into the small house but one married daughter and her family must have since found a place of their own. Arthur Whittaker insisted that he had done his best under the circumstances to pay his rent and promised to pay off his arrears as soon as he possibly could.
But the solicitor acting for the landlord said Mr Whittaker had made the same promise in court last year. As a result the judge remarked that the defendant had been allowed plenty of time to pay off his debt and made an order for possession of the house in a month. Whittaker now had the very difficult problem of finding somewhere else for his large family to live.
During the evenings of the 7th, 8th and 9th, the junior, intermediate and then the senior pupils at Higher Grade Girls School held their annual New Year's parties. The Reporter wrote:
"Appropriate games and dances were indulged in each evening, and refreshments were provided from funds raised by the scholars themselves. Many parents of the children attended and watched the fun, which was heartily enjoyed by all, but the most striking feature of the affair was the number of pretty and ingenious fancy dresses worn by the young dancers. Besides the usual gypsies, fairies, etc., there were many unique dresses."
On one night young Molly McEvoy dressed as a cabbage won the first prize. Another contestant was Red Riding Hood and a further girl was dressed as Autumn leaves. And Mary Howson was dressed as a window with swallows flying near her pane and another girl appeared as a snowball.
Since 1877 Joseph Bethell Leach had organised free New Year's Day breakfasts for poor children in St Helens. In 1917, only one week after being knighted, the 76-year-old auctioneer and estate agent had died but the breakfasts involving a good feed and entertainment were continued by his son Wilfred. On the 9th the St Helens Reporter reviewed how well this year's event had gone:
"The long-established New Year's morning free breakfasts to poor children of St. Helens, so intimately associated with the name of Sir Joseph B. Leach, took place as usual, and were characterised by all the foresight and skill in organisation that has distinguished them in the past. Over three thousand children were entertained, and the magnitude of this fine voluntary enterprise is shown in the fact that there were eleven centres scattered about the town at which the children were provided for, and at each of them the scene was touchingly happy, many willing helpers giving their services to minister to the needs of the little guests."
The centres were the Ragged School, Arthur Street; Sacred Heart Schools, Borough Road; the Gerard's Bridge Mission Hall; St Austin's School, Thatto Heath; Holy Trinity Schools, Parr Mount; Parr Stocks Schools; the Wesleyan School in Park Road; Salvation Army, Milk Street; Salvation Army Citadel, Thatto Heath; Catholic Temperance League Hall, Gerard's Bridge and St Anne's School in Sutton.
When Peter Crooks appeared in St Helens Police Court this week he attempted to distinguish between a punch up and a disturbance. "I was fighting, but I was not creating a disturbance," insisted the Derbyshire Hill Road miner. Technically, Crooks might have had a point, as the crowd watching him fighting with James Halliday were probably enjoying what they saw rather than being disturbed.
PC Drysdale appeared to be the only one bothered by what was going on outside an unnamed Sutton pub. He told the court that he had advised the pair to go home and be "sensible fellows" but directly the constable's back was turned the battle was renewed. Both men were bound over to keep the peace.
The Reporter said William Owen was a bit of an enigma to the local magistrates, as from time to time he "pops up like a recurring decimal". The labourer appeared in court charged with "lodging out", which could mean sleeping in the open air or on some premises without permission. In Owen's case his chosen venue had been the Sutton Road Brick Works.
But what puzzled the magistrates, the Reporter said, was why Owen had preferred the "unsympathetic floor" of the brickworks when he had already paid his money to sleep at Carney's lodging house. Two policemen had roused Owen from his "beauty sleep" at midnight and then locked him up in the police station. Clearly, sleeping in a police cell was not considered lodging out!
But the Christmas spirit was still abroad and the magistrates told Owen that they would only bind him over. However, the man was warned that if he came up before them again he would have to go to prison. The Reporter headlined their story "Eight Hours' Sleep Goes West", although as Sutton Police Station was only down the road from the brickworks, "interrupted" might have been more accurate!
William Blundell appeared to take the name "Boxing" Day a bit too literally. Edith Twist accused the man from Bewsey Street in Thatto Heath of committing a breach of the peace outside her home and damaging her door. Mrs Twist told the magistrates that Blundell had on Boxing Night "started a bother" and her little girl was terrified of the man, after he had threatened to kick the child upstairs.
