FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (17th - 23rd JANUARY 1972)
This week's 15 stories include the shock closure announcement of Greenall's Hall Street brewery, the Bold Colliery pitman's pittance, a double-decker bus crashes in Prescot Road, proposals are made for a linear park in Rainford, Saints successfully trial a six tackle rule and St Helens Council approves seven major road improvement schemes.
We begin on the 17th with a meeting of the Rainford Highways Committee where frustration was expressed with Lancashire County Council. Several accidents had occurred on a narrow stretch of Crank Road and pleas for a wider carriageway were falling on deaf ears. Cllr. Walter Darlington said:
"I'm completely fed up with Lancashire County Council's attitude towards this problem. At one point the road is less than 16 feet wide and this is a dangerous traffic hazard when buses are using this route. This stretch is a death trap for pedestrians because of the lack of pavements." The committee resolved to re-submit a road-widening scheme in which the County would be invited to purchase land adjoining Crank Road to create a footpath and additional room for motorists.
Rainford's Town Planning Committee also met this week and heard that land surrounding the disused railway line that ran through the village might be turned into a park. Mr C. G. Tomlinson, the Divisional Planning Officer, made the suggestion for what would become known as the "linear park" – and the Government would pay 85% of its cost. Cllr. Audrey Berry declared: "This is excellent news. The park would be an extra amenity for the residents of Rainford, and it's a suggestion we should look at closely in the future."
A four-hour hearing took place at St Helens Magistrates Court this week to consider a council application to make up Green End Road. St Helens Corporation wanted residents of the street to pay half the £3,600 cost of roadworks – meaning a bill of around £90 for each household (about £1,300 in today's money), a number of whom were pensioners. The Town Hall officials argued that Green End Road was a private street – but the residents and magistrates disagreed – with the latter ruling it was a public highway and so the council had to find all the cash.
The Liverpool Echo reported on the 19th that an enforcement notice had been served on an unnamed waste disposal firm that had dumped a large number of drums believed to contain dangerous chemicals on a St Helens' refuse tip. Altogether 72 drums, which arrived in two loads, were placed on the tip off Sherdley Road and seen by a member of the Borough Engineer's planning staff while making a routine inspection.
"We became suspicious because the ends of the drums were sealed with concrete which had been covered with bitumen," said a spokesman for the Engineer's department. "It led us to believe that the drums contained some substance that was not allowed by the planning permission. We asked the firm to remove the drums and they did so. As far as we know the drums which came from a Merseyside firm, did not contain cyanide. An enforcement notice has been served by the Council on the firm that dumped the chemicals. We will now be able to take court proceedings if further material is tipped in contravention of the planning permission."
On the morning of the 20th, a double-decker St Helens Corporation bus that was being driven along Prescot Road, crashed into a wall, uprooted a tree and came to a halt inches from a concrete lamp post. Only the driver was injured but the bus was severely damaged after inexplicably swerving off the road. The no. 89 from Huyton ended up on the pavement in front of the home of Catherine Eckersley. The 84-year-old told the Reporter:
"I'd just got up and was getting dressed when I heard this tremendous bang. I looked out of the window and saw the bus. It was almost full of passengers. They started to get out and they were obviously shaken up. But only the driver was injured. He came into the house and we gave him a cup of tea. The others were very lucky. It could have been much worse."
The Hillsiders returned for their umpteenth gig at the Theatre Royal on the 20th and on the following evening there was a performance by the Foden and Fairey brass bands.
The district's worsening employment situation was revealed on the 20th when it was announced that almost 2,900 people were out of work – a rise of 210 on last month's figure. And there were just 104 vacant jobs in St Helens to go round. Part of the steep rise in the jobless was through the shutdown of a furnace at Ravenhead Glass at Christmas, in which 80 men were made redundant.
The St Helens Brewery (pictured above) had been founded in Hall Street in 1762 but on the 20th the shock announcement was made that the site was to close. The St Helens Reporter described the bombshell news on its front page on the 21st:
"Greenall Whitley, the brewers with a St. Helens work force of 300, are to close their Hall Street premises. The 200-year-old site will be sold to St. Helens Corporation for town centre redevelopment. In a sensational announcement made yesterday, Greenall's disclosed that their draught beer unit will be switched to the company's Warrington headquarters."
