FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (5th - 11th DECEMBER 1972)
This week's stories include the mysterious brown fog that descended on Parr, the Dean of St Helens criticises plans for a vasectomy service, the RSPCA's campaign against the laying of illegal traps, the fire at the derelict school in York Street and St Helens Round Table takes Father Christmas round the town.
We begin on the 5th with "Your New Home At Chain Lane, St. Helens". That was the headline to an advert in the Liverpool Echo from Daleholme Estates. The ad continued: "Save! Save! Save! with us for your own new modern home and avoid the Springtime rush. For as little as £100 initial deposit, you can buy your own new home in 1973 at 1972 prices. You have a choice of very attractive 3 bedroomed Georgian Style dormer Bungalows and 3 bedroomed Georgian style Town Houses with garage, all with good garden areas. All Properties Are Sold on Fixed Price Contracts."
The actual site was Erskine Close, off Chain Lane, and although no prices were stated in the advert, customers could expect to pay around £6 - £7,000 per house. Daleholme Estates had previously been criticised for raising prices of new homes, blaming increases on the cost of labour and materials. They claimed that prospective purchasers had been warned that their house when it was built might cost them more – but the buyers denied having being told. So because of the poor publicity they had received through allegations of gazumping, Daleholme were now promising fixed price deals.
Questions were being asked this week as to why the education authority had allowed a partly-full tank of diesel oil to remain inside a derelict school. St Mary's Primary in York Street had shut on October 1st and last weekend vandals had started a fire. That set alight the oil in the tank and led to flames shooting up into the sky, with the blaze severely damaging the building.
The Corporation's Education Department said that after they had vacated the school, the premises became the responsibility of the parish. "We didn't remove the oil because we were told that the building was still to be used for parish activities," explained a spokesman. "We didn't want to be so petty-minded as to leave them without fuel for heating. If the building was not being used again and we had had a guarantee to that effect, we would have taken the oil away."
It was Stag Night at The Plaza Club on the 7th. The Duke Street club's advert in the Echo said: "Exotic dances, go go girls plus top cabaret. Licensed till 2 a.m." The paper also reported that St Helens Corporation was concerned about the effect of traffic noise on residents of Bickerstaffe Street when the proposed new one-way traffic scheme in Victoria Square (pictured above) was introduced. The report said that as a result they were considering rehousing some council house tenants and acquiring the homes of private householders.
The controversial Dean of St Helens was in the Echo on the 8th. The Very Rev Hugh Fitzpatrick was commenting on the decision of the town's Health Committee to establish a vasectomy service through the St Helens Family Planning Association. The Dean argued that male sterilisation was against the teachings of the Catholic Church, adding: "This kind of operation for the purpose of contraception is wrong. I am not criticising the Corporation or individuals whose conscience permits contraception, but the legislation which allows such schemes. The law's permissiveness goes beyond what we consider Christian teaching."
Jimmy Hilliard and Bill Aitchison were pictured in the Echo. The pair had the task of cleaning Pilkington's 12,000 windows at their Prescot Road HQ in St Helens (pictured above). "And no sooner have they reached the final pane of the firm's 12-storey high office block than they are back to square one!", commented the Echo.
"War On The Killer Trap" was the headline to the lead story in the St Helens Reporter on the 8th. RSPCA inspector Patrick Colgan was leading a campaign against the laying of illegal traps that, as the paper put it, can "maim toddlers and kill pets by slow torture". Mr Colgan explained how earlier in the week he had been called to a dying cat in Dragon Lane in Whiston that had been caught in the claws of an illegal gin trap. "I had to put it down. It was the only humane thing to do", he said.
It had been the sixth such incident within the St Helens district this year, with other cases at Parr, Crank, Clinkham Wood, Rainford Road and on the East Lancs Road. "I'm appealing to anybody who knows anything about people using them to come forward and help me nail the culprits", added the inspector.
The paper also wrote of a "suffocating mystery cloud" that had descended on a Parr estate for "15 frightening minutes". Ruth Barton told how she had been taking her dog Prince for a walk near her home in Castle Avenue: "Suddenly there was a thick brown fog. I rushed home through it. It left a terrible taste in my mouth and it smelled awful."
