FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (25 SEPT - 1 OCT 1973)
This week's many stories include the unhappy Ugandan Asians who felt they were being cold shouldered, the St Helens residents complaining of horrifying living conditions, community service is introduced in St Helens, the Pets Corner at Helena House, the children flirting with death on an old mine shaft in Burrows Lane and a solution in the dispute over the old Eccleston library being used as a village hall.
We begin with Pat Edwards who suffered a close escape this week. While on her morning train journey to work in Kirkby, vandals threw a brick through a carriage window. The 40-year-old from News Lane in Rainford said: "Glass showered all over me. I'd been looking outside and if I hadn't turned away a split second before it happened, I could have been blinded."
Apparently the Yetties (pictured above) took their name from the Dorset village of Yetminster and on the 27th the band performed their brand of English folk at the Theatre Royal in St Helens. On the following day jazz performers George Chisholm and Nat Gonella were in concert in Corporation Street.
The St Helens Reporter on the 28th described how a solution was in the offing in the 2-year-long dispute over the old Eccleston library. Last December a new library had opened on Broadway and Eccleston Parish Council sought to use its previous building in Kiln Lane as a village hall – but Lancashire County Council had refused to sell. Their Divisional Education Committee wanted to convert the building into a youth club but many local residents had objected upon hearing of the plans. Finally, the County Council agreed to sell the building but the Parish Council said their asking price of about £8,000 was too high.
The Reporter said they understood that a deal had now been reached in which the County Council would lower its price on condition the hall is used for youth work on at least two nights a week. Parish councillor Tom McCormack remarked: "I can't see the residents objecting to having a youth club on certain nights, because it will be under the control of the parish council. If there is any vandalism, we will have the power to close the club." And parish council secretary John Stead said: "We realise that the building will not be large enough to hold dances in. But it will provide the perfect meeting place, which every village needs."
The Reporter also wrote: "A burglar and a co-defendant were given a new brand of punishment by magistrates this week. They were ordered to spend 150 hours helping other people. For the first time a court in St. Helens issued a Community Service order – an experimental method for dealing with offenders." St Helens was one of five areas throughout England that had been chosen to pilot the community punishment scheme over a two-year period.
Recently two 13-year-old girls had walked through a cloud of chemical mist on their way to St Cuthbert's school in Berry's Lane. The Reporter then wrote: "The youngsters fled in terror, as the fumes made them gasp for breath and they were later sent to hospital." Leathers Chemicals and British Sidac had been ruled out as culprits. In this week's paper the Neighbourhood Rights Action Group of Baxters Lane wrote this letter demanding to know the identity of the miscreant firm:
"We parents of Sutton demand to know who this other firm is, and at once. We intend to take the lid off this whole dirty business. Are our children now not able to go to school in safety? We must be told whoever was responsible for this vile happening, and told in a public statement through the Press, without delay."
The Reporter also said: "Parents have been warned to watch out for children flirting with death near an old mine shaft." That was after youngsters had been seen to scale a 9-foot wall around a shaft in Burrows Lane in Eccleston. If the kids had fallen they would have run the risk of drowning. One resident said he had recently witnessed children playing on top of the shaft. After telling them to get down, one had explained that he had simply been curious to see what was below.
I don't recall Helena House (pictured above) having a Pets Corner on the ground floor of its Baldwin Street store. But in 1973 they had a small offering of animals for sale, comprising goldfish, budgerigars, guinea pigs, turtles, gerbil and hamsters. In the Reporter they were advertising free goldfish with each "complete goldfish kit" – without specifying what the kits contained.
They varied in price from £1.35 (which entitled the buyer to 3 free goldfish) up until £5.29 (8 free fish). If you preferred a cuddly hamster you received one free on purchasing a hamster kit, which cost from £2.24. The same applied to guinea pigs, turtles and gerbil kits but when it came to budgies, you were promised a cage and not a kit that cost £2.97 – and you paid 50p for the budgie.
The Reporter's lead story was how families of Ugandan Asians were pulling out of St Helens as a result of what the paper described as receiving "cold-shoulder treatment". One family even claimed that bricks had been thrown through their windows after moving into their new home. Loneliness, depression and lack of work had already driven two families out of St Helens down to friends in the Midlands. There were ten families that were still living in the town – but they were far from happy.
