FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 13 - 19 OCTOBER 1975
This week's many stories include Wayne Fontana's row with Saints' Knowsley Cabaret Bar, the plans to create a women's refuge in St Helens, the retirement of the controversial Dean of St Helens, the female crane drivers in Bold and there's criticism of the bus services in Newton, St Helens and Rainford.
Last week I wrote how Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders were due to perform at the Knowsley Cabaret Bar in Saints' Sports & Leisure Centre in Dunriding Lane. But on the day in question, Entertainments Manager Fred Shawcross had to make the embarrassing announcement to audience members that the ‘60s pop star would not be appearing. It was not a case of illness but a wrangle over fees, with Mr Shawcross telling the St Helens Reporter that he refused to be held to ransom by Fontana:
"Wayne has let me down and caused me a great deal of pain and embarrassment. No performer is bigger than the club, and I won't be held to ransom two days before a show is due to go on. I could have told the audience that Wayne was sick, but I felt they had to be told the real reason for calling off the show."
And that reason, according to the Ents Manager, was that Wayne Fontana's management had suddenly demanded an extra £50 on top of the agreed fee of £250. But the pop star had a different take on things. This week Wayne and his manager turned up at the Reporter's office to apologise for the inconvenience caused to those who had planned to see him and to claim his no-show was not his fault.
The Knowsley Cabaret Bar used an agency to book their acts called the Excell Agency. Wayne and his agent reckoned the fee that had been agreed with Excell was £300 and at the last minute the agency had wanted to knock £50 off. But at least the Reporter got a nice story out of the dispute and a picture of the pop star in their office!
This week it was announced that the Very Rev Monsignor Hugh Fitzpatrick was stepping down as Dean of St Helens. The 75-year-old was clearly a very dedicated man but his 15-year tenure as leader of the 36,000 Catholics in St Helens had also been a controversial one. In 1971 after being invited to watch a private screening of a sex education film at the Capitol, the Dean had soon walked out. "It was revolting", he declared. "I'd had enough after 10 minutes."
Later in the year the Dean criticised the newly created St Helens branch of Alcoholics Anonymous. That was after they'd complained that none of the forty or so Catholic priests in the area had attended their inaugural meeting in spite of invitations being sent out to them all.
In a Christmas message from the pulpit of Sacred Heart Church, the Dean had upset people by launching a blistering attack on the policy of internment of IRA prisoners without trial, declaring that British soldiers were the "instruments of injustice".
And the Dean had also publicly supported the headmaster of Campion School for Boys in St Helens after he was convicted of indecently assaulting one of his pupils. The new Roman Catholic Dean of St Helens was going to be the Rev Father John Tickle, the parish priest of St Austin's in Thatto Heath.
On the 15th Canon Harry Bradshaw, the vicar of St Thomas's Church in Westfield Street, died at the vicarage in St George's Road after a long illness. In December the 63-year-old would have completed 25 years of service at St Thomas.
If like me you thought working as a crane driver would have been very much a male preserve in the past, with no or few opportunities for women, think again. On the 17th Elsie Stubbs from Rosehill Avenue in Bold retired from her job at nearby Capper Neil. The 60-year-old had worked for the engineering firm as an overhead crane operator for 32 years and had been one of 16 women crane drivers employed there.
That said it was a man from St Helens who this week was judged the best forklift truck driver in the country. John Howarth from Hornby Crescent in Clock Face beat 650 others in a national three-day competition at Olympia. The United Glass worker scooped seven trophies and a cheque for £150.
The St Helens Reporter on the 17th announced plans for a refuge for so-called "battered wives" in St Helens. Social services officer Martin McKenzie had set up a 6-person committee to establish what the paper called a safe house. It was estimated that 45 women from St Helens – many with their children – had sought refuge in three similar safe homes in Liverpool, Sefton and Skelmersdale but others had been turned away through lack of space. The committee was appealing for help from people interested in raising funds for the refuge which they hoped would be large enough to house at least eight families.
I'd never heard of Sunny Bisk breakfast cereal, even though it had been launched as far back as 1933, with Weetabix dominating the wheat biscuit cereal market. But Margery Martlew from Paisley Avenue in Blackbrook was very familiar with the product. She was pictured in the Reporter inside Lennon's supermarket in Ormskirk Street after coming first in a competition in which she had to say why she liked the breakfast cereal. Margery's prize was £50 worth of groceries from Lennon's.
