IOO YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (9 - 15 OCTOBER 1923)
This week's many stories include the cheeky Boundary Road baths bike thief, the gambling house in Sutton, Cholerton's wireless sale, the made-to-measure corsets, the increase in evictions of tenants, the fear of a blaze at Beecham's and the sawing of a woman in half at the Hippodrome.
We begin on the 9th with a concert by the St Helens Glee Club at the Town Hall. In March the town's premier male voice choir had performed for an hour on the British Broadcasting Company's radio station in Manchester. Surgeon Dr Stanley Siddall from Prescot Road was in charge of the choir and in its review of their Town Hall concert, the St Helens Reporter wrote: "The audience was as satisfactory in its numbers as it was unstinted in its appreciation of the sumptuous feast of music with which it was regaled."
In 1915 an Act had restricted the right of landlords to evict their tenants and prevented them from raising rents by unwarranted amounts. In 1923 some of these controls were lifted and on the 10th the St Helens County Court in East Street spent most of its sitting dealing with applications to evict tenants from their homes. During one case Judge Dowdall remarked: "It is a very unpleasant thing sitting here turning people out of their houses, as the owner has the advantage under the law."
That case concerned an elderly man who had claimed that he would be subjected to great hardship if he had to leave his home. But the owner of the property argued that it would be a greater hardship on him to have to go without it. It was one of the many consequences of the housing crisis in St Helens that was not getting any better. However, it was far from the case that all of the litigants were greedy landlords. Like today many of the owners only possessed one or two houses and they simply wanted to live in their own property that might be larger than their current abode.
It was considered far more serious to use your own house for gambling purposes than taking bets on the street. It was also more risky as dozens of men going to your home each day attracted attention. Many unemployed became involved in the illegal betting business, including Arthur Burrows of Lee Street in Sutton. When he appeared in St Helens Police Court on the 12th he said he could not find anything else to do. He certainly would not have found any other work so lucrative.
When the police raided Burrows house, they found 246 betting slips, as well as 24 football betting coupons. An accounts book showed profit for bets taken on October 3rd amounted to over £7. The wife of Arthur Burrows was charged with assisting her husband and she said that if they did not take bets they would have to go on the dole. She thought it was more to her credit to look after her own children in that way, rather than apply to the town to keep them through relief payments.
But although keeping a betting house could be very profitable, the penalties were harsh, particularly for repeat offenders. Burrows had two previous convictions for which he had been fined £5 and £10 and now faced a fine of £30. When Mrs Burrows was told she would be fined £5 for her part in the affair, she replied that she would rather go to prison: "Well, I will go down. I am the first in the family that has done it, but I don't care."
The junction near the Sefton Arms – often called Sefton Place – was the most congested and dangerous part of St Helens. A recent traffic census had revealed that over a 12-hour period on one particular day, over 4,000 vehicles of all kinds – from bicycles to heavy lorries – had passed that point. And so with traffic lights yet to be available, a policeman was charged with directing traffic on point duty at peak times.
The St Helens Reporter described on the 12th how when PC Spence had recently been waving his arms about at Sefton Place, he had seen clouds of smoke coming from Beecham's works in Westfield Street. It turned out that the premises were not on fire as had first been feared but that someone had dumped a load of waste paper in a furnace, which had set a chimney alight. That led to William Moss of North Road being summoned to court where he was fined 4 shillings.
Although there was a big growth in motorbike sales in St Helens during the ‘20s, the main mode of transport for the working man was still the push bike. A photograph of the bike shed at Clock Face Colliery from around 1930 (pictured above) shows hundreds of workers' machines all crammed in together. And with none of the security devices that are available today for bikes – and, of course, no CCTV to monitor the bike shed – anyone could help themselves to a machine. And some of the cheekiest thieves would "trade up" their old bike for a better model.
Charles Ennis was one of those who swapped his cycle for one that was newer. The 21-year-old from Frazer Street, near Jackson Street, had been to Boundary Road Baths leaving his machine in its cycle shed. But after having a swim he helped himself to Raymond Boult's newer bike leaving his old one behind. These days I don't expect bike thefts have a high priority with the police. But they were taken very seriously in 1923 and Det. Sgt Latus was put in charge of the case.
The unauthorised swap had taken place in mid-August and one might have thought that after a couple of months the theft would have been forgotten. But the detective persevered and finally tracked the machine down to Charles Ennis, despite the young man's attempts at changing the bike's appearance. Its handlebars were different, a back carrier had been removed and the lamp bracket and bell had also been changed.