Shantilal Khimasia of Hammersley Avenue in St Helens was an accountant in Uganda before General Amin ordered him and his family out. Now he was a machine operator with Rockware and said: "We are very lonely and haven't got many friends. People are busy and don't seem to have the time to talk to us." However, Shantilal having a job appeared to be the exception, with most of the men unable to find work and local firms accused of being unhelpful.
Bhurilal Lakhnani, a father of eight and former shopkeeper in Kampala, said: "I have not worked since reaching England in April. My daughter has left the house and gone to London, and we find it hard to live. The officials I have met at the Ministry of Employment don't seem to care." When the family arrived in St Helens, bricks were thrown through their windows. "There are always people who will try to pick on us because we come from Uganda," explained Mr Lakhnani.
The Reporter also described how 250 residents of Clyde, Wilson and Peter streets in St Helens had signed a petition complaining about their "horrifying" living conditions. They said the area was infested with rats, filth and bluebottles that came from the backyards of houses that had been left empty for over a year. These, they said, had become dumping grounds for old mattresses, furniture, prams, washtubs and pieces of wood. The petition said:
"Surely it should be realised by the powers-that-be that these people are human beings and as such they should be able to live in an area of cleanliness, not filth and squalor. They are all decent and clean-living people who are living in fear of vermin and vandalism. No wonder St. Helens is known as one of the dirtiest towns in the country. How about giving us a fair crack of the whip by starting to clean up this area? When people pass by they turn up their noses and refer to us as peasants. I wonder if the members of our local council would like to live under such conditions. Indeed not. Please do not ignore our plea and help us remain clean and decent citizens."
Gertrude Dixon of Wilson Street and shopkeeper Doris Seddon of Peter Street had organised the petition with Mrs Dixon saying: "Those backyards are a disgrace and some people are living next door to them. We don't use the entries anymore. You never know if a rat is going to jump out at you. And the lighting in these streets is terrible. It's like a ghost town at night."
The Reporter asked Nat Birch, the town's Chief Public Health Inspector, for his comments and he said the houses were going to be demolished but all the tenants needed to be rehoused first and this had delayed the demolition. "The local authority want to demolish as quickly as possible after a tenant has left but it's not possible when people are still living in the block. This rubbish is not there when someone leaves a house; people deposit it and it's not our policy to remove it until the house is being demolished." But Mr Birch added that he would look into the residents' complaints concerning vermin and see whether more of the houses could be demolished sooner.
And finally, on the 1st the Pilkington Musical Society presented 'Fiddler On the Roof' at the Theatre Royal.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's many stories will include criticism of St Helens magistrates for showing leniency towards child sex offenders, St Helens pubs' campaign to close on Christmas night, the Look At Libraries Week and the drop in the town's population.
We begin with Pat Edwards who suffered a close escape this week. While on her morning train journey to work in Kirkby, vandals threw a brick through a carriage window. The 40-year-old from News Lane in Rainford said: "Glass showered all over me. I'd been looking outside and if I hadn't turned away a split second before it happened, I could have been blinded."
The St Helens Reporter on the 28th described how a solution was in the offing in the 2-year-long dispute over the old Eccleston library. Last December a new library had opened on Broadway and Eccleston Parish Council sought to use its previous building in Kiln Lane as a village hall – but Lancashire County Council had refused to sell. Their Divisional Education Committee wanted to convert the building into a youth club but many local residents had objected upon hearing of the plans. Finally, the County Council agreed to sell the building but the Parish Council said their asking price of about £8,000 was too high.
The Reporter said they understood that a deal had now been reached in which the County Council would lower its price on condition the hall is used for youth work on at least two nights a week. Parish councillor Tom McCormack remarked: "I can't see the residents objecting to having a youth club on certain nights, because it will be under the control of the parish council. If there is any vandalism, we will have the power to close the club." And parish council secretary John Stead said: "We realise that the building will not be large enough to hold dances in. But it will provide the perfect meeting place, which every village needs."
The Reporter also wrote: "A burglar and a co-defendant were given a new brand of punishment by magistrates this week. They were ordered to spend 150 hours helping other people. For the first time a court in St. Helens issued a Community Service order – an experimental method for dealing with offenders." St Helens was one of five areas throughout England that had been chosen to pilot the community punishment scheme over a two-year period.