And Ruth's husband, Harry, added: "I suffer from asthma and bronchitis, and I could hardly breathe. It was suffocating and smelled horrible." Although the couple blamed Leathers, the chemical company denied responsibility and Nat Birch, the St Helens Chief Public Health Inspector, felt the colour of the fog didn't "ring true" to be another of the Sutton firm's infamous discharges.
"Christmas In Rainford" was the headline to an advertising feature in the Reporter in which the village was described as an "ideal, compact shopping centre, while still retaining much of its charm as an old world Lancashire village". The advertisers included:
W. Swire and Sons, 21 Church Road ("Suppliers of wallpaper and vinyls"); A. & E. Bradbury & Son, 14 Ormskirk Road ("Toy fair now on"); Wainwrights Electrical Services, 22 Church Road ("A selection of radiograms from £69.87); Fashionflair, 2 Ormskirk Road, Rainford ("A wide and varied selection of Christmas gifts"); J. E. Cook, Ormskirk Road ("Please order early for Christmas – beef, lamb, pork, all home killed on the premises"); Ron & Brenda Raspin, 88 Church Road ("The do-it-yourself shop") and R. & M. Garner (Newsagents), 171 Ormskirk Road ("We wish all our customers a happy Christmas and prosperous new year").
The Reporter also described how violinist Ilse Joseph had made a charity record. The 73-year-old refugee from Hitler's Germany had lost her two children in a Nazi concentration camp and had relocated to St Helens before eventually settling on the Wirral. Mrs Joseph told the Reporter that the proceeds from her recording would go towards a fund for needy children and she was still grateful for the reception she'd been given in St Helens after fleeing the Nazis.
There's nothing new in hospital blunders, of course. With an ever-expanding number of treatments and operations – and with greater openness and means of communication – we simply get to hear more about medical mistakes. This week the Reporter covered the case of Jim McDonnell who after a fall at a Llandudno hotel was treated at a local hospital for shock and concussion. At the end of his 11-day stay in the infirmary, the 73-year-old was told he could return to his home in McFarlane Avenue in St Helens with a fractured skull and dislocated vertebrae undiagnosed.
It took medical staff at Providence Hospital to spot the serious injuries and they detained Mr McDonnell for over 5 weeks. And then the doctors would only discharge him if he wore a surgical collar. Jim's son John told the Reporter that the 70-mile trip home could have killed his Dad: "At Providence Hospital they confirmed the skull injury and found, too, that a vertebrae in his spine was dislocated. It could have killed him by damaging the spinal cord." And Jim McDonnell was actually Alderman McDonnell, the deputy chairman of the St Helens Health Committee who had been attending a 5-day conference in Llandudno for the ambulance service. So no special treatment there then!
On the 9th the St Helens Choral Society presented their annual Christmas Concert in front of a capacity audience in the Town Hall. The Reporter's review said: "Much fine singing aided at times by the audience, good playing by the orchestra, under the capable leadership of Anne Webster, and a delightful soprano in Sheena Hamill. What more could one want?" The Hillsiders were regulars at the Theatre Royal and they returned for another country and western night on the 10th. The Liverpool group's career had begun in 1964 and would continue until 1999.
The St Helens and District Round Table launched their Christmas 1972 Appeal on the 11th. That was when Father Christmas and members of the Round Table visited Dentons Green carol singing and collecting donations of food and cash. These would go towards Christmas food parcels that were going to be distributed to local old age pensioners. The Round Table's advert in the Reporter said: "Come out when you hear the Carol Singing. Father Christmas will have sweets for the children who come to see him...We are trying to surpass last year's total when we were able to help make a Happier Christmas for so many old people."
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include a tragedy at a Thatto Heath school, the distemper epidemic sweeping the town, the new device that was saving miners' lives, the Sherdley Hall Farm fire and the switching on of the town's Christmas lights.
We begin on the 5th with "Your New Home At Chain Lane, St. Helens". That was the headline to an advert in the Liverpool Echo from Daleholme Estates. The ad continued: "Save! Save! Save! with us for your own new modern home and avoid the Springtime rush. For as little as £100 initial deposit, you can buy your own new home in 1973 at 1972 prices. You have a choice of very attractive 3 bedroomed Georgian Style dormer Bungalows and 3 bedroomed Georgian style Town Houses with garage, all with good garden areas. All Properties Are Sold on Fixed Price Contracts."