Ennis insisted that he had bought the machine from a lad in Sutton. However, DS Latus was thorough in his searches and he found some of the original bike parts stashed in the cistern of Ennis's toilet. When asked in court this week if he understood the charge that he faced, Charles replied: "You had better ask my mother, there," pointing to a woman at the back of the room. I don't think they bothered to seek his mum's opinion but simply fined the young man £3.
"Why buy ready made corsets when you can have them made for you?" That was the question posed by Mrs Webster of North Road in her advert in the Reporter for custom-made corsets. "Every corset is made by me on the premises. Give me a call, and note the difference", continued her ad.
Last week I mentioned how 24-year-old Thomas Hamblett from Hard Lane had reported receiving lots of New York radio stations on his wireless set, as well as one emanating from the West Indies. This week Francis Cholerton had a big advert in the Reporter capitalising on the news, saying:
"Now is the time to treat yourself to a receiving set. All prices are reduced at Cholerton's in Bridge Street. Why be content to listen to just what is going on in St. Helens, when one can listen to music from London, Paris and America? One of my customers, Mr. T. Hamblett, has heard music from the West Indies, about 6,000 miles away."
The advert was a bit disingenuous. To receive foreign stations in St Helens you would first of all need a good valve set and a high outdoor aerial. And the opportunity to pick up signals from across the Atlantic would only be practical in the small hours during winter. Tom Hamblett had last week revealed that the music that he had listened to from the West Indies had been "Yes, we have no bananas." I expect the BBC Manchester station would have been playing that as well, in much better quality and not in the middle of the night!
And finally, in their advert in the St Helens Reporter in November 1921, the Hippodrome had described the headline act that was performing there that week: "P. T. Selbit demonstrates an Amazing Scientific Fact, SAWING THRO' A WOMAN, while she is held by four members of the audience. A sensation suitable for all the family to see. You may bring your own saw and conduct the operation at any performance. The greatest riddle of the age."
The Corporation Street theatre was moving away from music hall turns to films and this week (and next) they said they would be explaining the riddle by screening a film called 'Sawing A Lady in Half'. Featuring a magician called John E. Coutts, the 1922 production came in two parts (rather appropriately!), with the second half screened next week which supposedly explained how the illusion was performed.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include Rainford's deadly delph pool, the drunken miner in Robins Lane who told a policeman to drop dead, a review of the Health Week in St Helens and the cheap train tickets to watch Man Utd and Man City.
We begin on the 9th with a concert by the St Helens Glee Club at the Town Hall. In March the town's premier male voice choir had performed for an hour on the British Broadcasting Company's radio station in Manchester. Surgeon Dr Stanley Siddall from Prescot Road was in charge of the choir and in its review of their Town Hall concert, the St Helens Reporter wrote: "The audience was as satisfactory in its numbers as it was unstinted in its appreciation of the sumptuous feast of music with which it was regaled."
In 1915 an Act had restricted the right of landlords to evict their tenants and prevented them from raising rents by unwarranted amounts. In 1923 some of these controls were lifted and on the 10th the St Helens County Court in East Street spent most of its sitting dealing with applications to evict tenants from their homes. During one case Judge Dowdall remarked: "It is a very unpleasant thing sitting here turning people out of their houses, as the owner has the advantage under the law."
That case concerned an elderly man who had claimed that he would be subjected to great hardship if he had to leave his home. But the owner of the property argued that it would be a greater hardship on him to have to go without it. It was one of the many consequences of the housing crisis in St Helens that was not getting any better. However, it was far from the case that all of the litigants were greedy landlords. Like today many of the owners only possessed one or two houses and they simply wanted to live in their own property that might be larger than their current abode.
It was considered far more serious to use your own house for gambling purposes than taking bets on the street. It was also more risky as dozens of men going to your home each day attracted attention. Many unemployed became involved in the illegal betting business, including Arthur Burrows of Lee Street in Sutton. When he appeared in St Helens Police Court on the 12th he said he could not find anything else to do. He certainly would not have found any other work so lucrative.
When the police raided Burrows house, they found 246 betting slips, as well as 24 football betting coupons. An accounts book showed profit for bets taken on October 3rd amounted to over £7. The wife of Arthur Burrows was charged with assisting her husband and she said that if they did not take bets they would have to go on the dole. She thought it was more to her credit to look after her own children in that way, rather than apply to the town to keep them through relief payments.