Bill and Olive Sutton from Mount Pleasant Avenue were also photographed having won £1,000 from Ashalls of City Road, which had just been renamed Skipper. They had picked out the most important features of a successful garage in a contest that had been open to anyone buying a car from the firm during July. And headmaster Ron Heavey of Marshalls Cross Road was also pictured after winning a competition at St Helens Co-op Travel which entitled him and his wife Rita to eight days in Benidorm.
The Reporter described how the anger of bus passengers within the St Helens borough had been brought out into the open at a Merseyside County Council Passenger Transport Committee meeting. County Councillor Owen Conheeney told the committee that he was disgusted by what he said was their failure to live up to their legal obligations. His attack came as some Liverpool councillors argued over the city's football bus service.
Councillor Conheeney remarked that people living in some areas of the St Helens borough would be grateful to see any kind of bus. He claimed that he had raised the matter repeatedly but no real action had been taken. The councillor represented Newton and stated that one housing estate there with over 4,000 residents did not have any bus service and claimed there was a marked difference as regards transport between the treatment of the inner city and the outer areas of the county, declaring:
"We are not going to stand by and see our people treated as third-class citizens, when they are paying the same rates." Councillor Conheeney was supported in his view by Cllr George Brownlow, who said he was worried that some districts in St Helens weren't receiving proper bus services. And concern was also raised about the transport situation in Rainford. But the Director General of the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive, Arthur Moffat, said he hoped to bring the committee better news on services in the future.
The Snoopy Club in the Reporter was introducing its young readers to the concept of recycling: "Hello Children: Every day we throw away tons of rubbish – tins, paper, glass and countless other objects end up in dust bins. But not all rubbish is useless. Tins and packets, for example, can be used again to make all sorts of things. This is called re-cycling.
"It can be done on a big scale – old paper can be shredded and made into cardboard – or you can do it yourself in a small way. With Christmas getting nearer, I've got some ideas for you this week of things you can make as presents for your family and friends using things which would otherwise be thrown away. You will need empty cheese boxes, margarine cartons, tin cans and old magazines."
And finally, on the 19th 'Where Eagles Dare' replaced 'The Drowning Pool' at the ABC Savoy and, at the Capitol Cinema, 'Terror Of The Living Dead' was replaced for one-day only by 'The Concert For Bangladesh'.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the teenage firebugs in Haresfinch Park, the hypocritical prosecution of Ena Shaw, the St Helens hospital doctors that were refusing to treat most non-urgent cases and the increasing crime in St Helens.
Last week I wrote how Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders were due to perform at the Knowsley Cabaret Bar in Saints' Sports & Leisure Centre in Dunriding Lane. But on the day in question, Entertainments Manager Fred Shawcross had to make the embarrassing announcement to audience members that the ‘60s pop star would not be appearing. It was not a case of illness but a wrangle over fees, with Mr Shawcross telling the St Helens Reporter that he refused to be held to ransom by Fontana:
"Wayne has let me down and caused me a great deal of pain and embarrassment. No performer is bigger than the club, and I won't be held to ransom two days before a show is due to go on. I could have told the audience that Wayne was sick, but I felt they had to be told the real reason for calling off the show."
And that reason, according to the Ents Manager, was that Wayne Fontana's management had suddenly demanded an extra £50 on top of the agreed fee of £250. But the pop star had a different take on things. This week Wayne and his manager turned up at the Reporter's office to apologise for the inconvenience caused to those who had planned to see him and to claim his no-show was not his fault.
The Knowsley Cabaret Bar used an agency to book their acts called the Excell Agency. Wayne and his agent reckoned the fee that had been agreed with Excell was £300 and at the last minute the agency had wanted to knock £50 off. But at least the Reporter got a nice story out of the dispute and a picture of the pop star in their office!
This week it was announced that the Very Rev Monsignor Hugh Fitzpatrick was stepping down as Dean of St Helens. The 75-year-old was clearly a very dedicated man but his 15-year tenure as leader of the 36,000 Catholics in St Helens had also been a controversial one. In 1971 after being invited to watch a private screening of a sex education film at the Capitol, the Dean had soon walked out. "It was revolting", he declared. "I'd had enough after 10 minutes."
Later in the year the Dean criticised the newly created St Helens branch of Alcoholics Anonymous. That was after they'd complained that none of the forty or so Catholic priests in the area had attended their inaugural meeting in spite of invitations being sent out to them all.
