FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 17 - 23 FEBRRUARY 1975
This week's many stories include the new one-way system in Victoria Square, the proposed £2 million Higher Parr Street scheme is delayed, the lorry at the Tontine Market that got stuck in a drain, Rainford councillors' new mobile surgery, there's a new headmistress at Cowley Girls School and a celebration of 75 years of glassmaking at Pocket Nook.
We begin on the 17th when St Helens Council's electricians went on strike as a result of a pay dispute. The 21 employees received a basic wage of £34 a week, plus bonuses, but they wanted parity with electricians employed by private contractors, which would bring their basic pay up to £52. The council then had 20,000 houses and flats and only emergency repairs were being handled.
On the evening of the 17th Radio Merseyside broadcast a documentary on the Leathers Chemicals saga that they called "What Price Peace Of Mind?" Expert opinion and the views of local people were expressed but Radio Merseyside criticised what it called the "reluctance of some people in positions of public accountability to comment on a matter of clear-cut public interest and concern."
I do sometimes come across businesses and organisations that don't know their own history – or that of their industry. On the 19th the Mayor of St Helens, Cllr Paddy Gill, visited Rockware at Pocket Nook (pictured above) to celebrate 75 years of glass production on the site. The turn of the century was when Forsters Glass had begun production in Atlas Street and then Rockware had taken it over in 1968.
But glassmaking had a much longer heritage, as adjacent to Rockware's factory – and where St Helens College's Technology Campus is now – had been the Union Plate Glassworks, which had begun production in 1837 and closed in 1898. As a photo opportunity staff member Lillian Pennington was pictured franking the first letter to carry Rockware's special anniversary symbol.
The St Helens Reporter on the 21st described how Pilkington's was joining forces with several other companies to set up a new float glass plant in Iran. The deal meant that the St Helens firm had now licensed its float glass process to 24 manufacturers.
For some time the Reporter had been talking about a new greyhound stadium being sited in St Helens and this week it described how Henderson Homes had wanted to build a dog track / sports centre on derelict land in Merton Bank Road. But they said the council's Planning Committee had not been happy with the proposed location because of its possible effect on local residents through increased traffic and noise. However, they had now suggested a site in Jackson Street which Henderson's were considering.
The Planning Committee at this week's meeting were also told that their £2 million road scheme centred on and around Higher Parr Street had been shelved by Merseyside County Council. Councillor Joe Mulcrow was furious with the decision and predicted that town centre traffic would grind to a halt, explaining: "With the build-up of traffic it will be a stagnation point for 24 hours a day. The tonnage this road carries is tremendous – it's one of the biggest on Merseyside."
The County Council had decided to delay the scheme and concentrate on others instead, as they said they did not have enough cash to go round. However, St Helens Council had already spent £600,000 on the plan that was intended to cut congestion and stop heavy lorries thundering through the town centre.
The intention was to convert a half-mile stretch of road from the bottom of Church Street to Fingerpost into a dual carriageway of three lanes, each with roundabouts and there would also be a flyover. It was said that Higher Parr Street was the most overloaded in the town, with nearly a third of its traffic being heavy lorries and at peak periods up to 85 buses were using it every hour.
The Snoopy Club – the Reporter's column for 4 to 11 year olds – had started in 1970 and this week contained this helpful advice for young tortoise lovers that also possessed a drill: "Hello, Children. Many of you have written in to say that your tortoise has already awakened. And three people have asked me to point out that it is cruel to drill a hole in your tortoise's shell, in order to thread a piece of string through, and so tie the tortoise up."
The paper described how a 20-year era in the history of Cowley Girls School would be ending at Easter with the retirement of its headmistress. Elsie Jackson had spent 35 years in the teaching profession and after being at Manchester High School for Girls she had come to St Helens in 1955.
A keen musician, the 59-year-old from Eccleston told the Reporter: "I have made many friends during my stay at Cowley and at present I have no plans for moving out of St. Helens." Dorothy Cheesley of West Kirby Girls Grammar was succeeding Miss Jackson as headmistress.