But although keeping a betting house could be very profitable, the penalties were harsh, particularly for repeat offenders. Burrows had two previous convictions for which he had been fined £5 and £10 and now faced a fine of £30. When Mrs Burrows was told she would be fined £5 for her part in the affair, she replied that she would rather go to prison: "Well, I will go down. I am the first in the family that has done it, but I don't care."
The junction near the Sefton Arms – often called Sefton Place – was the most congested and dangerous part of St Helens. A recent traffic census had revealed that over a 12-hour period on one particular day, over 4,000 vehicles of all kinds – from bicycles to heavy lorries – had passed that point. And so with traffic lights yet to be available, a policeman was charged with directing traffic on point duty at peak times.
The St Helens Reporter described on the 12th how when PC Spence had recently been waving his arms about at Sefton Place, he had seen clouds of smoke coming from Beecham's works in Westfield Street. It turned out that the premises were not on fire as had first been feared but that someone had dumped a load of waste paper in a furnace, which had set a chimney alight. That led to William Moss of North Road being summoned to court where he was fined 4 shillings.
Charles Ennis was one of those who swapped his cycle for one that was newer. The 21-year-old from Frazer Street, near Jackson Street, had been to Boundary Road Baths leaving his machine in its cycle shed. But after having a swim he helped himself to Raymond Boult's newer bike leaving his old one behind. These days I don't expect bike thefts have a high priority with the police. But they were taken very seriously in 1923 and Det. Sgt Latus was put in charge of the case.
The unauthorised swap had taken place in mid-August and one might have thought that after a couple of months the theft would have been forgotten. But the detective persevered and finally tracked the machine down to Charles Ennis, despite the young man's attempts at changing the bike's appearance. Its handlebars were different, a back carrier had been removed and the lamp bracket and bell had also been changed.
Ennis insisted that he had bought the machine from a lad in Sutton. However, DS Latus was thorough in his searches and he found some of the original bike parts stashed in the cistern of Ennis's toilet. When asked in court this week if he understood the charge that he faced, Charles replied: "You had better ask my mother, there," pointing to a woman at the back of the room. I don't think they bothered to seek his mum's opinion but simply fined the young man £3.
"Why buy ready made corsets when you can have them made for you?" That was the question posed by Mrs Webster of North Road in her advert in the Reporter for custom-made corsets. "Every corset is made by me on the premises. Give me a call, and note the difference", continued her ad.
Last week I mentioned how 24-year-old Thomas Hamblett from Hard Lane had reported receiving lots of New York radio stations on his wireless set, as well as one emanating from the West Indies. This week Francis Cholerton had a big advert in the Reporter capitalising on the news, saying:
"Now is the time to treat yourself to a receiving set. All prices are reduced at Cholerton's in Bridge Street. Why be content to listen to just what is going on in St. Helens, when one can listen to music from London, Paris and America? One of my customers, Mr. T. Hamblett, has heard music from the West Indies, about 6,000 miles away."
The advert was a bit disingenuous. To receive foreign stations in St Helens you would first of all need a good valve set and a high outdoor aerial. And the opportunity to pick up signals from across the Atlantic would only be practical in the small hours during winter. Tom Hamblett had last week revealed that the music that he had listened to from the West Indies had been "Yes, we have no bananas." I expect the BBC Manchester station would have been playing that as well, in much better quality and not in the middle of the night!
And finally, in their advert in the St Helens Reporter in November 1921, the Hippodrome had described the headline act that was performing there that week: "P. T. Selbit demonstrates an Amazing Scientific Fact, SAWING THRO' A WOMAN, while she is held by four members of the audience. A sensation suitable for all the family to see. You may bring your own saw and conduct the operation at any performance. The greatest riddle of the age."
The Corporation Street theatre was moving away from music hall turns to films and this week (and next) they said they would be explaining the riddle by screening a film called 'Sawing A Lady in Half'. Featuring a magician called John E. Coutts, the 1922 production came in two parts (rather appropriately!), with the second half screened next week which supposedly explained how the illusion was performed.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include Rainford's deadly delph pool, the drunken miner in Robins Lane who told a policeman to drop dead, a review of the Health Week in St Helens and the cheap train tickets to watch Man Utd and Man City.
This week's many stories include the cheeky Boundary Road baths bike thief, the gambling house in Sutton, Cholerton's wireless sale, the made-to-measure corsets, the increase in evictions of tenants, the fear of a blaze at Beecham's and the sawing of a woman in half at the Hippodrome.