In a Christmas message from the pulpit of Sacred Heart Church, the Dean had upset people by launching a blistering attack on the policy of internment of IRA prisoners without trial, declaring that British soldiers were the "instruments of injustice".
And the Dean had also publicly supported the headmaster of Campion School for Boys in St Helens after he was convicted of indecently assaulting one of his pupils. The new Roman Catholic Dean of St Helens was going to be the Rev Father John Tickle, the parish priest of St Austin's in Thatto Heath.
On the 15th Canon Harry Bradshaw, the vicar of St Thomas's Church in Westfield Street, died at the vicarage in St George's Road after a long illness. In December the 63-year-old would have completed 25 years of service at St Thomas.
If like me you thought working as a crane driver would have been very much a male preserve in the past, with no or few opportunities for women, think again. On the 17th Elsie Stubbs from Rosehill Avenue in Bold retired from her job at nearby Capper Neil. The 60-year-old had worked for the engineering firm as an overhead crane operator for 32 years and had been one of 16 women crane drivers employed there.
That said it was a man from St Helens who this week was judged the best forklift truck driver in the country. John Howarth from Hornby Crescent in Clock Face beat 650 others in a national three-day competition at Olympia. The United Glass worker scooped seven trophies and a cheque for £150.
The St Helens Reporter on the 17th announced plans for a refuge for so-called "battered wives" in St Helens. Social services officer Martin McKenzie had set up a 6-person committee to establish what the paper called a safe house. It was estimated that 45 women from St Helens – many with their children – had sought refuge in three similar safe homes in Liverpool, Sefton and Skelmersdale but others had been turned away through lack of space. The committee was appealing for help from people interested in raising funds for the refuge which they hoped would be large enough to house at least eight families.
Bill and Olive Sutton from Mount Pleasant Avenue were also photographed having won £1,000 from Ashalls of City Road, which had just been renamed Skipper. They had picked out the most important features of a successful garage in a contest that had been open to anyone buying a car from the firm during July. And headmaster Ron Heavey of Marshalls Cross Road was also pictured after winning a competition at St Helens Co-op Travel which entitled him and his wife Rita to eight days in Benidorm.
The Reporter described how the anger of bus passengers within the St Helens borough had been brought out into the open at a Merseyside County Council Passenger Transport Committee meeting. County Councillor Owen Conheeney told the committee that he was disgusted by what he said was their failure to live up to their legal obligations. His attack came as some Liverpool councillors argued over the city's football bus service.
Councillor Conheeney remarked that people living in some areas of the St Helens borough would be grateful to see any kind of bus. He claimed that he had raised the matter repeatedly but no real action had been taken. The councillor represented Newton and stated that one housing estate there with over 4,000 residents did not have any bus service and claimed there was a marked difference as regards transport between the treatment of the inner city and the outer areas of the county, declaring:
"We are not going to stand by and see our people treated as third-class citizens, when they are paying the same rates." Councillor Conheeney was supported in his view by Cllr George Brownlow, who said he was worried that some districts in St Helens weren't receiving proper bus services. And concern was also raised about the transport situation in Rainford. But the Director General of the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive, Arthur Moffat, said he hoped to bring the committee better news on services in the future.
The Snoopy Club in the Reporter was introducing its young readers to the concept of recycling: "Hello Children: Every day we throw away tons of rubbish – tins, paper, glass and countless other objects end up in dust bins. But not all rubbish is useless. Tins and packets, for example, can be used again to make all sorts of things. This is called re-cycling.
"It can be done on a big scale – old paper can be shredded and made into cardboard – or you can do it yourself in a small way. With Christmas getting nearer, I've got some ideas for you this week of things you can make as presents for your family and friends using things which would otherwise be thrown away. You will need empty cheese boxes, margarine cartons, tin cans and old magazines."
And finally, on the 19th 'Where Eagles Dare' replaced 'The Drowning Pool' at the ABC Savoy and, at the Capitol Cinema, 'Terror Of The Living Dead' was replaced for one-day only by 'The Concert For Bangladesh'.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the teenage firebugs in Haresfinch Park, the hypocritical prosecution of Ena Shaw, the St Helens hospital doctors that were refusing to treat most non-urgent cases and the increasing crime in St Helens.
This week's many stories include Wayne Fontana's row with Saints' Knowsley Cabaret Bar, the plans to create a women's refuge in St Helens, the retirement of the controversial Dean of St Helens, the female crane drivers in Bold and there's criticism of the bus services in Newton, St Helens and Rainford.