The Reporter also described how three men working for a Nottingham firm of organ builders were staying on a farm while they restored the organ at All Saints Church in Sutton. It was part of Rev. David McIntosh's cost cutting plans. Instead of the church having to pay for the men’s hotel accommodation, Annie Whitfield of Maypole Farm in Bold had volunteered to host them for several weeks. Originally a Manchester firm had been given the job of repairing the organ at a cost of £7,000 but then the Nottingham firm had agreed to do the job for half that amount with their restorers staying in digs.
Rainford councillors Tony Brown and Audrey Berry were pictured in the Reporter in their new mobile surgery. Like many councillors they found that few people attended their scheduled surgeries in the village hall. And so they had hitched a caravan up to Tony's Land Rover and planned to go out into the community three times a month on the basis that if "they won't come to see us, then we will go to see them".
"It is surprising no one has thought of this before," said Tony. "Our surgeries were very poorly attended, and we were getting a bit concerned about the situation. Then the idea hit me and we held our first ‘mobile surgery’ last Saturday in Rainford Village. Now we can get down to the grass roots of democracy, and speak to the people who couldn't attend our village hall surgeries because there were very few buses running or because of bad weather."
When the Tontine Market had opened in St Helens in January the Reporter had predicted teething troubles. Within a couple of weeks many of the stalls had been burgled and cash stolen as a result of the centre's new security system not working. A second teething trouble occurred this week when a ten-ton lorry was backing into the market and crashed down a drain.
Well, only the lorry's front wheels actually dropped into the wide hole that was created when an iron drain cover buckled under the lorry's enormous weight. The lower halves of the truck's front wheels were swallowed up and it took 30 minutes and three attempts to free the lorry with the aid of a forklift truck and a team of workers using planks as levers.
The incident happened outside Jackson's the tailors and assistant manager Ken Marsden was serving a customer when he heard a loud crash. "The lorry could have come through our window," he said. "And I thought it might have when it was being lifted out of the hole. There's been no damage to our shop, but this is the second time it's happened."
And Norman Crooks, the assistant manager of Alexandre, who were another tailors, complained that the road was too narrow for big lorries to turn in, adding: "The whole incident was dangerous and somebody could have been hurt." But Wimpey's site project manager was much more relaxed about what had occurred, saying:
"These things happen and we regret any inconvenience caused. It's a tight, compact site, in which every inch is taken up. It was just an unfortunate accident. The driver is an experienced man and a long-serving member of Wimpey. We're all allowed to make one mistake."
On Sunday the 23rd the first stage of a new one-way system was introduced in Victoria Square. Motorists were advised that traffic would now flow: One-way going clockwise past the Gamble Institute; one-way going clockwise along the south side of Victoria Square; one-way north up Vincent Street; left only onto Corporation Street turning by the Town Hall out of Hardshaw Street and traffic travelling north past Century House on Hardshaw Street would now go around the square to access Corporation Street.
There had been five bus stops sited around the Queen Victoria monument's island but these had now been spread around the edges of the square. New stops had been introduced outside the Gamble Institute and the Prudential Buildings and also outside the Wesley Chapel and Theatre Royal. The final stage of the new traffic management scheme would take place at the end of March. Then Corporation Street would become one-way going west as far as Hall Street from the Town Hall.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include Pilks shock announcement of job losses, the schemes to reclaim derelict land, the digger vandalism in Merton Bank, the unhappy residents of two housing estates and a TV comic storms off the stage at Moss Lane.
We begin on the 17th when St Helens Council's electricians went on strike as a result of a pay dispute. The 21 employees received a basic wage of £34 a week, plus bonuses, but they wanted parity with electricians employed by private contractors, which would bring their basic pay up to £52. The council then had 20,000 houses and flats and only emergency repairs were being handled.
On the evening of the 17th Radio Merseyside broadcast a documentary on the Leathers Chemicals saga that they called "What Price Peace Of Mind?" Expert opinion and the views of local people were expressed but Radio Merseyside criticised what it called the "reluctance of some people in positions of public accountability to comment on a matter of clear-cut public interest and concern."