The actual site was Erskine Close, off Chain Lane, and although no prices were stated in the advert, customers could expect to pay around £6 - £7,000 per house. Daleholme Estates had previously been criticised for raising prices of new homes, blaming increases on the cost of labour and materials. They claimed that prospective purchasers had been warned that their house when it was built might cost them more – but the buyers denied having being told. So because of the poor publicity they had received through allegations of gazumping, Daleholme were now promising fixed price deals.
Questions were being asked this week as to why the education authority had allowed a partly-full tank of diesel oil to remain inside a derelict school. St Mary's Primary in York Street had shut on October 1st and last weekend vandals had started a fire. That set alight the oil in the tank and led to flames shooting up into the sky, with the blaze severely damaging the building.
The Corporation's Education Department said that after they had vacated the school, the premises became the responsibility of the parish. "We didn't remove the oil because we were told that the building was still to be used for parish activities," explained a spokesman. "We didn't want to be so petty-minded as to leave them without fuel for heating. If the building was not being used again and we had had a guarantee to that effect, we would have taken the oil away."
The controversial Dean of St Helens was in the Echo on the 8th. The Very Rev Hugh Fitzpatrick was commenting on the decision of the town's Health Committee to establish a vasectomy service through the St Helens Family Planning Association. The Dean argued that male sterilisation was against the teachings of the Catholic Church, adding: "This kind of operation for the purpose of contraception is wrong. I am not criticising the Corporation or individuals whose conscience permits contraception, but the legislation which allows such schemes. The law's permissiveness goes beyond what we consider Christian teaching."
"War On The Killer Trap" was the headline to the lead story in the St Helens Reporter on the 8th. RSPCA inspector Patrick Colgan was leading a campaign against the laying of illegal traps that, as the paper put it, can "maim toddlers and kill pets by slow torture". Mr Colgan explained how earlier in the week he had been called to a dying cat in Dragon Lane in Whiston that had been caught in the claws of an illegal gin trap. "I had to put it down. It was the only humane thing to do", he said.
It had been the sixth such incident within the St Helens district this year, with other cases at Parr, Crank, Clinkham Wood, Rainford Road and on the East Lancs Road. "I'm appealing to anybody who knows anything about people using them to come forward and help me nail the culprits", added the inspector.
The paper also wrote of a "suffocating mystery cloud" that had descended on a Parr estate for "15 frightening minutes". Ruth Barton told how she had been taking her dog Prince for a walk near her home in Castle Avenue: "Suddenly there was a thick brown fog. I rushed home through it. It left a terrible taste in my mouth and it smelled awful."
And Ruth's husband, Harry, added: "I suffer from asthma and bronchitis, and I could hardly breathe. It was suffocating and smelled horrible." Although the couple blamed Leathers, the chemical company denied responsibility and Nat Birch, the St Helens Chief Public Health Inspector, felt the colour of the fog didn't "ring true" to be another of the Sutton firm's infamous discharges.
"Christmas In Rainford" was the headline to an advertising feature in the Reporter in which the village was described as an "ideal, compact shopping centre, while still retaining much of its charm as an old world Lancashire village". The advertisers included:
W. Swire and Sons, 21 Church Road ("Suppliers of wallpaper and vinyls"); A. & E. Bradbury & Son, 14 Ormskirk Road ("Toy fair now on"); Wainwrights Electrical Services, 22 Church Road ("A selection of radiograms from £69.87); Fashionflair, 2 Ormskirk Road, Rainford ("A wide and varied selection of Christmas gifts"); J. E. Cook, Ormskirk Road ("Please order early for Christmas – beef, lamb, pork, all home killed on the premises"); Ron & Brenda Raspin, 88 Church Road ("The do-it-yourself shop") and R. & M. Garner (Newsagents), 171 Ormskirk Road ("We wish all our customers a happy Christmas and prosperous new year").
The Reporter also described how violinist Ilse Joseph had made a charity record. The 73-year-old refugee from Hitler's Germany had lost her two children in a Nazi concentration camp and had relocated to St Helens before eventually settling on the Wirral. Mrs Joseph told the Reporter that the proceeds from her recording would go towards a fund for needy children and she was still grateful for the reception she'd been given in St Helens after fleeing the Nazis.
There's nothing new in hospital blunders, of course. With an ever-expanding number of treatments and operations – and with greater openness and means of communication – we simply get to hear more about medical mistakes. This week the Reporter covered the case of Jim McDonnell who after a fall at a Llandudno hotel was treated at a local hospital for shock and concussion. At the end of his 11-day stay in the infirmary, the 73-year-old was told he could return to his home in McFarlane Avenue in St Helens with a fractured skull and dislocated vertebrae undiagnosed.