We begin on the 9th with a concert by the St Helens Glee Club at the Town Hall. In March the town's premier male voice choir had performed for an hour on the British Broadcasting Company's radio station in Manchester.
Surgeon Dr Stanley Siddall from Prescot Road was in charge of the choir and in its review of their Town Hall concert, the St Helens Reporter wrote:
"The audience was as satisfactory in its numbers as it was unstinted in its appreciation of the sumptuous feast of music with which it was regaled."
In 1915 an Act had restricted the right of landlords to evict their tenants and prevented them from raising rents by unwarranted amounts.
In 1923 some of these controls were lifted and on the 10th the St Helens County Court in East Street spent most of its sitting dealing with applications to evict tenants from their homes. During one case Judge Dowdall remarked:
"It is a very unpleasant thing sitting here turning people out of their houses, as the owner has the advantage under the law."
That case concerned an elderly man who had claimed that he would be subjected to great hardship if he had to leave his home.
But the owner of the property argued that it would be a greater hardship on him to have to go without it.
It was one of the many consequences of the housing crisis in St Helens that was not getting any better.
However, it was far from the case that all of the litigants were greedy landlords.
Like today many of the owners only possessed one or two houses and they simply wanted to live in their own property that might be larger than their current abode.
It was considered far more serious to use your own house for gambling purposes than taking bets on the street.
It was also more risky as dozens of men going to your home each day attracted attention.
Many unemployed became involved in the illegal betting business, including Arthur Burrows of Lee Street in Sutton.
When he appeared in St Helens Police Court on the 12th he said he could not find anything else to do. He certainly would not have found any other work so lucrative.
When the police raided Burrows house, they found 246 betting slips, as well as 24 football betting coupons. An accounts book showed profit for bets taken on October 3rd amounted to over £7.
The wife of Arthur Burrows was charged with assisting her husband and she said that if they did not take bets they would have to go on the dole.
She thought it was more to her credit to look after her own children in that way, rather than apply to the town to keep them through relief payments.
But although keeping a betting house could be very profitable, the penalties were harsh, particularly for repeat offenders.
Burrows had two previous convictions for which he had been fined £5 and £10 and now faced a fine of £30.
When Mrs Burrows was told she would be fined £5 for her part in the affair, she replied that she would rather go to prison:
"Well, I will go down. I am the first in the family that has done it, but I don't care."
The junction near the Sefton Arms – often called Sefton Place – was the most congested and dangerous part of St Helens.
A recent traffic census had revealed that over a 12-hour period on one particular day, over 4,000 vehicles of all kinds – from bicycles to heavy lorries – had passed that point.
And so with traffic lights yet to be available, a policeman was charged with directing traffic on point duty at peak times.
The St Helens Reporter described on the 12th how when PC Spence had recently been waving his arms about at Sefton Place, he had seen clouds of smoke coming from Beecham's works in Westfield Street.
It turned out that the premises were not on fire as had first been feared but that someone had dumped a load of waste paper in a furnace, which had set a chimney alight.
That led to William Moss of North Road being summoned to court where he was fined 4 shillings.
Although there was a big growth in motorbike sales in St Helens during the ‘20s, the main mode of transport for the working man was still the push bike.
A photograph of the bike shed at Clock Face Colliery from around 1930 (pictured above) shows hundreds of workers' machines all crammed in together.
And with none of the security devices that are available today for bikes – and, of course, no CCTV to monitor the bike shed – anyone could help themselves to a machine.
And some of the cheekiest thieves would "trade up" their old bike for a better model.
Charles Ennis was one of those who swapped his cycle for one that was newer. The 21-year-old from Frazer Street, near Jackson Street, had been to Boundary Road Baths leaving his machine in its cycle shed.
But after having a swim he helped himself to Raymond Boult's newer bike leaving his old one behind. These days I don't expect bike thefts have a high priority with the police.
But they were taken very seriously in 1923 and Det. Sgt Latus was put in charge of the case.
The unauthorised swap had taken place in mid-August and one might have thought that after a couple of months the theft would have been forgotten.
But the detective persevered and finally tracked the machine down to Charles Ennis, despite the young man's attempts at changing the bike's appearance.
Its handlebars were different, a back carrier had been removed and the lamp bracket and bell had also been changed.
Ennis insisted that he had bought the machine from a lad in Sutton. However, DS Latus was thorough in his searches and he found some of the original bike parts stashed in the cistern of Ennis's toilet.