But glassmaking had a much longer heritage, as adjacent to Rockware's factory – and where St Helens College's Technology Campus is now – had been the Union Plate Glassworks, which had begun production in 1837 and closed in 1898. As a photo opportunity staff member Lillian Pennington was pictured franking the first letter to carry Rockware's special anniversary symbol.
The St Helens Reporter on the 21st described how Pilkington's was joining forces with several other companies to set up a new float glass plant in Iran. The deal meant that the St Helens firm had now licensed its float glass process to 24 manufacturers.
For some time the Reporter had been talking about a new greyhound stadium being sited in St Helens and this week it described how Henderson Homes had wanted to build a dog track / sports centre on derelict land in Merton Bank Road. But they said the council's Planning Committee had not been happy with the proposed location because of its possible effect on local residents through increased traffic and noise. However, they had now suggested a site in Jackson Street which Henderson's were considering.
The Planning Committee at this week's meeting were also told that their £2 million road scheme centred on and around Higher Parr Street had been shelved by Merseyside County Council. Councillor Joe Mulcrow was furious with the decision and predicted that town centre traffic would grind to a halt, explaining: "With the build-up of traffic it will be a stagnation point for 24 hours a day. The tonnage this road carries is tremendous – it's one of the biggest on Merseyside."
The County Council had decided to delay the scheme and concentrate on others instead, as they said they did not have enough cash to go round. However, St Helens Council had already spent £600,000 on the plan that was intended to cut congestion and stop heavy lorries thundering through the town centre.
The intention was to convert a half-mile stretch of road from the bottom of Church Street to Fingerpost into a dual carriageway of three lanes, each with roundabouts and there would also be a flyover. It was said that Higher Parr Street was the most overloaded in the town, with nearly a third of its traffic being heavy lorries and at peak periods up to 85 buses were using it every hour.
The Snoopy Club – the Reporter's column for 4 to 11 year olds – had started in 1970 and this week contained this helpful advice for young tortoise lovers that also possessed a drill: "Hello, Children. Many of you have written in to say that your tortoise has already awakened. And three people have asked me to point out that it is cruel to drill a hole in your tortoise's shell, in order to thread a piece of string through, and so tie the tortoise up."
The paper described how a 20-year era in the history of Cowley Girls School would be ending at Easter with the retirement of its headmistress. Elsie Jackson had spent 35 years in the teaching profession and after being at Manchester High School for Girls she had come to St Helens in 1955.
A keen musician, the 59-year-old from Eccleston told the Reporter: "I have made many friends during my stay at Cowley and at present I have no plans for moving out of St. Helens." Dorothy Cheesley of West Kirby Girls Grammar was succeeding Miss Jackson as headmistress.
The Reporter also described how three men working for a Nottingham firm of organ builders were staying on a farm while they restored the organ at All Saints Church in Sutton. It was part of Rev. David McIntosh's cost cutting plans. Instead of the church having to pay for the men’s hotel accommodation, Annie Whitfield of Maypole Farm in Bold had volunteered to host them for several weeks. Originally a Manchester firm had been given the job of repairing the organ at a cost of £7,000 but then the Nottingham firm had agreed to do the job for half that amount with their restorers staying in digs.
Rainford councillors Tony Brown and Audrey Berry were pictured in the Reporter in their new mobile surgery. Like many councillors they found that few people attended their scheduled surgeries in the village hall. And so they had hitched a caravan up to Tony's Land Rover and planned to go out into the community three times a month on the basis that if "they won't come to see us, then we will go to see them".
"It is surprising no one has thought of this before," said Tony. "Our surgeries were very poorly attended, and we were getting a bit concerned about the situation. Then the idea hit me and we held our first ‘mobile surgery’ last Saturday in Rainford Village. Now we can get down to the grass roots of democracy, and speak to the people who couldn't attend our village hall surgeries because there were very few buses running or because of bad weather."
When the Tontine Market had opened in St Helens in January the Reporter had predicted teething troubles. Within a couple of weeks many of the stalls had been burgled and cash stolen as a result of the centre's new security system not working. A second teething trouble occurred this week when a ten-ton lorry was backing into the market and crashed down a drain.