It took medical staff at Providence Hospital to spot the serious injuries and they detained Mr McDonnell for over 5 weeks. And then the doctors would only discharge him if he wore a surgical collar. Jim's son John told the Reporter that the 70-mile trip home could have killed his Dad: "At Providence Hospital they confirmed the skull injury and found, too, that a vertebrae in his spine was dislocated. It could have killed him by damaging the spinal cord." And Jim McDonnell was actually Alderman McDonnell, the deputy chairman of the St Helens Health Committee who had been attending a 5-day conference in Llandudno for the ambulance service. So no special treatment there then!
On the 9th the St Helens Choral Society presented their annual Christmas Concert in front of a capacity audience in the Town Hall. The Reporter's review said: "Much fine singing aided at times by the audience, good playing by the orchestra, under the capable leadership of Anne Webster, and a delightful soprano in Sheena Hamill. What more could one want?" The Hillsiders were regulars at the Theatre Royal and they returned for another country and western night on the 10th. The Liverpool group's career had begun in 1964 and would continue until 1999.
The St Helens and District Round Table launched their Christmas 1972 Appeal on the 11th. That was when Father Christmas and members of the Round Table visited Dentons Green carol singing and collecting donations of food and cash. These would go towards Christmas food parcels that were going to be distributed to local old age pensioners. The Round Table's advert in the Reporter said: "Come out when you hear the Carol Singing. Father Christmas will have sweets for the children who come to see him...We are trying to surpass last year's total when we were able to help make a Happier Christmas for so many old people."
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include a tragedy at a Thatto Heath school, the distemper epidemic sweeping the town, the new device that was saving miners' lives, the Sherdley Hall Farm fire and the switching on of the town's Christmas lights.
This week's stories include the mysterious brown fog that descended on Parr, the Dean of St Helens criticises plans for a vasectomy service, the RSPCA's campaign against the laying of illegal traps, the fire at the derelict school in York Street and St Helens Round Table takes Father Christmas round the town.
We begin on the 5th with "Your New Home At Chain Lane, St. Helens". That was the headline to an advert in the Liverpool Echo from Daleholme Estates. The ad continued:
"Save! Save! Save! with us for your own new modern home and avoid the Springtime rush. For as little as £100 initial deposit, you can buy your own new home in 1973 at 1972 prices. You have a choice of very attractive 3 bedroomed Georgian Style dormer Bungalows and 3 bedroomed Georgian style Town Houses with garage, all with good garden areas. All Properties Are Sold on Fixed Price Contracts."
The actual site was Erskine Close, off Chain Lane, and although no prices were stated in the advert, customers could expect to pay around £6 - £7,000 per house.
Daleholme Estates had previously been criticised for raising prices of new homes, blaming increases on the cost of labour and materials.
They claimed that prospective purchasers had been warned that their house when it was built might cost them more – but the buyers denied having being told.
So because of the poor publicity they had received through allegations of gazumping, Daleholme were now promising fixed price deals.
Questions were being asked this week as to why the education authority had allowed a partly-full tank of diesel oil to remain inside a derelict school.
St Mary's Primary in York Street had shut on October 1st and last weekend vandals had started a fire.
That set alight the oil in the tank and led to flames shooting up into the sky, with the blaze severely damaging the building.
The Corporation's Education Department said that after they had vacated the school, the premises became the responsibility of the parish.
"We didn't remove the oil because we were told that the building was still to be used for parish activities," explained a spokesman.
"We didn't want to be so petty-minded as to leave them without fuel for heating. If the building was not being used again and we had had a guarantee to that effect, we would have taken the oil away."
It was Stag Night at The Plaza Club on the 7th. The Duke Street club's advert in the Echo said: "Exotic dances, go go girls plus top cabaret. Licensed till 2 a.m."
The paper also reported that St Helens Corporation was concerned about the effect of traffic noise on residents of Bickerstaffe Street when the proposed new one-way traffic scheme in Victoria Square (pictured above) was introduced.
The report said that as a result they were considering rehousing some council house tenants and acquiring the homes of private householders.