Recently two 13-year-old girls had walked through a cloud of chemical mist on their way to St Cuthbert's school in Berry's Lane. The Reporter then wrote: "The youngsters fled in terror, as the fumes made them gasp for breath and they were later sent to hospital." Leathers Chemicals and British Sidac had been ruled out as culprits. In this week's paper the Neighbourhood Rights Action Group of Baxters Lane wrote this letter demanding to know the identity of the miscreant firm:
"We parents of Sutton demand to know who this other firm is, and at once. We intend to take the lid off this whole dirty business. Are our children now not able to go to school in safety? We must be told whoever was responsible for this vile happening, and told in a public statement through the Press, without delay."
The Reporter also said: "Parents have been warned to watch out for children flirting with death near an old mine shaft." That was after youngsters had been seen to scale a 9-foot wall around a shaft in Burrows Lane in Eccleston. If the kids had fallen they would have run the risk of drowning. One resident said he had recently witnessed children playing on top of the shaft. After telling them to get down, one had explained that he had simply been curious to see what was below.
They varied in price from £1.35 (which entitled the buyer to 3 free goldfish) up until £5.29 (8 free fish). If you preferred a cuddly hamster you received one free on purchasing a hamster kit, which cost from £2.24. The same applied to guinea pigs, turtles and gerbil kits but when it came to budgies, you were promised a cage and not a kit that cost £2.97 – and you paid 50p for the budgie.
The Reporter's lead story was how families of Ugandan Asians were pulling out of St Helens as a result of what the paper described as receiving "cold-shoulder treatment". One family even claimed that bricks had been thrown through their windows after moving into their new home. Loneliness, depression and lack of work had already driven two families out of St Helens down to friends in the Midlands. There were ten families that were still living in the town – but they were far from happy.
Shantilal Khimasia of Hammersley Avenue in St Helens was an accountant in Uganda before General Amin ordered him and his family out. Now he was a machine operator with Rockware and said: "We are very lonely and haven't got many friends. People are busy and don't seem to have the time to talk to us." However, Shantilal having a job appeared to be the exception, with most of the men unable to find work and local firms accused of being unhelpful.
Bhurilal Lakhnani, a father of eight and former shopkeeper in Kampala, said: "I have not worked since reaching England in April. My daughter has left the house and gone to London, and we find it hard to live. The officials I have met at the Ministry of Employment don't seem to care." When the family arrived in St Helens, bricks were thrown through their windows. "There are always people who will try to pick on us because we come from Uganda," explained Mr Lakhnani.
The Reporter also described how 250 residents of Clyde, Wilson and Peter streets in St Helens had signed a petition complaining about their "horrifying" living conditions. They said the area was infested with rats, filth and bluebottles that came from the backyards of houses that had been left empty for over a year. These, they said, had become dumping grounds for old mattresses, furniture, prams, washtubs and pieces of wood. The petition said:
"Surely it should be realised by the powers-that-be that these people are human beings and as such they should be able to live in an area of cleanliness, not filth and squalor. They are all decent and clean-living people who are living in fear of vermin and vandalism. No wonder St. Helens is known as one of the dirtiest towns in the country. How about giving us a fair crack of the whip by starting to clean up this area? When people pass by they turn up their noses and refer to us as peasants. I wonder if the members of our local council would like to live under such conditions. Indeed not. Please do not ignore our plea and help us remain clean and decent citizens."
Gertrude Dixon of Wilson Street and shopkeeper Doris Seddon of Peter Street had organised the petition with Mrs Dixon saying: "Those backyards are a disgrace and some people are living next door to them. We don't use the entries anymore. You never know if a rat is going to jump out at you. And the lighting in these streets is terrible. It's like a ghost town at night."
The Reporter asked Nat Birch, the town's Chief Public Health Inspector, for his comments and he said the houses were going to be demolished but all the tenants needed to be rehoused first and this had delayed the demolition. "The local authority want to demolish as quickly as possible after a tenant has left but it's not possible when people are still living in the block. This rubbish is not there when someone leaves a house; people deposit it and it's not our policy to remove it until the house is being demolished." But Mr Birch added that he would look into the residents' complaints concerning vermin and see whether more of the houses could be demolished sooner.
And finally, on the 1st the Pilkington Musical Society presented 'Fiddler On the Roof' at the Theatre Royal.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's many stories will include criticism of St Helens magistrates for showing leniency towards child sex offenders, St Helens pubs' campaign to close on Christmas night, the Look At Libraries Week and the drop in the town's population.
This week's many stories include the unhappy Ugandan Asians who felt they were being cold shouldered, the St Helens residents complaining of horrifying living conditions, community service is introduced in St Helens, the Pets Corner at Helena House, the children flirting with death on an old mine shaft in Burrows Lane and a solution in the dispute over the old Eccleston library being used as a village hall.