Well, only the lorry's front wheels actually dropped into the wide hole that was created when an iron drain cover buckled under the lorry's enormous weight. The lower halves of the truck's front wheels were swallowed up and it took 30 minutes and three attempts to free the lorry with the aid of a forklift truck and a team of workers using planks as levers.
The incident happened outside Jackson's the tailors and assistant manager Ken Marsden was serving a customer when he heard a loud crash. "The lorry could have come through our window," he said. "And I thought it might have when it was being lifted out of the hole. There's been no damage to our shop, but this is the second time it's happened."
And Norman Crooks, the assistant manager of Alexandre, who were another tailors, complained that the road was too narrow for big lorries to turn in, adding: "The whole incident was dangerous and somebody could have been hurt." But Wimpey's site project manager was much more relaxed about what had occurred, saying:
"These things happen and we regret any inconvenience caused. It's a tight, compact site, in which every inch is taken up. It was just an unfortunate accident. The driver is an experienced man and a long-serving member of Wimpey. We're all allowed to make one mistake."
There had been five bus stops sited around the Queen Victoria monument's island but these had now been spread around the edges of the square. New stops had been introduced outside the Gamble Institute and the Prudential Buildings and also outside the Wesley Chapel and Theatre Royal. The final stage of the new traffic management scheme would take place at the end of March. Then Corporation Street would become one-way going west as far as Hall Street from the Town Hall.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include Pilks shock announcement of job losses, the schemes to reclaim derelict land, the digger vandalism in Merton Bank, the unhappy residents of two housing estates and a TV comic storms off the stage at Moss Lane.
This week's many stories include the new one-way system in Victoria Square, the proposed £2 million Higher Parr Street scheme is delayed, the lorry at the Tontine Market that got stuck in a drain, Rainford councillors' new mobile surgery, there's a new headmistress at Cowley Girls School and a celebration of 75 years of glassmaking at Pocket Nook.
We begin on the 17th when St Helens Council's electricians went on strike as a result of a pay dispute.
The 21 employees received a basic wage of £34 a week, plus bonuses, but they wanted parity with electricians employed by private contractors, which would bring their basic pay up to £52.
The council then had 20,000 houses and flats and only emergency repairs were being handled.
On the evening of the 17th Radio Merseyside broadcast a documentary on the Leathers Chemicals saga that they called "What Price Peace Of Mind?"
Expert opinion and the views of local people were expressed but Radio Merseyside criticised what it called the "reluctance of some people in positions of public accountability to comment on a matter of clear-cut public interest and concern."
I do sometimes come across businesses and organisations that don't know their own history – or that of their industry.
On the 19th the Mayor of St Helens, Cllr Paddy Gill, visited Rockware at Pocket Nook (pictured above) to celebrate 75 years of glass production on the site.
The turn of the century was when Forsters Glass had begun production in Atlas Street and then Rockware had taken it over in 1968.
But glassmaking had a much longer heritage, as adjacent to Rockware's factory – and where St Helens College's Technology Campus is now – had been the Union Plate Glassworks, which had begun production in 1837 and closed in 1898.
As a photo opportunity staff member Lillian Pennington was pictured franking the first letter to carry Rockware's special anniversary symbol.
The St Helens Reporter on the 21st described how Pilkington's was joining forces with several other companies to set up a new float glass plant in Iran.
The deal meant that the St Helens firm had now licensed its float glass process to 24 manufacturers.
For some time the Reporter had been talking about a new greyhound stadium being sited in St Helens and this week it described how Henderson Homes had wanted to build a dog track / sports centre on derelict land in Merton Bank Road.
But they said the council's Planning Committee had not been happy with the proposed location because of its possible effect on local residents through increased traffic and noise.
However, they had now suggested a site in Jackson Street which Henderson's were considering.
The Planning Committee at this week's meeting were also told that their £2 million road scheme centred on and around Higher Parr Street had been shelved by Merseyside County Council.