The controversial Dean of St Helens was in the Echo on the 8th. The Very Rev Hugh Fitzpatrick was commenting on the decision of the town's Health Committee to establish a vasectomy service through the St Helens Family Planning Association.
The Dean argued that male sterilisation was against the teachings of the Catholic Church, adding:
"This kind of operation for the purpose of contraception is wrong. I am not criticising the Corporation or individuals whose conscience permits contraception, but the legislation which allows such schemes. The law's permissiveness goes beyond what we consider Christian teaching."
Jimmy Hilliard and Bill Aitchison were pictured in the Echo. The pair had the task of cleaning Pilkington's 12,000 windows at their Prescot Road HQ in St Helens (pictured above).
"And no sooner have they reached the final pane of the firm's 12-storey high office block than they are back to square one!", commented the Echo.
"War On The Killer Trap" was the headline to the lead story in the St Helens Reporter on the 8th.
RSPCA inspector Patrick Colgan was leading a campaign against the laying of illegal traps that, as the paper put it, can "maim toddlers and kill pets by slow torture".
Mr Colgan explained how earlier in the week he had been called to a dying cat in Dragon Lane in Whiston that had been caught in the claws of an illegal gin trap. "I had to put it down. It was the only humane thing to do", he said.
It had been the sixth such incident within the St Helens district this year, with other cases at Parr, Crank, Clinkham Wood, Rainford Road and on the East Lancs Road.
"I'm appealing to anybody who knows anything about people using them to come forward and help me nail the culprits", added the inspector.
The paper also wrote of a "suffocating mystery cloud" that had descended on a Parr estate for "15 frightening minutes".
Ruth Barton told how she had been taking her dog Prince for a walk near her home in Castle Avenue:
"Suddenly there was a thick brown fog. I rushed home through it. It left a terrible taste in my mouth and it smelled awful." And Ruth's husband, Harry, added:
"I suffer from asthma and bronchitis, and I could hardly breathe. It was suffocating and smelled horrible."
Although the couple blamed Leathers, the chemical company denied responsibility and Nat Birch, the St Helens Chief Public Health Inspector, felt the colour of the fog didn't "ring true" to be another of the Sutton firm's infamous discharges.
"Christmas In Rainford" was the headline to an advertising feature in the Reporter in which the village was described as an "ideal, compact shopping centre, while still retaining much of its charm as an old world Lancashire village". The advertisers included:
W. Swire and Sons, 21 Church Road ("Suppliers of wallpaper and vinyls"); A. & E. Bradbury & Son, 14 Ormskirk Road ("Toy fair now on"); Wainwrights Electrical Services, 22 Church Road ("A selection of radiograms from £69.87) and Fashionflair, 2 Ormskirk Road, Rainford ("A wide and varied selection of Christmas gifts").
Also J. E. Cook, Ormskirk Road ("Please order early for Christmas – beef, lamb, pork, all home killed on the premises"); Ron & Brenda Raspin, 88 Church Road ("The do-it-yourself shop") and R. & M. Garner (Newsagents), 171 Ormskirk Road ("We wish all our customers a happy Christmas and prosperous new year").
The Reporter also described how violinist Ilse Joseph had made a charity record.
The 73-year-old refugee from Hitler's Germany had lost her two children in a Nazi concentration camp and had relocated to St Helens before eventually settling on the Wirral.
Mrs Joseph told the Reporter that the proceeds from her recording would go towards a fund for needy children and she was still grateful for the reception she'd been given in St Helens after fleeing the Nazis.
There's nothing new in hospital blunders, of course. With an ever-expanding number of treatments and operations – and with greater openness and means of communication – we simply get to hear more about medical mistakes.
This week the Reporter covered the case of Jim McDonnell who after a fall at a Llandudno hotel was treated at a local hospital for shock and concussion.
At the end of his 11-day stay in the infirmary, the 73-year-old was told he could return to his home in McFarlane Avenue in St Helens with a fractured skull and dislocated vertebrae undiagnosed.
It took medical staff at Providence Hospital to spot the serious injuries and they detained Mr McDonnell for over 5 weeks.
And then the doctors would only discharge him if he wore a surgical collar. Jim's son John told the Reporter that the 70-mile trip home could have killed his Dad:
"At Providence Hospital they confirmed the skull injury and found, too, that a vertebrae in his spine was dislocated. It could have killed him by damaging the spinal cord."