We begin with Pat Edwards who suffered a close escape this week. While on her morning train journey to work in Kirkby, vandals threw a brick through a carriage window.
The 40-year-old from News Lane in Rainford said: "Glass showered all over me. I'd been looking outside and if I hadn't turned away a split second before it happened, I could have been blinded."
Apparently the Yetties (pictured above) took their name from the Dorset village of Yetminster and on the 27th the band performed their brand of English folk at the Theatre Royal in St Helens.
On the following day jazz performers George Chisholm and Nat Gonella were in concert in Corporation Street.
The St Helens Reporter on the 28th described how a solution was in the offing in the 2-year-long dispute over the old Eccleston library.
Last December a new library had opened on Broadway and Eccleston Parish Council sought to use its previous building in Kiln Lane as a village hall – but Lancashire County Council had refused to sell.
Their Divisional Education Committee wanted to convert the building into a youth club but many local residents had objected upon hearing of the plans.
Finally, the County Council agreed to sell the building but the Parish Council said their asking price of about £8,000 was too high.
The Reporter said they understood that a deal had now been reached in which the County Council would lower its price on condition the hall is used for youth work on at least two nights a week.
Parish councillor Tom McCormack remarked: "I can't see the residents objecting to having a youth club on certain nights, because it will be under the control of the parish council. If there is any vandalism, we will have the power to close the club."
And parish council secretary John Stead said: "We realise that the building will not be large enough to hold dances in. But it will provide the perfect meeting place, which every village needs."
The Reporter also wrote: "A burglar and a co-defendant were given a new brand of punishment by magistrates this week. They were ordered to spend 150 hours helping other people.
"For the first time a court in St. Helens issued a Community Service order – an experimental method for dealing with offenders."
St Helens was one of five areas throughout England that had been chosen to pilot the community punishment scheme over a two-year period.
Recently two 13-year-old girls had walked through a cloud of chemical mist on their way to St Cuthbert's school in Berry's Lane. The Reporter then wrote:
"The youngsters fled in terror, as the fumes made them gasp for breath and they were later sent to hospital."
Leathers Chemicals and British Sidac had been ruled out as culprits. In this week's paper the Neighbourhood Rights Action Group of Baxters Lane wrote this letter demanding to know the identity of the miscreant firm:
"We parents of Sutton demand to know who this other firm is, and at once. We intend to take the lid off this whole dirty business. Are our children now not able to go to school in safety?
"We must be told whoever was responsible for this vile happening, and told in a public statement through the Press, without delay."
The Reporter also said: "Parents have been warned to watch out for children flirting with death near an old mine shaft."
That was after youngsters had been seen to scale a 9-foot wall around a shaft in Burrows Lane in Eccleston. If the kids had fallen they would have run the risk of drowning.
One resident said he had recently witnessed children playing on top of the shaft. After telling them to get down, one had explained that he had simply been curious to see what was below.
I don't recall Helena House (pictured above) having a Pets Corner on the ground floor of its Baldwin Street store.
But in 1973 they had a small offering of animals for sale, comprising goldfish, budgerigars, guinea pigs, turtles, gerbil and hamsters.
In the Reporter they were advertising free goldfish with each "complete goldfish kit" – without specifying what the kits contained.
They varied in price from £1.35 (which entitled the buyer to 3 free goldfish) up until £5.29 (8 free fish).
If you preferred a cuddly hamster you received one free on purchasing a hamster kit, which cost from £2.24.
The same applied to guinea pigs, turtles and gerbil kits but when it came to budgies, you were promised a cage and not a kit that cost £2.97 – and you paid 50p for the budgie.
The Reporter's lead story was how families of Ugandan Asians were pulling out of St Helens as a result of what the paper described as receiving "cold-shoulder treatment".
One family even claimed that bricks had been thrown through their windows after moving into their new home.
Loneliness, depression and lack of work had already driven two families out of St Helens down to friends in the Midlands.
There were ten families that were still living in the town – but they were far from happy.
Shantilal Khimasia of Hammersley Avenue in St Helens was an accountant in Uganda before General Amin ordered him and his family out.
Now he was a machine operator with Rockware and said: "We are very lonely and haven't got many friends. People are busy and don't seem to have the time to talk to us."
However, Shantilal having a job appeared to be the exception, with most of the men unable to find work and local firms accused of being unhelpful.