Councillor Joe Mulcrow was furious with the decision and predicted that town centre traffic would grind to a halt, explaining:
"With the build-up of traffic it will be a stagnation point for 24 hours a day. The tonnage this road carries is tremendous – it's one of the biggest on Merseyside."
The County Council had decided to delay the scheme and concentrate on others instead, as they said they did not have enough cash to go round.
However, St Helens Council had already spent £600,000 on the plan that was intended to cut congestion and stop heavy lorries thundering through the town centre.
The intention was to convert a half-mile stretch of road from the bottom of Church Street to Fingerpost into a dual carriageway of three lanes, each with roundabouts and there would also be a flyover.
It was said that Higher Parr Street was the most overloaded in the town, with nearly a third of its traffic being heavy lorries and at peak periods up to 85 buses were using it every hour.
The Snoopy Club – the Reporter's column for 4 to 11 year olds – had started in 1970 and this week contained this helpful advice for young tortoise lovers that also possessed a drill:
"Hello, Children. Many of you have written in to say that your tortoise has already awakened. And three people have asked me to point out that it is cruel to drill a hole in your tortoise's shell, in order to thread a piece of string through, and so tie the tortoise up."
The paper described how a 20-year era in the history of Cowley Girls School would be ending at Easter with the retirement of its headmistress.
Elsie Jackson had spent 35 years in the teaching profession and after being at Manchester High School for Girls she had come to St Helens in 1955.
A keen musician, the 59-year-old from Eccleston told the Reporter: "I have made many friends during my stay at Cowley and at present I have no plans for moving out of St. Helens."
Dorothy Cheesley of West Kirby Girls Grammar was succeeding Miss Jackson as headmistress.
The Reporter also described how three men working for a Nottingham firm of organ builders were staying on a farm while they restored the organ at All Saints Church in Sutton.
It was part of Rev. David McIntosh's cost cutting plans. Instead of the church having to pay for the men’s hotel accommodation, Annie Whitfield of Maypole Farm in Bold had volunteered to host them for several weeks.
Originally a Manchester firm had been given the job of repairing the organ at a cost of £7,000 but then the Nottingham firm had agreed to do the job for half that amount with their restorers staying in digs.
Rainford councillors Tony Brown and Audrey Berry were pictured in the Reporter in their new mobile surgery.
Like many councillors they found that few people attended their scheduled surgeries in the village hall.
And so they had hitched a caravan up to Tony's Land Rover and planned to go out into the community three times a month on the basis that if "they won't come to see us, then we will go to see them".
"It is surprising no one has thought of this before," said Tony. "Our surgeries were very poorly attended, and we were getting a bit concerned about the situation. Then the idea hit me and we held our first ‘mobile surgery’ last Saturday in Rainford Village.
"Now we can get down to the grass roots of democracy, and speak to the people who couldn't attend our village hall surgeries because there were very few buses running or because of bad weather."
When the Tontine Market had opened in St Helens in January the Reporter had predicted teething troubles.
Within a couple of weeks many of the stalls had been burgled and cash stolen as a result of the centre's new security system not working.
A second teething trouble occurred this week when a ten-ton lorry was backing into the market and crashed down a drain.
Well, only the lorry's front wheels actually dropped into the wide hole that was created when an iron drain cover buckled under the lorry's enormous weight.
The lower halves of the truck's front wheels were swallowed up and it took 30 minutes and three attempts to free the lorry with the aid of a forklift truck and a team of workers using planks as levers.
The incident happened outside Jackson's the tailors and assistant manager Ken Marsden was serving a customer when he heard a loud crash.
"The lorry could have come through our window," he said. "And I thought it might have when it was being lifted out of the hole. There's been no damage to our shop, but this is the second time it's happened."
And Norman Crooks, the assistant manager of Alexandre, who were another tailors, complained that the road was too narrow for big lorries to turn in, adding: "The whole incident was dangerous and somebody could have been hurt."
But Wimpey's site project manager was much more relaxed about what had occurred, saying:
"These things happen and we regret any inconvenience caused. It's a tight, compact site, in which every inch is taken up.