And Jim McDonnell was actually Alderman McDonnell, the deputy chairman of the St Helens Health Committee who had been attending a 5-day conference in Llandudno for the ambulance service. So no special treatment there then!
On the 9th the St Helens Choral Society presented their annual Christmas Concert in front of a capacity audience in the Town Hall. The Reporter's review said:
"Much fine singing aided at times by the audience, good playing by the orchestra, under the capable leadership of Anne Webster, and a delightful soprano in Sheena Hamill. What more could one want?"
The Hillsiders were regulars at the Theatre Royal and they returned for another country and western night on the 10th. The Liverpool group's career had begun in 1964 and would continue until 1999.
And finally, St Helens and District Round Table launched their Christmas 1972 Appeal on the 11th.
That was when Father Christmas and members of the Round Table visited Dentons Green carol singing and collecting donations of food and cash.
These would go towards Christmas food parcels that were going to be distributed to local old age pensioners. The Round Table's advert in the Reporter said:
"Come out when you hear the Carol Singing. Father Christmas will have sweets for the children who come to see him...We are trying to surpass last year's total when we were able to help make a Happier Christmas for so many old people."
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include a tragedy at a Thatto Heath school, the distemper epidemic sweeping the town, the new device that was saving miners' lives, the Sherdley Hall Farm fire and the switching on of the town's Christmas lights.
We begin on the 5th with "Your New Home At Chain Lane, St. Helens". That was the headline to an advert in the Liverpool Echo from Daleholme Estates. The ad continued:
"Save! Save! Save! with us for your own new modern home and avoid the Springtime rush. For as little as £100 initial deposit, you can buy your own new home in 1973 at 1972 prices. You have a choice of very attractive 3 bedroomed Georgian Style dormer Bungalows and 3 bedroomed Georgian style Town Houses with garage, all with good garden areas. All Properties Are Sold on Fixed Price Contracts."
The actual site was Erskine Close, off Chain Lane, and although no prices were stated in the advert, customers could expect to pay around £6 - £7,000 per house.
Daleholme Estates had previously been criticised for raising prices of new homes, blaming increases on the cost of labour and materials.
They claimed that prospective purchasers had been warned that their house when it was built might cost them more – but the buyers denied having being told.
So because of the poor publicity they had received through allegations of gazumping, Daleholme were now promising fixed price deals.
Questions were being asked this week as to why the education authority had allowed a partly-full tank of diesel oil to remain inside a derelict school.
St Mary's Primary in York Street had shut on October 1st and last weekend vandals had started a fire.
That set alight the oil in the tank and led to flames shooting up into the sky, with the blaze severely damaging the building.
The Corporation's Education Department said that after they had vacated the school, the premises became the responsibility of the parish.
"We didn't remove the oil because we were told that the building was still to be used for parish activities," explained a spokesman.
"We didn't want to be so petty-minded as to leave them without fuel for heating. If the building was not being used again and we had had a guarantee to that effect, we would have taken the oil away."
It was Stag Night at The Plaza Club on the 7th. The Duke Street club's advert in the Echo said: "Exotic dances, go go girls plus top cabaret. Licensed till 2 a.m."
The report said that as a result they were considering rehousing some council house tenants and acquiring the homes of private householders.
The controversial Dean of St Helens was in the Echo on the 8th. The Very Rev Hugh Fitzpatrick was commenting on the decision of the town's Health Committee to establish a vasectomy service through the St Helens Family Planning Association.
The Dean argued that male sterilisation was against the teachings of the Catholic Church, adding:
"This kind of operation for the purpose of contraception is wrong. I am not criticising the Corporation or individuals whose conscience permits contraception, but the legislation which allows such schemes. The law's permissiveness goes beyond what we consider Christian teaching."
"And no sooner have they reached the final pane of the firm's 12-storey high office block than they are back to square one!", commented the Echo.
"War On The Killer Trap" was the headline to the lead story in the St Helens Reporter on the 8th.
RSPCA inspector Patrick Colgan was leading a campaign against the laying of illegal traps that, as the paper put it, can "maim toddlers and kill pets by slow torture".
Mr Colgan explained how earlier in the week he had been called to a dying cat in Dragon Lane in Whiston that had been caught in the claws of an illegal gin trap. "I had to put it down. It was the only humane thing to do", he said.
It had been the sixth such incident within the St Helens district this year, with other cases at Parr, Crank, Clinkham Wood, Rainford Road and on the East Lancs Road.