Some hours later at 3am, Mrs Twist said she was awoken by a loud banging on her door and found Blundell threatening to burst it open. She ran to fetch a constable but by the time she returned with one the man had gone. "I am very sorry it has occurred," pleaded the defendant who was bound over and ordered to pay for the damage that he had caused.
The Reporter described how the large entertaining room in Rainford Village Hall had recently been "gaily hung with festoons and mottoes" for the 22nd annual whist drive organised by Rainford Cycle Club.
The paper also reported how there had been a curious "freak of nature" in Haydock on Christmas Day. A litter of nine pigs had been born on the farm of Harry Case at the New Boston Colliery Yard. The paper said that one of the piglets was found to possess what it described as a "miniature elephant's head, perfect in shape and form, except that the tusks were missing, though the trunk was visible."
The eyes were said not to have been in the usual position, with one being located where its mouth should have been. The two front feet of the animal also resembled those of a cow and had hooked toes. The Reporter said the "freak pig" was bald and three times the size of the others that had been born. Its body was now on show at the Commercial Inn in Platt Bridge.
On the 10th what the Reporter described as a "handsome war memorial cottage hospital, erected in memory of the fallen of Newton-in-Makerfield", was opened by Lady Collingwood. She was the wife of a director of the Vulcan foundry in Newton. The hospital was located in Bradlegh Road, on a site donated by Lord Newton.
Since Boxing Day the Theatre Royal in St Helens had been in panto mode with a performance of the "gorgeous comic pantomime" Red Riding Hood. And from the 12th an "up-to-date version" of Robinson Crusoe was performed while the Hippodrome had a play called Irish And Proud Of It.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the man who threatened to pull a policeman's liver out, Rainford Potteries fancy dress ball, concern over road safety and how a Christmas morning raffle of geese in Thatto Heath led to a court case.
This week's many stories include the New Year's Day breakfasts for poor children, the Higher Grade Girls New Year parties, the patience with a Doulton Street tenant wears thin, the man who claimed his punch up was not a disturbance, the opening of Newton Cottage Hospital and the lodging out in a Sutton brickworks by a man dubbed a recurring decimal.
We begin with the weekly hearings in the St Helens County Court (pictured above) which took place in East Street every Wednesday and were adjudicated by a judge.
Large numbers of cases were dispensed with at every sitting and the judgements could be harsh. Any generosity shown was limited and could not be expected to be repeated.
In February 1924 the owner of a house in Doulton Street in Eccleston had applied to the court for possession of his property because his tenant called Arthur Whittaker owed him a lot of rent.
With the housing crisis in St. Helens, the judge said he was reluctant to grant the order as long as Mr Whittaker paid his rent regularly and a small sum weekly off his arrears.
At this week's County Court hearing on the 7th it was revealed that Whittaker had fallen further into arrears and now owed a total of £25.
The tenant said he had a family of six to support and one son was out of employment. The 1921 census, incidentally, shows 12 family members were then crammed into the small house but one married daughter and her family must have since found a place of their own.
Arthur Whittaker insisted that he had done his best under the circumstances to pay his rent and promised to pay off his arrears as soon as he possibly could.
But the solicitor acting for the landlord said Mr Whittaker had made the same promise in court last year.
As a result the judge remarked that the defendant had been allowed plenty of time to pay off his debt and made an order for possession of the house in a month.
Whittaker now had the very difficult problem of finding somewhere else for his large family to live.
During the evenings of the 7th, 8th and 9th, the junior, intermediate and then the senior pupils at Higher Grade Girls School held their annual New Year's parties.
The Reporter wrote: "Appropriate games and dances were indulged in each evening, and refreshments were provided from funds raised by the scholars themselves.
"Many parents of the children attended and watched the fun, which was heartily enjoyed by all, but the most striking feature of the affair was the number of pretty and ingenious fancy dresses worn by the young dancers. Besides the usual gypsies, fairies, etc., there were many unique dresses."
On one night young Molly McEvoy dressed as a cabbage won the first prize. Another contestant was Red Riding Hood and a further girl was dressed as Autumn leaves.