The closure was blamed on the planned Church Street pedestrianisation scheme, which would have created access problems for the brewery. Mr. David Griffith, Greenall's Managing Director at Warrington, said: "Proposals we discussed with the council could have affected garages, malt stores and boilerhouses. The site is very restricted and we were not able to find a satisfactory alternative. There will be some redundancy but we will try to keep it to a minimum. We expect to transfer as many workers as we can to our Warrington brewery."
On the 21st in the wake of the national coal strike, the Reporter published an article entitled "A Pitman's Pittance", in which they stated that a blacksmith's striker at Bold Colliery took home just £12.70 a week. The newspaper analysed the payslip of Bob Lancaster, who'd worked at the mine for 18 years. The 41-year-old's gross pay was £19.40 for working a 40-hour week from 7am until 3pm. Automatically stopped from his wage was £1 for concessionary coal and £1.84 rent for his three bedroomed semi-detached house in Downland Way, on the colliery estate in Parr.
Other deductions for insurance, pension contributions and union dues totalled £1.61, and there was also £2.25 tax. Bob's wife Martha told the newspaper: "We don't really live. We survive." However, Bob said he felt fortunate as he worked on the surface and not underground. "Conditions are terrible down there", he added. The article would cause much controversy over the coming weeks.
As a result of the strike, some schools in St Helens had been forced to close after running out of fuel and their children had been told to stay home. The Reporter described how striking colliery worker Eric Hazelden had begun running sessions for some of these kids in Parr. Each afternoon the 50-year-old from Haydock ran films, games and story-reading classes for 100 youngsters at the Y Club in Nunn Street. However, Eric's sessions had proved so popular that some children were playing truant from schools that remained open!
The Reporter also described how the council was to undertake seven major road improvement schemes at a cost of £355,000 (about £6m in today's money). Subject to Department of the Environment approval, £220,000 would be used to improve and widen Park Road and £120,000 would be spent replacing the old Clock Face humpback bridge.
Other schemes included the installation of traffic lights at the junction of Duke Street and Boundary Road and a one-way traffic management scheme around Victoria Square. The second phase of the Chancery Lane improvement scheme would also begin and the railway bridge in College Street would be reconstructed and the road straightened. Road works were also set to take place at the junction of Marshalls Cross Road, Peasley Cross Lane, Sutton Road and Sherdley Road.
Last year the Reporter wrote about a dispute between local councillors and a quarrying firm, which they called "The Battle of Billinge Hill". Billinge Council claimed that Joseph Pickavance Ltd had blown up, dug up or covered up public footpaths that belonged to the village. There were also complaints about the noise from blasting operations but this week the paper stated that a legal battle involving the firm had been settled. Pickavance's had faced an injunction to stop them committing a public nuisance. However, at a court hearing this week, the firm agreed to change their method of blasting and install a wheel washing system to prevent lorries depositing mud on the road.
Britain was currently in dispute with Malta with the Maltese prime minister Dom Mintoff having ordered British forces off the island. RAF Haydock had closed ten months ago but this week nine families of servicemen arrived at the derelict base to take up temporary accommodation. One of them, Doris Edwards, told the Reporter: "It was a shock. We were given two days notice to leave over the radio. The RAF just asked the families to start packing."
Last year Saints club secretary and manager Basil Lowe had called for the four-tackle rule in rugby league – that had been introduced in 1967 – to be replaced by six tackles, blaming the new law for disjointed play and driving away spectators. Last week a successful trial of six tackles before the ball was turned over to the other side had taken place in an A-team game, as Lowe enthusiastically told the Reporter:
"We think the difference is fantastic. It has to be seen to be believed and we will certainly be putting the pressure on to get the rule changed as soon as possible. You get something like the old, flowing football we used to see and wingers get a real running chance again." The rule change would be introduced at the beginning of the 1972-73 season.
And finally an update on Billy Bottle. I described at the start of the month how North West milk distributors J. Hanson & Sons – who delivered milk to many St Helens' homes – were appealing for the return of their missing empties. The Echo reported this week that their campaign using a character called Billy Bottle – a little man with a bottle-shaped body – was having some success.
There had been a 14% improvement in householders returning their empties to their milkmen and tip offs had led to some large-scale recoveries. The Echo wrote that a "hidden cache" of 1,650 milk bottles had been discovered behind a factory in Speke. But as the best part of 150,000 bottles were still disappearing daily in the North West, the mystery of where they were all going remained unresolved.