"I'm appealing to anybody who knows anything about people using them to come forward and help me nail the culprits", added the inspector.
The paper also wrote of a "suffocating mystery cloud" that had descended on a Parr estate for "15 frightening minutes".
Ruth Barton told how she had been taking her dog Prince for a walk near her home in Castle Avenue:
"Suddenly there was a thick brown fog. I rushed home through it. It left a terrible taste in my mouth and it smelled awful." And Ruth's husband, Harry, added:
"I suffer from asthma and bronchitis, and I could hardly breathe. It was suffocating and smelled horrible."
Although the couple blamed Leathers, the chemical company denied responsibility and Nat Birch, the St Helens Chief Public Health Inspector, felt the colour of the fog didn't "ring true" to be another of the Sutton firm's infamous discharges.
"Christmas In Rainford" was the headline to an advertising feature in the Reporter in which the village was described as an "ideal, compact shopping centre, while still retaining much of its charm as an old world Lancashire village". The advertisers included:
W. Swire and Sons, 21 Church Road ("Suppliers of wallpaper and vinyls"); A. & E. Bradbury & Son, 14 Ormskirk Road ("Toy fair now on"); Wainwrights Electrical Services, 22 Church Road ("A selection of radiograms from £69.87) and Fashionflair, 2 Ormskirk Road, Rainford ("A wide and varied selection of Christmas gifts").
Also J. E. Cook, Ormskirk Road ("Please order early for Christmas – beef, lamb, pork, all home killed on the premises"); Ron & Brenda Raspin, 88 Church Road ("The do-it-yourself shop") and R. & M. Garner (Newsagents), 171 Ormskirk Road ("We wish all our customers a happy Christmas and prosperous new year").
The Reporter also described how violinist Ilse Joseph had made a charity record.
The 73-year-old refugee from Hitler's Germany had lost her two children in a Nazi concentration camp and had relocated to St Helens before eventually settling on the Wirral.
Mrs Joseph told the Reporter that the proceeds from her recording would go towards a fund for needy children and she was still grateful for the reception she'd been given in St Helens after fleeing the Nazis.
There's nothing new in hospital blunders, of course. With an ever-expanding number of treatments and operations – and with greater openness and means of communication – we simply get to hear more about medical mistakes.
This week the Reporter covered the case of Jim McDonnell who after a fall at a Llandudno hotel was treated at a local hospital for shock and concussion.
At the end of his 11-day stay in the infirmary, the 73-year-old was told he could return to his home in McFarlane Avenue in St Helens with a fractured skull and dislocated vertebrae undiagnosed.
It took medical staff at Providence Hospital to spot the serious injuries and they detained Mr McDonnell for over 5 weeks.
And then the doctors would only discharge him if he wore a surgical collar. Jim's son John told the Reporter that the 70-mile trip home could have killed his Dad:
"At Providence Hospital they confirmed the skull injury and found, too, that a vertebrae in his spine was dislocated. It could have killed him by damaging the spinal cord."
And Jim McDonnell was actually Alderman McDonnell, the deputy chairman of the St Helens Health Committee who had been attending a 5-day conference in Llandudno for the ambulance service. So no special treatment there then!
On the 9th the St Helens Choral Society presented their annual Christmas Concert in front of a capacity audience in the Town Hall. The Reporter's review said:
"Much fine singing aided at times by the audience, good playing by the orchestra, under the capable leadership of Anne Webster, and a delightful soprano in Sheena Hamill. What more could one want?"
The Hillsiders were regulars at the Theatre Royal and they returned for another country and western night on the 10th. The Liverpool group's career had begun in 1964 and would continue until 1999.
And finally, St Helens and District Round Table launched their Christmas 1972 Appeal on the 11th.
That was when Father Christmas and members of the Round Table visited Dentons Green carol singing and collecting donations of food and cash.
These would go towards Christmas food parcels that were going to be distributed to local old age pensioners. The Round Table's advert in the Reporter said:
"Come out when you hear the Carol Singing. Father Christmas will have sweets for the children who come to see him...We are trying to surpass last year's total when we were able to help make a Happier Christmas for so many old people."
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include a tragedy at a Thatto Heath school, the distemper epidemic sweeping the town, the new device that was saving miners' lives, the Sherdley Hall Farm fire and the switching on of the town's Christmas lights.