And Mary Howson was dressed as a window with swallows flying near her pane and another girl appeared as a snowball.
Since 1877 Joseph Bethell Leach had organised free New Year's Day breakfasts for poor children in St Helens.
In 1917, only one week after being knighted, the 76-year-old auctioneer and estate agent had died but the breakfasts involving a good feed and entertainment were continued by his son Wilfred.
On the 9th the St Helens Reporter reviewed how well this year's event had gone:
"The long-established New Year's morning free breakfasts to poor children of St. Helens, so intimately associated with the name of Sir Joseph B. Leach, took place as usual, and were characterised by all the foresight and skill in organisation that has distinguished them in the past.
"Over three thousand children were entertained, and the magnitude of this fine voluntary enterprise is shown in the fact that there were eleven centres scattered about the town at which the children were provided for, and at each of them the scene was touchingly happy, many willing helpers giving their services to minister to the needs of the little guests."
The centres were the Ragged School, Arthur Street; Sacred Heart Schools, Borough Road; the Gerard's Bridge Mission Hall; St Austin's School, Thatto Heath; Holy Trinity Schools, Parr Mount; Parr Stocks Schools; the Wesleyan School in Park Road; Salvation Army, Milk Street; Salvation Army Citadel, Thatto Heath; Catholic Temperance League Hall, Gerard's Bridge and St Anne's School in Sutton.
The Reporter also described the annual Christmas and New Year party that had been held at the Engineer Hall on Croppers Hill (pictured above).
The event was for the children of serving part-time Royal Engineers or those whose fathers had died in the war.
The paper said a "jovial time" had been had and the building had rung with the "merry laughter of the young folk, who hailed Father Christmas (Sergt. A. Eccleston) with wild delight."
When Peter Crooks appeared in St Helens Police Court this week he attempted to distinguish between a punch up and a disturbance.
"I was fighting, but I was not creating a disturbance," insisted the Derbyshire Hill Road miner.
Technically, Crooks might have had a point, as the crowd watching him fighting with James Halliday were probably enjoying what they saw rather than being disturbed.
PC Drysdale appeared to be the only one bothered by what was going on outside an unnamed Sutton pub.
He told the court that he had advised the pair to go home and be "sensible fellows" but directly the constable's back was turned the battle was renewed. Both men were bound over to keep the peace.
The Reporter said William Owen was a bit of an enigma to the local magistrates, as from time to time he "pops up like a recurring decimal".
The labourer appeared in court charged with "lodging out", which could mean sleeping in the open air or on some premises without permission.
In Owen's case his chosen venue had been the Sutton Road Brick Works.
But what puzzled the magistrates, the Reporter said, was why Owen had preferred the "unsympathetic floor" of the brickworks when he had already paid his money to sleep at Carney's lodging house.
Two policemen had roused Owen from his "beauty sleep" at midnight and then locked him up in the police station. Clearly, sleeping in a police cell was not considered lodging out!
But the Christmas spirit was still abroad and the magistrates told Owen that they would only bind him over.
However, the man was warned that if he came up before them again he would have to go to prison.
The Reporter headlined their story "Eight Hours' Sleep Goes West", although as Sutton Police Station was only down the road from the brickworks, "interrupted" might have been more accurate!
William Blundell appeared to take the name "Boxing" Day a bit too literally.
Edith Twist accused the man from Bewsey Street in Thatto Heath of committing a breach of the peace outside her home and damaging her door.
Mrs Twist told the magistrates that Blundell had on Boxing Night "started a bother" and her little girl was terrified of the man, after he had threatened to kick the child upstairs.
Some hours later at 3am, Mrs Twist said she was awoken by a loud banging on her door and found Blundell threatening to burst it open.
She ran to fetch a constable but by the time she returned with one the man had gone.
"I am very sorry it has occurred," pleaded the defendant who was bound over and ordered to pay for the damage that he had caused.
The Reporter described how the large entertaining room in Rainford Village Hall had recently been "gaily hung with festoons and mottoes" for the 22nd annual whist drive organised by Rainford Cycle Club.
The paper also reported how there had been a curious "freak of nature" in Haydock on Christmas Day.