Last week I wrote how Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders were due to perform at the Knowsley Cabaret Bar in Saints' Sports & Leisure Centre in Dunriding Lane.
But on the day in question, Entertainments Manager Fred Shawcross had to make the embarrassing announcement to audience members that the ‘60s pop star would not be appearing.
It was not a case of illness but a wrangle over fees, with Mr Shawcross telling the St Helens Reporter that he refused to be held to ransom by Fontana:
"Wayne has let me down and caused me a great deal of pain and embarrassment. No performer is bigger than the club, and I won't be held to ransom two days before a show is due to go on. I could have told the audience that Wayne was sick, but I felt they had to be told the real reason for calling off the show."
And that reason, according to the Ents Manager, was that Wayne Fontana's management had suddenly demanded an extra £50 on top of the agreed fee of £250.
But the pop star had a different take on things. This week Wayne and his manager turned up at the Reporter's office to apologise for the inconvenience caused to those who had planned to see him and to claim his no-show was not his fault.
The Knowsley Cabaret Bar used an agency to book their acts called the Excell Agency.
Wayne and his agent reckoned the fee that had been agreed with Excell was £300 and at the last minute the agency had wanted to knock £50 off.
But at least the Reporter got a nice story out of the dispute and a picture of the pop star in their office!
This week it was announced that the Very Rev Monsignor Hugh Fitzpatrick was stepping down as Dean of St Helens.
The 75-year-old was clearly a very dedicated man but his 15-year tenure as leader of the 36,000 Catholics in St Helens had also been a controversial one.
In 1971 after being invited to watch a private screening of a sex education film at the Capitol, the Dean had soon walked out.
"It was revolting", he declared. "I'd had enough after 10 minutes."
Later in the year the Dean criticised the newly created St Helens branch of Alcoholics Anonymous.
That was after they'd complained that none of the forty or so Catholic priests in the area had attended their inaugural meeting in spite of invitations being sent out to them all.
In a Christmas message from the pulpit of Sacred Heart Church, the Dean had upset people by launching a blistering attack on the policy of internment of IRA prisoners without trial, declaring that British soldiers were the "instruments of injustice".
And the Dean had also publicly supported the headmaster of Campion School for Boys in St Helens after he was convicted of indecently assaulting one of his pupils.
The new Roman Catholic Dean of St Helens was going to be the Rev Father John Tickle, the parish priest of St Austin's in Thatto Heath.
On the 15th Canon Harry Bradshaw, the vicar of St Thomas's Church in Westfield Street, died at the vicarage in St George's Road after a long illness.
In December the 63-year-old would have completed 25 years of service at St Thomas.
If like me you thought working as a crane driver would have been very much a male preserve in the past, with no or few opportunities for women, think again.
On the 17th Elsie Stubbs from Rosehill Avenue in Bold retired from her job at nearby Capper Neil.
The 60-year-old had worked for the engineering firm as an overhead crane operator for 32 years and had been one of 16 women crane drivers employed there.
That said it was a man from St Helens who this week was judged the best forklift truck driver in the country.
John Howarth from Hornby Crescent in Clock Face beat 650 others in a national three-day competition at Olympia. The United Glass worker scooped seven trophies and a cheque for £150.
The St Helens Reporter on the 17th announced plans for a refuge for so-called "battered wives" in St Helens.
Social services officer Martin McKenzie had set up a 6-person committee to establish what the paper called a safe house.
It was estimated that 45 women from St Helens – many with their children – had sought refuge in three similar safe homes in Liverpool, Sefton and Skelmersdale but others had been turned away through lack of space.
The committee was appealing for help from people interested in raising funds for the refuge which they hoped would be large enough to house at least eight families.
I'd never heard of Sunny Bisk breakfast cereal, even though it had been launched as far back as 1933, with Weetabix dominating the wheat biscuit cereal market.
But Margery Martlew from Paisley Avenue in Blackbrook was very familiar with the product.
She was pictured in the Reporter inside Lennon's supermarket in Ormskirk Street after coming first in a competition in which she had to say why she liked the breakfast cereal.
Margery's prize was £50 worth of groceries from Lennon's.
Bill and Olive Sutton from Mount Pleasant Avenue were also photographed having won £1,000 from Ashalls of City Road, which had just been renamed Skipper.
They had picked out the most important features of a successful garage in a contest that had been open to anyone buying a car from the firm during July.