Bhurilal Lakhnani, a father of eight and former shopkeeper in Kampala, said:
"I have not worked since reaching England in April. My daughter has left the house and gone to London, and we find it hard to live. The officials I have met at the Ministry of Employment don't seem to care."
When the family arrived in St Helens, bricks were thrown through their windows. "There are always people who will try to pick on us because we come from Uganda," explained Mr Lakhnani.
The Reporter also described how 250 residents of Clyde, Wilson and Peter streets in St Helens had signed a petition complaining about their "horrifying" living conditions.
They said the area was infested with rats, filth and bluebottles that came from the backyards of houses that had been left empty for over a year.
These, they said, had become dumping grounds for old mattresses, furniture, prams, washtubs and pieces of wood.
The petition said: "Surely it should be realised by the powers-that-be that these people are human beings and as such they should be able to live in an area of cleanliness, not filth and squalor.
"They are all decent and clean-living people who are living in fear of vermin and vandalism. No wonder St. Helens is known as one of the dirtiest towns in the country.
"How about giving us a fair crack of the whip by starting to clean up this area? When people pass by they turn up their noses and refer to us as peasants.
"I wonder if the members of our local council would like to live under such conditions. Indeed not. Please do not ignore our plea and help us remain clean and decent citizens."
Gertrude Dixon of Wilson Street and shopkeeper Doris Seddon of Peter Street had organised the petition with Mrs Dixon saying:
"Those backyards are a disgrace and some people are living next door to them. We don't use the entries anymore. You never know if a rat is going to jump out at you. And the lighting in these streets is terrible. It's like a ghost town at night."
The Reporter asked Nat Birch, the town's Chief Public Health Inspector, for his comments and he said the houses were going to be demolished but all the tenants needed to be rehoused first and this had delayed the demolition.
"The local authority want to demolish as quickly as possible after a tenant has left but it's not possible when people are still living in the block.
"This rubbish is not there when someone leaves a house; people deposit it and it's not our policy to remove it until the house is being demolished."
But Mr Birch added that he would look into the residents' complaints concerning vermin and see whether more of the houses could be demolished sooner.
And finally, on the 1st the Pilkington Musical Society presented 'Fiddler On the Roof' at the Theatre Royal.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's many stories will include criticism of St Helens magistrates for showing leniency towards child sex offenders, St Helens pubs' campaign to close on Christmas night, the Look At Libraries Week and the drop in the town's population.
We begin with Pat Edwards who suffered a close escape this week. While on her morning train journey to work in Kirkby, vandals threw a brick through a carriage window.
The 40-year-old from News Lane in Rainford said: "Glass showered all over me. I'd been looking outside and if I hadn't turned away a split second before it happened, I could have been blinded."
On the following day jazz performers George Chisholm and Nat Gonella were in concert in Corporation Street.
The St Helens Reporter on the 28th described how a solution was in the offing in the 2-year-long dispute over the old Eccleston library.
Last December a new library had opened on Broadway and Eccleston Parish Council sought to use its previous building in Kiln Lane as a village hall – but Lancashire County Council had refused to sell.
Their Divisional Education Committee wanted to convert the building into a youth club but many local residents had objected upon hearing of the plans.
Finally, the County Council agreed to sell the building but the Parish Council said their asking price of about £8,000 was too high.
The Reporter said they understood that a deal had now been reached in which the County Council would lower its price on condition the hall is used for youth work on at least two nights a week.
Parish councillor Tom McCormack remarked: "I can't see the residents objecting to having a youth club on certain nights, because it will be under the control of the parish council. If there is any vandalism, we will have the power to close the club."
And parish council secretary John Stead said: "We realise that the building will not be large enough to hold dances in. But it will provide the perfect meeting place, which every village needs."
The Reporter also wrote: "A burglar and a co-defendant were given a new brand of punishment by magistrates this week. They were ordered to spend 150 hours helping other people.
"For the first time a court in St. Helens issued a Community Service order – an experimental method for dealing with offenders."
St Helens was one of five areas throughout England that had been chosen to pilot the community punishment scheme over a two-year period.
Recently two 13-year-old girls had walked through a cloud of chemical mist on their way to St Cuthbert's school in Berry's Lane. The Reporter then wrote:
"The youngsters fled in terror, as the fumes made them gasp for breath and they were later sent to hospital."