A litter of nine pigs had been born on the farm of Harry Case at the New Boston Colliery Yard.
The paper said that one of the piglets was found to possess what it described as a "miniature elephant's head, perfect in shape and form, except that the tusks were missing, though the trunk was visible."
The eyes were said not to have been in the usual position, with one being located where its mouth should have been. The two front feet of the animal also resembled those of a cow and had hooked toes.
The Reporter said the "freak pig" was bald and three times the size of the others that had been born. Its body was now on show at the Commercial Inn in Platt Bridge.
On the 10th what the Reporter described as a "handsome war memorial cottage hospital, erected in memory of the fallen of Newton-in-Makerfield", was opened by Lady Collingwood.
She was the wife of a director of the Vulcan foundry in Newton. The hospital was located in Bradlegh Road, on a site donated by Lord Newton.
Since Boxing Day the Theatre Royal in St Helens had been in panto mode with a performance of the "gorgeous comic pantomime" Red Riding Hood.
And from the 12th an "up-to-date version" of Robinson Crusoe was performed while the Hippodrome had a play called Irish And Proud Of It.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the man who threatened to pull a policeman's liver out, Rainford Potteries fancy dress ball, concern over road safety and how a Christmas morning raffle of geese in Thatto Heath led to a court case.
Large numbers of cases were dispensed with at every sitting and the judgements could be harsh. Any generosity shown was limited and could not be expected to be repeated.
In February 1924 the owner of a house in Doulton Street in Eccleston had applied to the court for possession of his property because his tenant called Arthur Whittaker owed him a lot of rent.
With the housing crisis in St. Helens, the judge said he was reluctant to grant the order as long as Mr Whittaker paid his rent regularly and a small sum weekly off his arrears.
At this week's County Court hearing on the 7th it was revealed that Whittaker had fallen further into arrears and now owed a total of £25.
The tenant said he had a family of six to support and one son was out of employment. The 1921 census, incidentally, shows 12 family members were then crammed into the small house but one married daughter and her family must have since found a place of their own.
Arthur Whittaker insisted that he had done his best under the circumstances to pay his rent and promised to pay off his arrears as soon as he possibly could.
But the solicitor acting for the landlord said Mr Whittaker had made the same promise in court last year.
As a result the judge remarked that the defendant had been allowed plenty of time to pay off his debt and made an order for possession of the house in a month.
Whittaker now had the very difficult problem of finding somewhere else for his large family to live.
During the evenings of the 7th, 8th and 9th, the junior, intermediate and then the senior pupils at Higher Grade Girls School held their annual New Year's parties.
The Reporter wrote: "Appropriate games and dances were indulged in each evening, and refreshments were provided from funds raised by the scholars themselves.
"Many parents of the children attended and watched the fun, which was heartily enjoyed by all, but the most striking feature of the affair was the number of pretty and ingenious fancy dresses worn by the young dancers. Besides the usual gypsies, fairies, etc., there were many unique dresses."
On one night young Molly McEvoy dressed as a cabbage won the first prize. Another contestant was Red Riding Hood and a further girl was dressed as Autumn leaves.
And Mary Howson was dressed as a window with swallows flying near her pane and another girl appeared as a snowball.
Since 1877 Joseph Bethell Leach had organised free New Year's Day breakfasts for poor children in St Helens.
In 1917, only one week after being knighted, the 76-year-old auctioneer and estate agent had died but the breakfasts involving a good feed and entertainment were continued by his son Wilfred.
On the 9th the St Helens Reporter reviewed how well this year's event had gone:
"The long-established New Year's morning free breakfasts to poor children of St. Helens, so intimately associated with the name of Sir Joseph B. Leach, took place as usual, and were characterised by all the foresight and skill in organisation that has distinguished them in the past.
"Over three thousand children were entertained, and the magnitude of this fine voluntary enterprise is shown in the fact that there were eleven centres scattered about the town at which the children were provided for, and at each of them the scene was touchingly happy, many willing helpers giving their services to minister to the needs of the little guests."