Next week's stories will include the explosive situation in Billinge, Pierre the Clown comes to St Helens schools to talk teeth, the Carr Mill garage in trouble for opening on a Sunday and the taxi-driver who said he had been brainwashed by his radio.
We begin on the 17th with a meeting of the Rainford Highways Committee where frustration was expressed with Lancashire County Council. Several accidents had occurred on a narrow stretch of Crank Road and pleas for a wider carriageway were falling on deaf ears. Cllr. Walter Darlington said:
"I'm completely fed up with Lancashire County Council's attitude towards this problem. At one point the road is less than 16 feet wide and this is a dangerous traffic hazard when buses are using this route. This stretch is a death trap for pedestrians because of the lack of pavements." The committee resolved to re-submit a road-widening scheme in which the County would be invited to purchase land adjoining Crank Road to create a footpath and additional room for motorists.
Rainford's Town Planning Committee also met this week and heard that land surrounding the disused railway line that ran through the village might be turned into a park. Mr C. G. Tomlinson, the Divisional Planning Officer, made the suggestion for what would become known as the "linear park" – and the Government would pay 85% of its cost. Cllr. Audrey Berry declared: "This is excellent news. The park would be an extra amenity for the residents of Rainford, and it's a suggestion we should look at closely in the future."
A four-hour hearing took place at St Helens Magistrates Court this week to consider a council application to make up Green End Road. St Helens Corporation wanted residents of the street to pay half the £3,600 cost of roadworks – meaning a bill of around £90 for each household (about £1,300 in today's money), a number of whom were pensioners. The Town Hall officials argued that Green End Road was a private street – but the residents and magistrates disagreed – with the latter ruling it was a public highway and so the council had to find all the cash.
The Liverpool Echo reported on the 19th that an enforcement notice had been served on an unnamed waste disposal firm that had dumped a large number of drums believed to contain dangerous chemicals on a St Helens' refuse tip. Altogether 72 drums, which arrived in two loads, were placed on the tip off Sherdley Road and seen by a member of the Borough Engineer's planning staff while making a routine inspection.
"We became suspicious because the ends of the drums were sealed with concrete which had been covered with bitumen," said a spokesman for the Engineer's department. "It led us to believe that the drums contained some substance that was not allowed by the planning permission. We asked the firm to remove the drums and they did so. As far as we know the drums which came from a Merseyside firm, did not contain cyanide. An enforcement notice has been served by the Council on the firm that dumped the chemicals. We will now be able to take court proceedings if further material is tipped in contravention of the planning permission."
On the morning of the 20th, a double-decker St Helens Corporation bus that was being driven along Prescot Road, crashed into a wall, uprooted a tree and came to a halt inches from a concrete lamp post. Only the driver was injured but the bus was severely damaged after inexplicably swerving off the road. The no. 89 from Huyton ended up on the pavement in front of the home of Catherine Eckersley. The 84-year-old told the Reporter:
"I'd just got up and was getting dressed when I heard this tremendous bang. I looked out of the window and saw the bus. It was almost full of passengers. They started to get out and they were obviously shaken up. But only the driver was injured. He came into the house and we gave him a cup of tea. The others were very lucky. It could have been much worse."
The Hillsiders returned for their umpteenth gig at the Theatre Royal on the 20th and on the following evening there was a performance by the Foden and Fairey brass bands.
The district's worsening employment situation was revealed on the 20th when it was announced that almost 2,900 people were out of work – a rise of 210 on last month's figure. And there were just 104 vacant jobs in St Helens to go round. Part of the steep rise in the jobless was through the shutdown of a furnace at Ravenhead Glass at Christmas, in which 80 men were made redundant.
"Greenall Whitley, the brewers with a St. Helens work force of 300, are to close their Hall Street premises. The 200-year-old site will be sold to St. Helens Corporation for town centre redevelopment. In a sensational announcement made yesterday, Greenall's disclosed that their draught beer unit will be switched to the company's Warrington headquarters."
The closure was blamed on the planned Church Street pedestrianisation scheme, which would have created access problems for the brewery. Mr. David Griffith, Greenall's Managing Director at Warrington, said: "Proposals we discussed with the council could have affected garages, malt stores and boilerhouses. The site is very restricted and we were not able to find a satisfactory alternative. There will be some redundancy but we will try to keep it to a minimum. We expect to transfer as many workers as we can to our Warrington brewery."
