FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 6 - 12 JANUARY 1975
This week's many stories include the violent wages snatch that took place outside a Rainhill factory, the end of the penny bus fares in St Helens, the proposal for a £2 million Carr Mill leisure scheme gets turned down, the remarkable clock man of Sutton who had sixty clocks in his house, the proposed investment on public transport and the major changes in St Helens markets, including the opening of the Tontine.
We begin with the short-time working in a section of BICC in Prescot which started this week. A slump in house building had led to many of their 240 hourly-paid workers in its wiring accessories unit only being required one week in three, while others would only work three days a week.
However, St Helens Council's Treasurer, Douglas Pennington, had some good news to impart this week about the country's current economic crisis. He told the St Helens Housing and Building Committee that it would all be over in four years' time! Mr Pennington described the present troubles as a five-year recession and predicted that it would not be before 1979 before Britain returned to a position of real growth.
Here's a poser. How much did St Helens' bus fares cost in 1975? That's not a straightforward question to answer as they varied much more than today depending on the distance that passengers travelled. But I can tell you that the minimum adult fare was 2p and for children it was just a penny. And the maximum fares were 12p and 5p, respectively.
This information was conveyed in a St Helens Newspaper article on the 7th in which it was stated that the Merseyside Passenger Transport Committee were applying to the Traffic Commissioners to increase the minimum fares on St Helens' buses to 4p for adults and 3p for children. There would also be other increases, although the maximum fares would be unchanged. The report also revealed that passengers had made nearly 28 million trips on St Helens' buses during the year ending March 1974 and travelled over 4 million miles.
In August 1974 a London-based company had applied to St Helens Council for permission to build a 150-bed hotel, conference centre, casino, club, cinema, swimming pool and boating centre at Carr Mill. The main opposition to the £2 million plans came from members of St Helens Angling Association who had been out in force with their petitions and had now collected 10,000 signatures against the scheme.
On Christmas Eve they had also visited the homes of all 16 members of the council's Planning Committee. Their efforts paid off as on the 7th the committee rejected the application, with the St Helens Reporter later in the week stating that their intention was to make the beauty spot a "no-go area" for private developers. It had been the second failed attempt in three years to build a large leisure complex at Carr Mill.
In September 1969 the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster opened the Deacon Trading Estate in Earlestown. The 32-acre industrial estate had previously housed railway workshops that British Rail had closed in 1964, costing nearly 2,000 jobs. A star tenant on the new estate had been the Green Shield Trading Stamp Company and in 1973 their shops had been rebranded as Argos.
But on the 8th the 230 workers in Earlestown were informed that their distribution centre was closing with the loss of all jobs. The 17 Argos showrooms / shops that had previously been serviced from Earlestown would now be looked after by a warehouse in Daventry in Northamptonshire.
At 9:30 am on the 9th three men took part in a wages snatch at a Rainhill factory and got away with £2,635. That's around £40,000 in today's money. The raiders struck outside Hemmings Insulation Contractors on Stoney Lane as the firm's accountant Mike Gardner from Thatto Heath and sales office manager Harold Woods from Litherland were returning from a bank in a car after collecting their staff's wages.
As the pair approached the factory, another car blocked their route and two masked men began attacking their vehicle with pickaxes. They smashed open the windows and grabbed a briefcase lying on the back seat that contained the money and escaped in their waiting car. Mr Gardner and Mr Woods were not injured but were clearly shocked by their chastening experience.
As part of their inquiries police said they were interviewing ironmongers to try and obtain information about the pickaxes used in the raid. Later Raymond Jackson, the St Helens CID Chief, advised companies to pay their employees by cheque instead of using cash or hire a security firm to undertake the transfer for them.
But if they still insisted on doing it themselves, then the cash bag should be secured to a person or to a strong point in the vehicle, explaining: "The time element in a robbery of this type is essential to criminals. The more time they waste trying to get the money gives the police more time to seal off all the exits from the area."
That, no doubt, is true, although I expect Mr Gardner and Mr Woods were glad that their briefcase had not been tethered to them, with their violent robbers wielding pickaxes. In the same Reporter interview, Detective Superintendent Jackson hit out at television and the cinema for their influence on crime.
He said TV and film bosses picked up their material from true criminal methods and youngsters that were easily influenced were not long in copying what they saw. But his theory only applied to the inexperienced criminal, with Mr Jackson saying: "The higher value robberies and the like are carried out by experienced criminals. This is because the pay off has to be enough to warrant the number of men and organisation involved."
My favourite article in this week's St Helens Reporter, which was published on the 10th, was written by Jeanette Mason and describes the clock man of Sutton. She wrote: "You can actually hear the passing of time at Fred Hindley's home, because his 60 clocks chime it, tell it, or cuckoo it every minute of the day.
"Fred is a clock collector extraordinaire. He has clocks as big as a man, statuette clocks, bronzed clocks, cuckoo clocks, grandmother clocks, clocks of every shape and size. His home in Eliza Avenue, Sutton, is filled with antique timepieces, lovingly restored and cherished by him and his wife, Seline.