Leathers Chemicals and British Sidac had been ruled out as culprits. In this week's paper the Neighbourhood Rights Action Group of Baxters Lane wrote this letter demanding to know the identity of the miscreant firm:
"We parents of Sutton demand to know who this other firm is, and at once. We intend to take the lid off this whole dirty business. Are our children now not able to go to school in safety?
"We must be told whoever was responsible for this vile happening, and told in a public statement through the Press, without delay."
The Reporter also said: "Parents have been warned to watch out for children flirting with death near an old mine shaft."
That was after youngsters had been seen to scale a 9-foot wall around a shaft in Burrows Lane in Eccleston. If the kids had fallen they would have run the risk of drowning.
One resident said he had recently witnessed children playing on top of the shaft. After telling them to get down, one had explained that he had simply been curious to see what was below.
But in 1973 they had a small offering of animals for sale, comprising goldfish, budgerigars, guinea pigs, turtles, gerbil and hamsters.
In the Reporter they were advertising free goldfish with each "complete goldfish kit" – without specifying what the kits contained.
They varied in price from £1.35 (which entitled the buyer to 3 free goldfish) up until £5.29 (8 free fish).
If you preferred a cuddly hamster you received one free on purchasing a hamster kit, which cost from £2.24.
The same applied to guinea pigs, turtles and gerbil kits but when it came to budgies, you were promised a cage and not a kit that cost £2.97 – and you paid 50p for the budgie.
The Reporter's lead story was how families of Ugandan Asians were pulling out of St Helens as a result of what the paper described as receiving "cold-shoulder treatment".
One family even claimed that bricks had been thrown through their windows after moving into their new home.
Loneliness, depression and lack of work had already driven two families out of St Helens down to friends in the Midlands.
There were ten families that were still living in the town – but they were far from happy.
Shantilal Khimasia of Hammersley Avenue in St Helens was an accountant in Uganda before General Amin ordered him and his family out.
Now he was a machine operator with Rockware and said: "We are very lonely and haven't got many friends. People are busy and don't seem to have the time to talk to us."
However, Shantilal having a job appeared to be the exception, with most of the men unable to find work and local firms accused of being unhelpful.
Bhurilal Lakhnani, a father of eight and former shopkeeper in Kampala, said:
"I have not worked since reaching England in April. My daughter has left the house and gone to London, and we find it hard to live. The officials I have met at the Ministry of Employment don't seem to care."
When the family arrived in St Helens, bricks were thrown through their windows. "There are always people who will try to pick on us because we come from Uganda," explained Mr Lakhnani.
The Reporter also described how 250 residents of Clyde, Wilson and Peter streets in St Helens had signed a petition complaining about their "horrifying" living conditions.
They said the area was infested with rats, filth and bluebottles that came from the backyards of houses that had been left empty for over a year.
These, they said, had become dumping grounds for old mattresses, furniture, prams, washtubs and pieces of wood.
The petition said: "Surely it should be realised by the powers-that-be that these people are human beings and as such they should be able to live in an area of cleanliness, not filth and squalor.
"They are all decent and clean-living people who are living in fear of vermin and vandalism. No wonder St. Helens is known as one of the dirtiest towns in the country.
"How about giving us a fair crack of the whip by starting to clean up this area? When people pass by they turn up their noses and refer to us as peasants.
"I wonder if the members of our local council would like to live under such conditions. Indeed not. Please do not ignore our plea and help us remain clean and decent citizens."
Gertrude Dixon of Wilson Street and shopkeeper Doris Seddon of Peter Street had organised the petition with Mrs Dixon saying:
"Those backyards are a disgrace and some people are living next door to them. We don't use the entries anymore. You never know if a rat is going to jump out at you. And the lighting in these streets is terrible. It's like a ghost town at night."
The Reporter asked Nat Birch, the town's Chief Public Health Inspector, for his comments and he said the houses were going to be demolished but all the tenants needed to be rehoused first and this had delayed the demolition.
"The local authority want to demolish as quickly as possible after a tenant has left but it's not possible when people are still living in the block.
"This rubbish is not there when someone leaves a house; people deposit it and it's not our policy to remove it until the house is being demolished."
But Mr Birch added that he would look into the residents' complaints concerning vermin and see whether more of the houses could be demolished sooner.
And finally, on the 1st the Pilkington Musical Society presented 'Fiddler On the Roof' at the Theatre Royal.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's many stories will include criticism of St Helens magistrates for showing leniency towards child sex offenders, St Helens pubs' campaign to close on Christmas night, the Look At Libraries Week and the drop in the town's population.