And headmaster Ron Heavey of Marshalls Cross Road was also pictured after winning a competition at St Helens Co-op Travel which entitled him and his wife Rita to eight days in Benidorm.
The Reporter described how the anger of bus passengers within the St Helens borough had been brought out into the open at a Merseyside County Council Passenger Transport Committee meeting.
County Councillor Owen Conheeney told the committee that he was disgusted by what he said was their failure to live up to their legal obligations.
His attack came as some Liverpool councillors argued over the city's football bus service.
Councillor Conheeney remarked that people living in some areas of the St Helens borough would be grateful to see any kind of bus.
He claimed that he had raised the matter repeatedly but no real action had been taken.
The councillor represented Newton and stated that one housing estate there with over 4,000 residents did not have any bus service and claimed there was a marked difference as regards transport between the treatment of the inner city and the outer areas of the county, declaring:
"We are not going to stand by and see our people treated as third-class citizens, when they are paying the same rates."
Councillor Conheeney was supported in his view by Cllr George Brownlow, who said he was worried that some districts in St Helens weren't receiving proper bus services.
And concern was also raised about the transport situation in Rainford. But the Director General of the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive, Arthur Moffat, said he hoped to bring the committee better news on services in the future.
The Snoopy Club in the Reporter was introducing its young readers to the concept of recycling:
"Hello Children: Every day we throw away tons of rubbish – tins, paper, glass and countless other objects end up in dust bins. But not all rubbish is useless. Tins and packets, for example, can be used again to make all sorts of things.
"This is called re-cycling. It can be done on a big scale – old paper can be shredded and made into cardboard – or you can do it yourself in a small way.
"With Christmas getting nearer, I've got some ideas for you this week of things you can make as presents for your family and friends using things which would otherwise be thrown away. You will need empty cheese boxes, margarine cartons, tin cans and old magazines."
And finally, on the 19th 'Where Eagles Dare' replaced 'The Drowning Pool' at the ABC Savoy and, at the Capitol Cinema, 'Terror Of The Living Dead' was replaced for one-day only by 'The Concert For Bangladesh'.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the teenage firebugs in Haresfinch Park, the hypocritical prosecution of Ena Shaw, the St Helens hospital doctors that were refusing to treat most non-urgent cases and the increasing crime in St Helens.
Last week I wrote how Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders were due to perform at the Knowsley Cabaret Bar in Saints' Sports & Leisure Centre in Dunriding Lane.
But on the day in question, Entertainments Manager Fred Shawcross had to make the embarrassing announcement to audience members that the ‘60s pop star would not be appearing.
It was not a case of illness but a wrangle over fees, with Mr Shawcross telling the St Helens Reporter that he refused to be held to ransom by Fontana:
"Wayne has let me down and caused me a great deal of pain and embarrassment. No performer is bigger than the club, and I won't be held to ransom two days before a show is due to go on. I could have told the audience that Wayne was sick, but I felt they had to be told the real reason for calling off the show."
And that reason, according to the Ents Manager, was that Wayne Fontana's management had suddenly demanded an extra £50 on top of the agreed fee of £250.
But the pop star had a different take on things. This week Wayne and his manager turned up at the Reporter's office to apologise for the inconvenience caused to those who had planned to see him and to claim his no-show was not his fault.
The Knowsley Cabaret Bar used an agency to book their acts called the Excell Agency.
Wayne and his agent reckoned the fee that had been agreed with Excell was £300 and at the last minute the agency had wanted to knock £50 off.
But at least the Reporter got a nice story out of the dispute and a picture of the pop star in their office!
This week it was announced that the Very Rev Monsignor Hugh Fitzpatrick was stepping down as Dean of St Helens.
The 75-year-old was clearly a very dedicated man but his 15-year tenure as leader of the 36,000 Catholics in St Helens had also been a controversial one.
In 1971 after being invited to watch a private screening of a sex education film at the Capitol, the Dean had soon walked out.
"It was revolting", he declared. "I'd had enough after 10 minutes."
Later in the year the Dean criticised the newly created St Helens branch of Alcoholics Anonymous.
That was after they'd complained that none of the forty or so Catholic priests in the area had attended their inaugural meeting in spite of invitations being sent out to them all.
In a Christmas message from the pulpit of Sacred Heart Church, the Dean had upset people by launching a blistering attack on the policy of internment of IRA prisoners without trial, declaring that British soldiers were the "instruments of injustice".