On the 21st in the wake of the national coal strike, the Reporter published an article entitled "A Pitman's Pittance", in which they stated that a blacksmith's striker at Bold Colliery took home just £12.70 a week. The newspaper analysed the payslip of Bob Lancaster, who'd worked at the mine for 18 years. The 41-year-old's gross pay was £19.40 for working a 40-hour week from 7am until 3pm. Automatically stopped from his wage was £1 for concessionary coal and £1.84 rent for his three bedroomed semi-detached house in Downland Way, on the colliery estate in Parr.
Other deductions for insurance, pension contributions and union dues totalled £1.61, and there was also £2.25 tax. Bob's wife Martha told the newspaper: "We don't really live. We survive." However, Bob said he felt fortunate as he worked on the surface and not underground. "Conditions are terrible down there", he added. The article would cause much controversy over the coming weeks.
As a result of the strike, some schools in St Helens had been forced to close after running out of fuel and their children had been told to stay home. The Reporter described how striking colliery worker Eric Hazelden had begun running sessions for some of these kids in Parr. Each afternoon the 50-year-old from Haydock ran films, games and story-reading classes for 100 youngsters at the Y Club in Nunn Street. However, Eric's sessions had proved so popular that some children were playing truant from schools that remained open!
The Reporter also described how the council was to undertake seven major road improvement schemes at a cost of £355,000 (about £6m in today's money). Subject to Department of the Environment approval, £220,000 would be used to improve and widen Park Road and £120,000 would be spent replacing the old Clock Face humpback bridge.
Other schemes included the installation of traffic lights at the junction of Duke Street and Boundary Road and a one-way traffic management scheme around Victoria Square. The second phase of the Chancery Lane improvement scheme would also begin and the railway bridge in College Street would be reconstructed and the road straightened. Road works were also set to take place at the junction of Marshalls Cross Road, Peasley Cross Lane, Sutton Road and Sherdley Road.
Last year the Reporter wrote about a dispute between local councillors and a quarrying firm, which they called "The Battle of Billinge Hill". Billinge Council claimed that Joseph Pickavance Ltd had blown up, dug up or covered up public footpaths that belonged to the village. There were also complaints about the noise from blasting operations but this week the paper stated that a legal battle involving the firm had been settled. Pickavance's had faced an injunction to stop them committing a public nuisance. However, at a court hearing this week, the firm agreed to change their method of blasting and install a wheel washing system to prevent lorries depositing mud on the road.
Britain was currently in dispute with Malta with the Maltese prime minister Dom Mintoff having ordered British forces off the island. RAF Haydock had closed ten months ago but this week nine families of servicemen arrived at the derelict base to take up temporary accommodation. One of them, Doris Edwards, told the Reporter: "It was a shock. We were given two days notice to leave over the radio. The RAF just asked the families to start packing."
Last year Saints club secretary and manager Basil Lowe had called for the four-tackle rule in rugby league – that had been introduced in 1967 – to be replaced by six tackles, blaming the new law for disjointed play and driving away spectators. Last week a successful trial of six tackles before the ball was turned over to the other side had taken place in an A-team game, as Lowe enthusiastically told the Reporter:
"We think the difference is fantastic. It has to be seen to be believed and we will certainly be putting the pressure on to get the rule changed as soon as possible. You get something like the old, flowing football we used to see and wingers get a real running chance again." The rule change would be introduced at the beginning of the 1972-73 season.
There had been a 14% improvement in householders returning their empties to their milkmen and tip offs had led to some large-scale recoveries. The Echo wrote that a "hidden cache" of 1,650 milk bottles had been discovered behind a factory in Speke. But as the best part of 150,000 bottles were still disappearing daily in the North West, the mystery of where they were all going remained unresolved.
Next week's stories will include the explosive situation in Billinge, Pierre the Clown comes to St Helens schools to talk teeth, the Carr Mill garage in trouble for opening on a Sunday and the taxi-driver who said he had been brainwashed by his radio.
This week's 15 stories include the shock closure announcement of Greenall's Hall Street brewery, the Bold Colliery pitman's pittance, a double-decker bus crashes in Prescot Road, proposals are made for a linear park in Rainford, Saints successfully trial a six tackle rule and St Helens Council approves seven major road improvement schemes.