The centres were the Ragged School, Arthur Street; Sacred Heart Schools, Borough Road; the Gerard's Bridge Mission Hall; St Austin's School, Thatto Heath; Holy Trinity Schools, Parr Mount; Parr Stocks Schools; the Wesleyan School in Park Road; Salvation Army, Milk Street; Salvation Army Citadel, Thatto Heath; Catholic Temperance League Hall, Gerard's Bridge and St Anne's School in Sutton.
The event was for the children of serving part-time Royal Engineers or those whose fathers had died in the war.
The paper said a "jovial time" had been had and the building had rung with the "merry laughter of the young folk, who hailed Father Christmas (Sergt. A. Eccleston) with wild delight."
When Peter Crooks appeared in St Helens Police Court this week he attempted to distinguish between a punch up and a disturbance.
"I was fighting, but I was not creating a disturbance," insisted the Derbyshire Hill Road miner.
Technically, Crooks might have had a point, as the crowd watching him fighting with James Halliday were probably enjoying what they saw rather than being disturbed.
PC Drysdale appeared to be the only one bothered by what was going on outside an unnamed Sutton pub.
He told the court that he had advised the pair to go home and be "sensible fellows" but directly the constable's back was turned the battle was renewed. Both men were bound over to keep the peace.
The Reporter said William Owen was a bit of an enigma to the local magistrates, as from time to time he "pops up like a recurring decimal".
The labourer appeared in court charged with "lodging out", which could mean sleeping in the open air or on some premises without permission.
In Owen's case his chosen venue had been the Sutton Road Brick Works.
But what puzzled the magistrates, the Reporter said, was why Owen had preferred the "unsympathetic floor" of the brickworks when he had already paid his money to sleep at Carney's lodging house.
Two policemen had roused Owen from his "beauty sleep" at midnight and then locked him up in the police station. Clearly, sleeping in a police cell was not considered lodging out!
But the Christmas spirit was still abroad and the magistrates told Owen that they would only bind him over.
However, the man was warned that if he came up before them again he would have to go to prison.
The Reporter headlined their story "Eight Hours' Sleep Goes West", although as Sutton Police Station was only down the road from the brickworks, "interrupted" might have been more accurate!
William Blundell appeared to take the name "Boxing" Day a bit too literally.
Edith Twist accused the man from Bewsey Street in Thatto Heath of committing a breach of the peace outside her home and damaging her door.
Mrs Twist told the magistrates that Blundell had on Boxing Night "started a bother" and her little girl was terrified of the man, after he had threatened to kick the child upstairs.
Some hours later at 3am, Mrs Twist said she was awoken by a loud banging on her door and found Blundell threatening to burst it open.
She ran to fetch a constable but by the time she returned with one the man had gone.
"I am very sorry it has occurred," pleaded the defendant who was bound over and ordered to pay for the damage that he had caused.
The Reporter described how the large entertaining room in Rainford Village Hall had recently been "gaily hung with festoons and mottoes" for the 22nd annual whist drive organised by Rainford Cycle Club.
The paper also reported how there had been a curious "freak of nature" in Haydock on Christmas Day.
A litter of nine pigs had been born on the farm of Harry Case at the New Boston Colliery Yard.
The paper said that one of the piglets was found to possess what it described as a "miniature elephant's head, perfect in shape and form, except that the tusks were missing, though the trunk was visible."
The eyes were said not to have been in the usual position, with one being located where its mouth should have been. The two front feet of the animal also resembled those of a cow and had hooked toes.
The Reporter said the "freak pig" was bald and three times the size of the others that had been born. Its body was now on show at the Commercial Inn in Platt Bridge.
On the 10th what the Reporter described as a "handsome war memorial cottage hospital, erected in memory of the fallen of Newton-in-Makerfield", was opened by Lady Collingwood.
She was the wife of a director of the Vulcan foundry in Newton. The hospital was located in Bradlegh Road, on a site donated by Lord Newton.
Since Boxing Day the Theatre Royal in St Helens had been in panto mode with a performance of the "gorgeous comic pantomime" Red Riding Hood.
And from the 12th an "up-to-date version" of Robinson Crusoe was performed while the Hippodrome had a play called Irish And Proud Of It.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the man who threatened to pull a policeman's liver out, Rainford Potteries fancy dress ball, concern over road safety and how a Christmas morning raffle of geese in Thatto Heath led to a court case.