"Clocks appear in every conceivable nook and cranny, ledge, corner and wall in the house…Seline says that at first, she wasn't at all impressed – and Fred had to smuggle his clocks into the house. And he does admit, the sound of a dozen or so “grandaddies” booming out at midnight is a bit disturbing at first. “But you get used to it,” he says."
There was also a report that described a "revolutionary plan" by Merseyside County Council to spend more on public transport with less investment on amenities for car owners. The reason was the congestion caused by more traffic being on the road rather than any environmental concerns. One councillor said, "Transport is being strangled by a section of the community."
One of the last acts of the old Newton Council before its amalgamation into St Helens had been to plant saplings in Rob Lane, which the Reporter described as "one of Newton's prettiest highways". However, the paper now had to report that "heartless vandals" had wrecked most of the trees with nine of them beyond repair.
And it was all change in St Helens markets this week as the Town Centre redevelopment stepped up a gear. The Water Street open market shut on the 6th with the Covered Market in Bridge Street closing on the 7th. St Mary's Market also closed on the 6th but only for alterations and it reopened on the 10th. And Phase 2 of the Tontine Market was also scheduled to open on the 10th. In describing the changes the Reporter wrote:
"With the recent opening of the new Tontine Market to complement the St. Mary's Market opened in October, 1972, St. Helens now has a completely modern market trading centre in what has traditionally been the town's main shopping thoroughfare – Church Street. Both the Tontine and St. Mary's Markets are completely under cover and are linked by several precincts opening on to Church Square at the front of the Parish Church.
"The first market to be opened – St. Mary's – has proved so successful that almost half the existing traders have now elected to stay there rather than move into the Tontine Market as they originally requested. One of the main features of the new shopping complex is the complete segregation of pedestrians from vehicles. Other features are that the motorist shopper is under cover from the moment of leaving his car, and the whole market area is warmed in Winter and cooled in Summer."
Some of the market traders that were advertising in the Reporter were Joe's Handbag Stall, Evelyn's Boutique, Barrie Smith – The Fashion Corner, Howarth's Household and Fancy Goods, C & J Strettle Jeans, Parka's & Footwear, Ben's Costume Jewellery and R & M T Abram Shellfish.
And finally, on the 12th the war film 'The Dirty Dozen' starring Lee Marvin began a week's screening at the ABC Savoy, with the Capitol Cinema showing a sex film called 'Erotic Bed'.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the closure of Oxleys and Rigby's, the sacking row at Saints' Social Club, another attempt to close down Leathers Chemicals and the opening of a new Waterloo Street club featuring go-go dancers.
We begin with the short-time working in a section of BICC in Prescot which started this week. A slump in house building had led to many of their 240 hourly-paid workers in its wiring accessories unit only being required one week in three, while others would only work three days a week.
However, St Helens Council's Treasurer, Douglas Pennington, had some good news to impart this week about the country's current economic crisis. He told the St Helens Housing and Building Committee that it would all be over in four years' time! Mr Pennington described the present troubles as a five-year recession and predicted that it would not be before 1979 before Britain returned to a position of real growth.
This information was conveyed in a St Helens Newspaper article on the 7th in which it was stated that the Merseyside Passenger Transport Committee were applying to the Traffic Commissioners to increase the minimum fares on St Helens' buses to 4p for adults and 3p for children. There would also be other increases, although the maximum fares would be unchanged. The report also revealed that passengers had made nearly 28 million trips on St Helens' buses during the year ending March 1974 and travelled over 4 million miles.
In August 1974 a London-based company had applied to St Helens Council for permission to build a 150-bed hotel, conference centre, casino, club, cinema, swimming pool and boating centre at Carr Mill. The main opposition to the £2 million plans came from members of St Helens Angling Association who had been out in force with their petitions and had now collected 10,000 signatures against the scheme.
On Christmas Eve they had also visited the homes of all 16 members of the council's Planning Committee. Their efforts paid off as on the 7th the committee rejected the application, with the St Helens Reporter later in the week stating that their intention was to make the beauty spot a "no-go area" for private developers. It had been the second failed attempt in three years to build a large leisure complex at Carr Mill.
In September 1969 the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster opened the Deacon Trading Estate in Earlestown. The 32-acre industrial estate had previously housed railway workshops that British Rail had closed in 1964, costing nearly 2,000 jobs. A star tenant on the new estate had been the Green Shield Trading Stamp Company and in 1973 their shops had been rebranded as Argos.
But on the 8th the 230 workers in Earlestown were informed that their distribution centre was closing with the loss of all jobs. The 17 Argos showrooms / shops that had previously been serviced from Earlestown would now be looked after by a warehouse in Daventry in Northamptonshire.