We begin on the 17th with a meeting of the Rainford Highways Committee where frustration was expressed with Lancashire County Council.
Several accidents had occurred on a narrow stretch of Crank Road and pleas for a wider carriageway were falling on deaf ears. Cllr. Walter Darlington said:
"I'm completely fed up with Lancashire County Council's attitude towards this problem. At one point the road is less than 16 feet wide and this is a dangerous traffic hazard when buses are using this route. This stretch is a death trap for pedestrians because of the lack of pavements."
The committee resolved to re-submit a road-widening scheme in which the County would be invited to purchase land adjoining Crank Road to create a footpath and additional room for motorists.
Rainford's Town Planning Committee also met this week and heard that land surrounding the disused railway line that ran through the village might be turned into a park.
Mr C. G. Tomlinson, the Divisional Planning Officer, made the suggestion for what would become known as the "linear park" – and the Government would pay 85% of its cost.
Cllr. Audrey Berry declared: "This is excellent news. The park would be an extra amenity for the residents of Rainford, and it's a suggestion we should look at closely in the future."
A four-hour hearing took place at St Helens Magistrates Court this week to consider a council application to make up Green End Road.
St Helens Corporation wanted residents of the street to pay half the £3,600 cost of roadworks – meaning a bill of around £90 for each household (about £1,300 in today's money), a number of whom were pensioners.
The Town Hall officials argued that Green End Road was a private street – but the residents and magistrates disagreed – with the latter ruling it was a public highway and so the council had to find all the cash.
The Liverpool Echo reported on the 19th that an enforcement notice had been served on an unnamed waste disposal firm that had dumped a large number of drums believed to contain dangerous chemicals on a St Helens' refuse tip.
Altogether 72 drums, which arrived in two loads, were placed on the tip off Sherdley Road and seen by a member of the Borough Engineer's planning staff while making a routine inspection.
"We became suspicious because the ends of the drums were sealed with concrete which had been covered with bitumen," said a spokesman for the Engineer's department.
"It led us to believe that the drums contained some substance that was not allowed by the planning permission. We asked the firm to remove the drums and they did so. As far as we know the drums which came from a Merseyside firm, did not contain cyanide.
"An enforcement notice has been served by the Council on the firm that dumped the chemicals. We will now be able to take court proceedings if further material is tipped in contravention of the planning permission."
On the morning of the 20th, a double-decker St Helens Corporation bus that was being driven along Prescot Road, crashed into a wall, uprooted a tree and came to a halt inches from a concrete lamp post.
Only the driver was injured but the bus was severely damaged after inexplicably swerving off the road.
The no. 89 from Huyton ended up on the pavement in front of the home of Catherine Eckersley. The 84-year-old told the Reporter:
"I'd just got up and was getting dressed when I heard this tremendous bang. I looked out of the window and saw the bus. It was almost full of passengers. They started to get out and they were obviously shaken up.
"But only the driver was injured. He came into the house and we gave him a cup of tea. The others were very lucky. It could have been much worse."
The Hillsiders returned for their umpteenth gig at the Theatre Royal on the 20th and on the following evening there was a performance by the Foden and Fairey brass bands.
The district's worsening employment situation was revealed on the 20th when it was announced that almost 2,900 people were out of work – a rise of 210 on last month's figure.
And there were just 104 vacant jobs in St Helens to go round.
Part of the steep rise in the jobless was through the shutdown of a furnace at Ravenhead Glass at Christmas, in which 80 men were made redundant.
The St Helens Brewery (pictured above) had been founded in Hall Street in 1762 but on the 20th the shock announcement was made that the site was to close.
The St Helens Reporter described the bombshell news on its front page on the 21st:
"Greenall Whitley, the brewers with a St. Helens work force of 300, are to close their Hall Street premises. The 200-year-old site will be sold to St. Helens Corporation for town centre redevelopment. In a sensational announcement made yesterday, Greenall's disclosed that their draught beer unit will be switched to the company's Warrington headquarters."