"It was just an unfortunate accident. The driver is an experienced man and a long-serving member of Wimpey. We're all allowed to make one mistake."
On Sunday the 23rd the first stage of a new one-way system was introduced in Victoria Square. Motorists were advised that traffic would now flow:
• One-way going clockwise past the Gamble Institute
• One-way going clockwise along the south side of Victoria Square
• One-way north up Vincent Street
• Left only onto Corporation Street turning by the Town Hall out of Hardshaw Street
• And traffic travelling north past Century House on Hardshaw Street would now go around the square to access Corporation Street.
There had been five bus stops sited around the Queen Victoria monument's island but these had now been spread around the edges of the square.
New stops had been introduced outside the Gamble Institute and the Prudential Buildings and also outside the Wesley Chapel and Theatre Royal.
The final stage of the new traffic management scheme would take place at the end of March.
Then Corporation Street would become one-way going west as far as Hall Street from the Town Hall.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include Pilks shock announcement of job losses, the schemes to reclaim derelict land, the digger vandalism in Merton Bank, the unhappy residents of two housing estates and a TV comic storms off the stage at Moss Lane.
We begin on the 17th when St Helens Council's electricians went on strike as a result of a pay dispute.
The 21 employees received a basic wage of £34 a week, plus bonuses, but they wanted parity with electricians employed by private contractors, which would bring their basic pay up to £52.
The council then had 20,000 houses and flats and only emergency repairs were being handled.
On the evening of the 17th Radio Merseyside broadcast a documentary on the Leathers Chemicals saga that they called "What Price Peace Of Mind?"
Expert opinion and the views of local people were expressed but Radio Merseyside criticised what it called the "reluctance of some people in positions of public accountability to comment on a matter of clear-cut public interest and concern."
I do sometimes come across businesses and organisations that don't know their own history – or that of their industry.
The turn of the century was when Forsters Glass had begun production in Atlas Street and then Rockware had taken it over in 1968.
But glassmaking had a much longer heritage, as adjacent to Rockware's factory – and where St Helens College's Technology Campus is now – had been the Union Plate Glassworks, which had begun production in 1837 and closed in 1898.
As a photo opportunity staff member Lillian Pennington was pictured franking the first letter to carry Rockware's special anniversary symbol.
The St Helens Reporter on the 21st described how Pilkington's was joining forces with several other companies to set up a new float glass plant in Iran.
The deal meant that the St Helens firm had now licensed its float glass process to 24 manufacturers.
For some time the Reporter had been talking about a new greyhound stadium being sited in St Helens and this week it described how Henderson Homes had wanted to build a dog track / sports centre on derelict land in Merton Bank Road.
But they said the council's Planning Committee had not been happy with the proposed location because of its possible effect on local residents through increased traffic and noise.
However, they had now suggested a site in Jackson Street which Henderson's were considering.
The Planning Committee at this week's meeting were also told that their £2 million road scheme centred on and around Higher Parr Street had been shelved by Merseyside County Council.
Councillor Joe Mulcrow was furious with the decision and predicted that town centre traffic would grind to a halt, explaining:
"With the build-up of traffic it will be a stagnation point for 24 hours a day. The tonnage this road carries is tremendous – it's one of the biggest on Merseyside."
The County Council had decided to delay the scheme and concentrate on others instead, as they said they did not have enough cash to go round.
However, St Helens Council had already spent £600,000 on the plan that was intended to cut congestion and stop heavy lorries thundering through the town centre.
The intention was to convert a half-mile stretch of road from the bottom of Church Street to Fingerpost into a dual carriageway of three lanes, each with roundabouts and there would also be a flyover.
It was said that Higher Parr Street was the most overloaded in the town, with nearly a third of its traffic being heavy lorries and at peak periods up to 85 buses were using it every hour.
The Snoopy Club – the Reporter's column for 4 to 11 year olds – had started in 1970 and this week contained this helpful advice for young tortoise lovers that also possessed a drill:
"Hello, Children. Many of you have written in to say that your tortoise has already awakened. And three people have asked me to point out that it is cruel to drill a hole in your tortoise's shell, in order to thread a piece of string through, and so tie the tortoise up."