And the Dean had also publicly supported the headmaster of Campion School for Boys in St Helens after he was convicted of indecently assaulting one of his pupils.
The new Roman Catholic Dean of St Helens was going to be the Rev Father John Tickle, the parish priest of St Austin's in Thatto Heath.
On the 15th Canon Harry Bradshaw, the vicar of St Thomas's Church in Westfield Street, died at the vicarage in St George's Road after a long illness.
In December the 63-year-old would have completed 25 years of service at St Thomas.
If like me you thought working as a crane driver would have been very much a male preserve in the past, with no or few opportunities for women, think again.
On the 17th Elsie Stubbs from Rosehill Avenue in Bold retired from her job at nearby Capper Neil.
The 60-year-old had worked for the engineering firm as an overhead crane operator for 32 years and had been one of 16 women crane drivers employed there.
That said it was a man from St Helens who this week was judged the best forklift truck driver in the country.
John Howarth from Hornby Crescent in Clock Face beat 650 others in a national three-day competition at Olympia. The United Glass worker scooped seven trophies and a cheque for £150.
The St Helens Reporter on the 17th announced plans for a refuge for so-called "battered wives" in St Helens.
Social services officer Martin McKenzie had set up a 6-person committee to establish what the paper called a safe house.
It was estimated that 45 women from St Helens – many with their children – had sought refuge in three similar safe homes in Liverpool, Sefton and Skelmersdale but others had been turned away through lack of space.
The committee was appealing for help from people interested in raising funds for the refuge which they hoped would be large enough to house at least eight families.
I'd never heard of Sunny Bisk breakfast cereal, even though it had been launched as far back as 1933, with Weetabix dominating the wheat biscuit cereal market.
But Margery Martlew from Paisley Avenue in Blackbrook was very familiar with the product.
Margery's prize was £50 worth of groceries from Lennon's.
Bill and Olive Sutton from Mount Pleasant Avenue were also photographed having won £1,000 from Ashalls of City Road, which had just been renamed Skipper.
They had picked out the most important features of a successful garage in a contest that had been open to anyone buying a car from the firm during July.
And headmaster Ron Heavey of Marshalls Cross Road was also pictured after winning a competition at St Helens Co-op Travel which entitled him and his wife Rita to eight days in Benidorm.
The Reporter described how the anger of bus passengers within the St Helens borough had been brought out into the open at a Merseyside County Council Passenger Transport Committee meeting.
County Councillor Owen Conheeney told the committee that he was disgusted by what he said was their failure to live up to their legal obligations.
His attack came as some Liverpool councillors argued over the city's football bus service.
Councillor Conheeney remarked that people living in some areas of the St Helens borough would be grateful to see any kind of bus.
He claimed that he had raised the matter repeatedly but no real action had been taken.
The councillor represented Newton and stated that one housing estate there with over 4,000 residents did not have any bus service and claimed there was a marked difference as regards transport between the treatment of the inner city and the outer areas of the county, declaring:
"We are not going to stand by and see our people treated as third-class citizens, when they are paying the same rates."
Councillor Conheeney was supported in his view by Cllr George Brownlow, who said he was worried that some districts in St Helens weren't receiving proper bus services.
And concern was also raised about the transport situation in Rainford. But the Director General of the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive, Arthur Moffat, said he hoped to bring the committee better news on services in the future.
The Snoopy Club in the Reporter was introducing its young readers to the concept of recycling:
"Hello Children: Every day we throw away tons of rubbish – tins, paper, glass and countless other objects end up in dust bins. But not all rubbish is useless. Tins and packets, for example, can be used again to make all sorts of things.
"This is called re-cycling. It can be done on a big scale – old paper can be shredded and made into cardboard – or you can do it yourself in a small way.
"With Christmas getting nearer, I've got some ideas for you this week of things you can make as presents for your family and friends using things which would otherwise be thrown away. You will need empty cheese boxes, margarine cartons, tin cans and old magazines."
And finally, on the 19th 'Where Eagles Dare' replaced 'The Drowning Pool' at the ABC Savoy and, at the Capitol Cinema, 'Terror Of The Living Dead' was replaced for one-day only by 'The Concert For Bangladesh'.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the teenage firebugs in Haresfinch Park, the hypocritical prosecution of Ena Shaw, the St Helens hospital doctors that were refusing to treat most non-urgent cases and the increasing crime in St Helens.