The closure was blamed on the planned Church Street pedestrianisation scheme, which would have created access problems for the brewery. Mr. David Griffith, Greenall's Managing Director at Warrington, said:
"Proposals we discussed with the council could have affected garages, malt stores and boilerhouses. The site is very restricted and we were not able to find a satisfactory alternative. There will be some redundancy but we will try to keep it to a minimum. We expect to transfer as many workers as we can to our Warrington brewery."
On the 21st in the wake of the national coal strike, the Reporter published an article entitled "A Pitman's Pittance", in which they stated that a blacksmith's striker at Bold Colliery took home just £12.70 a week.
The newspaper analysed the payslip of Bob Lancaster, who'd worked at the mine for 18 years.
The 41-year-old's gross pay was £19.40 for working a 40-hour week from 7am until 3pm.
Automatically stopped from his wage was £1 for concessionary coal and £1.84 rent for his three bedroomed semi-detached house in Downland Way, on the colliery estate in Parr.
Other deductions for insurance, pension contributions and union dues totalled £1.61, and there was also £2.25 tax.
Bob's wife Martha told the newspaper: "We don't really live. We survive."
However, Bob said he felt fortunate as he worked on the surface and not underground. "Conditions are terrible down there", he added. The article would cause much controversy over the coming weeks.
As a result of the strike, some schools in St Helens had been forced to close after running out of fuel and their children had been told to stay home.
The Reporter described how striking colliery worker Eric Hazelden had begun running sessions for some of these kids in Parr.
Each afternoon the 50-year-old from Haydock ran films, games and story-reading classes for 100 youngsters at the Y Club in Nunn Street.
However, Eric's sessions had proved so popular that some children were playing truant from schools that remained open!
The Reporter also described how the council was to undertake seven major road improvement schemes at a cost of £355,000 (about £6m in today's money).
Subject to Department of the Environment approval, £220,000 would be used to improve and widen Park Road and £120,000 would be spent replacing the old Clock Face humpback bridge.
Other schemes included the installation of traffic lights at the junction of Duke Street and Boundary Road and a one-way traffic management scheme around Victoria Square.
The second phase of the Chancery Lane improvement scheme would also begin and the railway bridge in College Street would be reconstructed and the road straightened.
Road works were also set to take place at the junction of Marshalls Cross Road, Peasley Cross Lane, Sutton Road and Sherdley Road.
Last year the Reporter wrote about a dispute between local councillors and a quarrying firm, which they called "The Battle of Billinge Hill".
Billinge Council claimed that Joseph Pickavance Ltd had blown up, dug up or covered up public footpaths that belonged to the village.
There were also complaints about the noise from blasting operations but this week the paper stated that a legal battle involving the firm had been settled.
Pickavance's had faced an injunction to stop them committing a public nuisance. However, at a court hearing this week, the firm agreed to change their method of blasting and install a wheel washing system to prevent lorries depositing mud on the road.
Britain was currently in dispute with Malta with the Maltese prime minister Dom Mintoff having ordered British forces off the island.
RAF Haydock had closed ten months ago but this week nine families of servicemen arrived at the derelict base to take up temporary accommodation. One of them, Doris Edwards, told the Reporter:
"It was a shock. We were given two days notice to leave over the radio. The RAF just asked the families to start packing."
Last year Saints club secretary and manager Basil Lowe had called for the four-tackle rule in rugby league – that had been introduced in 1967 – to be replaced by six tackles, blaming the new law for disjointed play and driving away spectators.
Last week a successful trial of six tackles before the ball was turned over to the other side had taken place in an A-team game, as Lowe enthusiastically told the Reporter:
"We think the difference is fantastic. It has to be seen to be believed and we will certainly be putting the pressure on to get the rule changed as soon as possible. You get something like the old, flowing football we used to see and wingers get a real running chance again."
The rule change would be introduced at the beginning of the 1972-73 season.
And finally an update on Billy Bottle. I described at the start of the month how North West milk distributors J. Hanson & Sons – who delivered milk to many St Helens' homes – were appealing for the return of their missing empties.
The Echo reported this week that their campaign using a character called Billy Bottle – a little man with a bottle-shaped body – was having some success.
There had been a 14% improvement in householders returning their empties to their milkmen and tip offs had led to some large-scale recoveries.
The Echo wrote that a "hidden cache" of 1,650 milk bottles had been discovered behind a factory in Speke.
But as the best part of 150,000 bottles were still disappearing daily in the North West, the mystery of where they were all going remained unresolved.