When asked in court this week if he understood the charge that he faced, Charles replied: "You had better ask my mother, there," pointing to a woman at the back of the room.
I don't think they bothered to seek his mum's opinion but simply fined the young man £3.
"Why buy ready made corsets when you can have them made for you?" That was the question posed by Mrs Webster of North Road in her advert in the Reporter for custom-made corsets.
"Every corset is made by me on the premises. Give me a call, and note the difference", continued her ad.
Last week I mentioned how 24-year-old Thomas Hamblett from Hard Lane had reported receiving lots of New York radio stations on his wireless set, as well as one emanating from the West Indies.
This week Francis Cholerton had a big advert in the Reporter capitalising on the news, saying:
"Now is the time to treat yourself to a receiving set. All prices are reduced at Cholerton's in Bridge Street. Why be content to listen to just what is going on in St. Helens, when one can listen to music from London, Paris and America?
"One of my customers, Mr. T. Hamblett, has heard music from the West Indies, about 6,000 miles away."
The advert was a bit disingenuous. To receive foreign stations in St Helens you would first of all need a good valve set and a high outdoor aerial.
And the opportunity to pick up signals from across the Atlantic would only be practical in the small hours during winter.
Tom Hamblett had last week revealed that the music that he had listened to from the West Indies had been "Yes, we have no bananas."
I expect the BBC Manchester station would have been playing that as well, in much better quality and not in the middle of the night!
And finally, in their advert in the St Helens Reporter in November 1921, the Hippodrome had described the headline act that was performing there that week:
"P. T. Selbit demonstrates an Amazing Scientific Fact, SAWING THRO' A WOMAN, while she is held by four members of the audience. A sensation suitable for all the family to see. You may bring your own saw and conduct the operation at any performance. The greatest riddle of the age."
The Corporation Street theatre was moving away from music hall turns to films and this week (and next) they said they would be explaining the riddle by screening a film called 'Sawing A Lady in Half'.
Featuring a magician called John E. Coutts, the 1922 production came in two parts (rather appropriately!), with the second half screened next week which supposedly explained how the illusion was performed.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include Rainford's deadly delph pool, the drunken miner in Robins Lane who told a policeman to drop dead, a review of the Health Week in St Helens and the cheap train tickets to watch Man Utd and Man City.
We begin on the 9th with a concert by the St Helens Glee Club at the Town Hall. In March the town's premier male voice choir had performed for an hour on the British Broadcasting Company's radio station in Manchester.
Surgeon Dr Stanley Siddall from Prescot Road was in charge of the choir and in its review of their Town Hall concert, the St Helens Reporter wrote:
"The audience was as satisfactory in its numbers as it was unstinted in its appreciation of the sumptuous feast of music with which it was regaled."
In 1915 an Act had restricted the right of landlords to evict their tenants and prevented them from raising rents by unwarranted amounts.
In 1923 some of these controls were lifted and on the 10th the St Helens County Court in East Street spent most of its sitting dealing with applications to evict tenants from their homes. During one case Judge Dowdall remarked:
"It is a very unpleasant thing sitting here turning people out of their houses, as the owner has the advantage under the law."
That case concerned an elderly man who had claimed that he would be subjected to great hardship if he had to leave his home.
But the owner of the property argued that it would be a greater hardship on him to have to go without it.
It was one of the many consequences of the housing crisis in St Helens that was not getting any better.
However, it was far from the case that all of the litigants were greedy landlords.
Like today many of the owners only possessed one or two houses and they simply wanted to live in their own property that might be larger than their current abode.
It was considered far more serious to use your own house for gambling purposes than taking bets on the street.
It was also more risky as dozens of men going to your home each day attracted attention.
Many unemployed became involved in the illegal betting business, including Arthur Burrows of Lee Street in Sutton.
When he appeared in St Helens Police Court on the 12th he said he could not find anything else to do. He certainly would not have found any other work so lucrative.
When the police raided Burrows house, they found 246 betting slips, as well as 24 football betting coupons. An accounts book showed profit for bets taken on October 3rd amounted to over £7.
The wife of Arthur Burrows was charged with assisting her husband and she said that if they did not take bets they would have to go on the dole.
She thought it was more to her credit to look after her own children in that way, rather than apply to the town to keep them through relief payments.
But although keeping a betting house could be very profitable, the penalties were harsh, particularly for repeat offenders.
Burrows had two previous convictions for which he had been fined £5 and £10 and now faced a fine of £30.