The paper described how a 20-year era in the history of Cowley Girls School would be ending at Easter with the retirement of its headmistress.
Elsie Jackson had spent 35 years in the teaching profession and after being at Manchester High School for Girls she had come to St Helens in 1955.
A keen musician, the 59-year-old from Eccleston told the Reporter: "I have made many friends during my stay at Cowley and at present I have no plans for moving out of St. Helens."
Dorothy Cheesley of West Kirby Girls Grammar was succeeding Miss Jackson as headmistress.
The Reporter also described how three men working for a Nottingham firm of organ builders were staying on a farm while they restored the organ at All Saints Church in Sutton.
It was part of Rev. David McIntosh's cost cutting plans. Instead of the church having to pay for the men’s hotel accommodation, Annie Whitfield of Maypole Farm in Bold had volunteered to host them for several weeks.
Originally a Manchester firm had been given the job of repairing the organ at a cost of £7,000 but then the Nottingham firm had agreed to do the job for half that amount with their restorers staying in digs.
Rainford councillors Tony Brown and Audrey Berry were pictured in the Reporter in their new mobile surgery.
Like many councillors they found that few people attended their scheduled surgeries in the village hall.
And so they had hitched a caravan up to Tony's Land Rover and planned to go out into the community three times a month on the basis that if "they won't come to see us, then we will go to see them".
"It is surprising no one has thought of this before," said Tony. "Our surgeries were very poorly attended, and we were getting a bit concerned about the situation. Then the idea hit me and we held our first ‘mobile surgery’ last Saturday in Rainford Village.
"Now we can get down to the grass roots of democracy, and speak to the people who couldn't attend our village hall surgeries because there were very few buses running or because of bad weather."
When the Tontine Market had opened in St Helens in January the Reporter had predicted teething troubles.
Within a couple of weeks many of the stalls had been burgled and cash stolen as a result of the centre's new security system not working.
A second teething trouble occurred this week when a ten-ton lorry was backing into the market and crashed down a drain.
Well, only the lorry's front wheels actually dropped into the wide hole that was created when an iron drain cover buckled under the lorry's enormous weight.
The lower halves of the truck's front wheels were swallowed up and it took 30 minutes and three attempts to free the lorry with the aid of a forklift truck and a team of workers using planks as levers.
The incident happened outside Jackson's the tailors and assistant manager Ken Marsden was serving a customer when he heard a loud crash.
"The lorry could have come through our window," he said. "And I thought it might have when it was being lifted out of the hole. There's been no damage to our shop, but this is the second time it's happened."
And Norman Crooks, the assistant manager of Alexandre, who were another tailors, complained that the road was too narrow for big lorries to turn in, adding: "The whole incident was dangerous and somebody could have been hurt."
But Wimpey's site project manager was much more relaxed about what had occurred, saying:
"These things happen and we regret any inconvenience caused. It's a tight, compact site, in which every inch is taken up.
"It was just an unfortunate accident. The driver is an experienced man and a long-serving member of Wimpey. We're all allowed to make one mistake."
• One-way going clockwise past the Gamble Institute
• One-way going clockwise along the south side of Victoria Square
• One-way north up Vincent Street
• Left only onto Corporation Street turning by the Town Hall out of Hardshaw Street
• And traffic travelling north past Century House on Hardshaw Street would now go around the square to access Corporation Street.
There had been five bus stops sited around the Queen Victoria monument's island but these had now been spread around the edges of the square.
New stops had been introduced outside the Gamble Institute and the Prudential Buildings and also outside the Wesley Chapel and Theatre Royal.
The final stage of the new traffic management scheme would take place at the end of March.
Then Corporation Street would become one-way going west as far as Hall Street from the Town Hall.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include Pilks shock announcement of job losses, the schemes to reclaim derelict land, the digger vandalism in Merton Bank, the unhappy residents of two housing estates and a TV comic storms off the stage at Moss Lane.