Next week's stories will include the explosive situation in Billinge, Pierre the Clown comes to St Helens schools to talk teeth, the Carr Mill garage in trouble for opening on a Sunday and the taxi-driver who said he had been brainwashed by his radio.
We begin on the 17th with a meeting of the Rainford Highways Committee where frustration was expressed with Lancashire County Council.
Several accidents had occurred on a narrow stretch of Crank Road and pleas for a wider carriageway were falling on deaf ears. Cllr. Walter Darlington said:
"I'm completely fed up with Lancashire County Council's attitude towards this problem. At one point the road is less than 16 feet wide and this is a dangerous traffic hazard when buses are using this route. This stretch is a death trap for pedestrians because of the lack of pavements."
The committee resolved to re-submit a road-widening scheme in which the County would be invited to purchase land adjoining Crank Road to create a footpath and additional room for motorists.
Rainford's Town Planning Committee also met this week and heard that land surrounding the disused railway line that ran through the village might be turned into a park.
Mr C. G. Tomlinson, the Divisional Planning Officer, made the suggestion for what would become known as the "linear park" – and the Government would pay 85% of its cost.
Cllr. Audrey Berry declared: "This is excellent news. The park would be an extra amenity for the residents of Rainford, and it's a suggestion we should look at closely in the future."
A four-hour hearing took place at St Helens Magistrates Court this week to consider a council application to make up Green End Road.
St Helens Corporation wanted residents of the street to pay half the £3,600 cost of roadworks – meaning a bill of around £90 for each household (about £1,300 in today's money), a number of whom were pensioners.
The Town Hall officials argued that Green End Road was a private street – but the residents and magistrates disagreed – with the latter ruling it was a public highway and so the council had to find all the cash.
The Liverpool Echo reported on the 19th that an enforcement notice had been served on an unnamed waste disposal firm that had dumped a large number of drums believed to contain dangerous chemicals on a St Helens' refuse tip.
Altogether 72 drums, which arrived in two loads, were placed on the tip off Sherdley Road and seen by a member of the Borough Engineer's planning staff while making a routine inspection.
"We became suspicious because the ends of the drums were sealed with concrete which had been covered with bitumen," said a spokesman for the Engineer's department.
"It led us to believe that the drums contained some substance that was not allowed by the planning permission. We asked the firm to remove the drums and they did so. As far as we know the drums which came from a Merseyside firm, did not contain cyanide.
"An enforcement notice has been served by the Council on the firm that dumped the chemicals. We will now be able to take court proceedings if further material is tipped in contravention of the planning permission."
On the morning of the 20th, a double-decker St Helens Corporation bus that was being driven along Prescot Road, crashed into a wall, uprooted a tree and came to a halt inches from a concrete lamp post.
Only the driver was injured but the bus was severely damaged after inexplicably swerving off the road.
The no. 89 from Huyton ended up on the pavement in front of the home of Catherine Eckersley. The 84-year-old told the Reporter:
"I'd just got up and was getting dressed when I heard this tremendous bang. I looked out of the window and saw the bus. It was almost full of passengers. They started to get out and they were obviously shaken up.
"But only the driver was injured. He came into the house and we gave him a cup of tea. The others were very lucky. It could have been much worse."
The Hillsiders returned for their umpteenth gig at the Theatre Royal on the 20th and on the following evening there was a performance by the Foden and Fairey brass bands.
The district's worsening employment situation was revealed on the 20th when it was announced that almost 2,900 people were out of work – a rise of 210 on last month's figure.
And there were just 104 vacant jobs in St Helens to go round.
Part of the steep rise in the jobless was through the shutdown of a furnace at Ravenhead Glass at Christmas, in which 80 men were made redundant.
The St Helens Reporter described the bombshell news on its front page on the 21st:
"Greenall Whitley, the brewers with a St. Helens work force of 300, are to close their Hall Street premises. The 200-year-old site will be sold to St. Helens Corporation for town centre redevelopment. In a sensational announcement made yesterday, Greenall's disclosed that their draught beer unit will be switched to the company's Warrington headquarters."
The closure was blamed on the planned Church Street pedestrianisation scheme, which would have created access problems for the brewery. Mr. David Griffith, Greenall's Managing Director at Warrington, said:
"Proposals we discussed with the council could have affected garages, malt stores and boilerhouses. The site is very restricted and we were not able to find a satisfactory alternative. There will be some redundancy but we will try to keep it to a minimum. We expect to transfer as many workers as we can to our Warrington brewery."