When Mrs Burrows was told she would be fined £5 for her part in the affair, she replied that she would rather go to prison:
"Well, I will go down. I am the first in the family that has done it, but I don't care."
The junction near the Sefton Arms – often called Sefton Place – was the most congested and dangerous part of St Helens.
A recent traffic census had revealed that over a 12-hour period on one particular day, over 4,000 vehicles of all kinds – from bicycles to heavy lorries – had passed that point.
And so with traffic lights yet to be available, a policeman was charged with directing traffic on point duty at peak times.
The St Helens Reporter described on the 12th how when PC Spence had recently been waving his arms about at Sefton Place, he had seen clouds of smoke coming from Beecham's works in Westfield Street.
It turned out that the premises were not on fire as had first been feared but that someone had dumped a load of waste paper in a furnace, which had set a chimney alight.
That led to William Moss of North Road being summoned to court where he was fined 4 shillings.
Although there was a big growth in motorbike sales in St Helens during the ‘20s, the main mode of transport for the working man was still the push bike.
And with none of the security devices that are available today for bikes – and, of course, no CCTV to monitor the bike shed – anyone could help themselves to a machine.
And some of the cheekiest thieves would "trade up" their old bike for a better model.
Charles Ennis was one of those who swapped his cycle for one that was newer. The 21-year-old from Frazer Street, near Jackson Street, had been to Boundary Road Baths leaving his machine in its cycle shed.
But after having a swim he helped himself to Raymond Boult's newer bike leaving his old one behind. These days I don't expect bike thefts have a high priority with the police.
But they were taken very seriously in 1923 and Det. Sgt Latus was put in charge of the case.
The unauthorised swap had taken place in mid-August and one might have thought that after a couple of months the theft would have been forgotten.
But the detective persevered and finally tracked the machine down to Charles Ennis, despite the young man's attempts at changing the bike's appearance.
Its handlebars were different, a back carrier had been removed and the lamp bracket and bell had also been changed.
Ennis insisted that he had bought the machine from a lad in Sutton. However, DS Latus was thorough in his searches and he found some of the original bike parts stashed in the cistern of Ennis's toilet.
When asked in court this week if he understood the charge that he faced, Charles replied: "You had better ask my mother, there," pointing to a woman at the back of the room.
I don't think they bothered to seek his mum's opinion but simply fined the young man £3.
"Why buy ready made corsets when you can have them made for you?" That was the question posed by Mrs Webster of North Road in her advert in the Reporter for custom-made corsets.
"Every corset is made by me on the premises. Give me a call, and note the difference", continued her ad.
Last week I mentioned how 24-year-old Thomas Hamblett from Hard Lane had reported receiving lots of New York radio stations on his wireless set, as well as one emanating from the West Indies.
This week Francis Cholerton had a big advert in the Reporter capitalising on the news, saying:
"Now is the time to treat yourself to a receiving set. All prices are reduced at Cholerton's in Bridge Street. Why be content to listen to just what is going on in St. Helens, when one can listen to music from London, Paris and America?
"One of my customers, Mr. T. Hamblett, has heard music from the West Indies, about 6,000 miles away."
The advert was a bit disingenuous. To receive foreign stations in St Helens you would first of all need a good valve set and a high outdoor aerial.
And the opportunity to pick up signals from across the Atlantic would only be practical in the small hours during winter.
Tom Hamblett had last week revealed that the music that he had listened to from the West Indies had been "Yes, we have no bananas."
I expect the BBC Manchester station would have been playing that as well, in much better quality and not in the middle of the night!
And finally, in their advert in the St Helens Reporter in November 1921, the Hippodrome had described the headline act that was performing there that week:
"P. T. Selbit demonstrates an Amazing Scientific Fact, SAWING THRO' A WOMAN, while she is held by four members of the audience. A sensation suitable for all the family to see. You may bring your own saw and conduct the operation at any performance. The greatest riddle of the age."
The Corporation Street theatre was moving away from music hall turns to films and this week (and next) they said they would be explaining the riddle by screening a film called 'Sawing A Lady in Half'.
Featuring a magician called John E. Coutts, the 1922 production came in two parts (rather appropriately!), with the second half screened next week which supposedly explained how the illusion was performed.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include Rainford's deadly delph pool, the drunken miner in Robins Lane who told a policeman to drop dead, a review of the Health Week in St Helens and the cheap train tickets to watch Man Utd and Man City.