On the 21st in the wake of the national coal strike, the Reporter published an article entitled "A Pitman's Pittance", in which they stated that a blacksmith's striker at Bold Colliery took home just £12.70 a week.
The newspaper analysed the payslip of Bob Lancaster, who'd worked at the mine for 18 years.
The 41-year-old's gross pay was £19.40 for working a 40-hour week from 7am until 3pm.
Automatically stopped from his wage was £1 for concessionary coal and £1.84 rent for his three bedroomed semi-detached house in Downland Way, on the colliery estate in Parr.
Other deductions for insurance, pension contributions and union dues totalled £1.61, and there was also £2.25 tax.
Bob's wife Martha told the newspaper: "We don't really live. We survive."
However, Bob said he felt fortunate as he worked on the surface and not underground. "Conditions are terrible down there", he added. The article would cause much controversy over the coming weeks.
As a result of the strike, some schools in St Helens had been forced to close after running out of fuel and their children had been told to stay home.
The Reporter described how striking colliery worker Eric Hazelden had begun running sessions for some of these kids in Parr.
Each afternoon the 50-year-old from Haydock ran films, games and story-reading classes for 100 youngsters at the Y Club in Nunn Street.
However, Eric's sessions had proved so popular that some children were playing truant from schools that remained open!
The Reporter also described how the council was to undertake seven major road improvement schemes at a cost of £355,000 (about £6m in today's money).
Subject to Department of the Environment approval, £220,000 would be used to improve and widen Park Road and £120,000 would be spent replacing the old Clock Face humpback bridge.
Other schemes included the installation of traffic lights at the junction of Duke Street and Boundary Road and a one-way traffic management scheme around Victoria Square.
The second phase of the Chancery Lane improvement scheme would also begin and the railway bridge in College Street would be reconstructed and the road straightened.
Road works were also set to take place at the junction of Marshalls Cross Road, Peasley Cross Lane, Sutton Road and Sherdley Road.
Last year the Reporter wrote about a dispute between local councillors and a quarrying firm, which they called "The Battle of Billinge Hill".
Billinge Council claimed that Joseph Pickavance Ltd had blown up, dug up or covered up public footpaths that belonged to the village.
There were also complaints about the noise from blasting operations but this week the paper stated that a legal battle involving the firm had been settled.
Pickavance's had faced an injunction to stop them committing a public nuisance. However, at a court hearing this week, the firm agreed to change their method of blasting and install a wheel washing system to prevent lorries depositing mud on the road.
Britain was currently in dispute with Malta with the Maltese prime minister Dom Mintoff having ordered British forces off the island.
RAF Haydock had closed ten months ago but this week nine families of servicemen arrived at the derelict base to take up temporary accommodation. One of them, Doris Edwards, told the Reporter:
"It was a shock. We were given two days notice to leave over the radio. The RAF just asked the families to start packing."
Last year Saints club secretary and manager Basil Lowe had called for the four-tackle rule in rugby league – that had been introduced in 1967 – to be replaced by six tackles, blaming the new law for disjointed play and driving away spectators.
Last week a successful trial of six tackles before the ball was turned over to the other side had taken place in an A-team game, as Lowe enthusiastically told the Reporter:
"We think the difference is fantastic. It has to be seen to be believed and we will certainly be putting the pressure on to get the rule changed as soon as possible. You get something like the old, flowing football we used to see and wingers get a real running chance again."
The rule change would be introduced at the beginning of the 1972-73 season.
The Echo reported this week that their campaign using a character called Billy Bottle – a little man with a bottle-shaped body – was having some success.
There had been a 14% improvement in householders returning their empties to their milkmen and tip offs had led to some large-scale recoveries.
The Echo wrote that a "hidden cache" of 1,650 milk bottles had been discovered behind a factory in Speke.
But as the best part of 150,000 bottles were still disappearing daily in the North West, the mystery of where they were all going remained unresolved.
Next week's stories will include the explosive situation in Billinge, Pierre the Clown comes to St Helens schools to talk teeth, the Carr Mill garage in trouble for opening on a Sunday and the taxi-driver who said he had been brainwashed by his radio.