At 9:30 am on the 9th three men took part in a wages snatch at a Rainhill factory and got away with £2,635. That's around £40,000 in today's money. The raiders struck outside Hemmings Insulation Contractors on Stoney Lane as the firm's accountant Mike Gardner from Thatto Heath and sales office manager Harold Woods from Litherland were returning from a bank in a car after collecting their staff's wages.
As the pair approached the factory, another car blocked their route and two masked men began attacking their vehicle with pickaxes. They smashed open the windows and grabbed a briefcase lying on the back seat that contained the money and escaped in their waiting car. Mr Gardner and Mr Woods were not injured but were clearly shocked by their chastening experience.
As part of their inquiries police said they were interviewing ironmongers to try and obtain information about the pickaxes used in the raid. Later Raymond Jackson, the St Helens CID Chief, advised companies to pay their employees by cheque instead of using cash or hire a security firm to undertake the transfer for them.
But if they still insisted on doing it themselves, then the cash bag should be secured to a person or to a strong point in the vehicle, explaining: "The time element in a robbery of this type is essential to criminals. The more time they waste trying to get the money gives the police more time to seal off all the exits from the area."
That, no doubt, is true, although I expect Mr Gardner and Mr Woods were glad that their briefcase had not been tethered to them, with their violent robbers wielding pickaxes. In the same Reporter interview, Detective Superintendent Jackson hit out at television and the cinema for their influence on crime.
He said TV and film bosses picked up their material from true criminal methods and youngsters that were easily influenced were not long in copying what they saw. But his theory only applied to the inexperienced criminal, with Mr Jackson saying: "The higher value robberies and the like are carried out by experienced criminals. This is because the pay off has to be enough to warrant the number of men and organisation involved."
My favourite article in this week's St Helens Reporter, which was published on the 10th, was written by Jeanette Mason and describes the clock man of Sutton. She wrote: "You can actually hear the passing of time at Fred Hindley's home, because his 60 clocks chime it, tell it, or cuckoo it every minute of the day.
"Fred is a clock collector extraordinaire. He has clocks as big as a man, statuette clocks, bronzed clocks, cuckoo clocks, grandmother clocks, clocks of every shape and size. His home in Eliza Avenue, Sutton, is filled with antique timepieces, lovingly restored and cherished by him and his wife, Seline.
"Clocks appear in every conceivable nook and cranny, ledge, corner and wall in the house…Seline says that at first, she wasn't at all impressed – and Fred had to smuggle his clocks into the house. And he does admit, the sound of a dozen or so “grandaddies” booming out at midnight is a bit disturbing at first. “But you get used to it,” he says."
There was also a report that described a "revolutionary plan" by Merseyside County Council to spend more on public transport with less investment on amenities for car owners. The reason was the congestion caused by more traffic being on the road rather than any environmental concerns. One councillor said, "Transport is being strangled by a section of the community."
One of the last acts of the old Newton Council before its amalgamation into St Helens had been to plant saplings in Rob Lane, which the Reporter described as "one of Newton's prettiest highways". However, the paper now had to report that "heartless vandals" had wrecked most of the trees with nine of them beyond repair.
And it was all change in St Helens markets this week as the Town Centre redevelopment stepped up a gear. The Water Street open market shut on the 6th with the Covered Market in Bridge Street closing on the 7th. St Mary's Market also closed on the 6th but only for alterations and it reopened on the 10th. And Phase 2 of the Tontine Market was also scheduled to open on the 10th. In describing the changes the Reporter wrote:
"With the recent opening of the new Tontine Market to complement the St. Mary's Market opened in October, 1972, St. Helens now has a completely modern market trading centre in what has traditionally been the town's main shopping thoroughfare – Church Street. Both the Tontine and St. Mary's Markets are completely under cover and are linked by several precincts opening on to Church Square at the front of the Parish Church.
"The first market to be opened – St. Mary's – has proved so successful that almost half the existing traders have now elected to stay there rather than move into the Tontine Market as they originally requested. One of the main features of the new shopping complex is the complete segregation of pedestrians from vehicles. Other features are that the motorist shopper is under cover from the moment of leaving his car, and the whole market area is warmed in Winter and cooled in Summer."
Some of the market traders that were advertising in the Reporter were Joe's Handbag Stall, Evelyn's Boutique, Barrie Smith – The Fashion Corner, Howarth's Household and Fancy Goods, C & J Strettle Jeans, Parka's & Footwear, Ben's Costume Jewellery and R & M T Abram Shellfish.
And finally, on the 12th the war film 'The Dirty Dozen' starring Lee Marvin began a week's screening at the ABC Savoy, with the Capitol Cinema showing a sex film called 'Erotic Bed'.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the closure of Oxleys and Rigby's, the sacking row at Saints' Social Club, another attempt to close down Leathers Chemicals and the opening of a new Waterloo Street club featuring go-go dancers.
This week's many stories include the violent wages snatch that took place outside a Rainhill factory, the end of the penny bus fares in St Helens, the proposal for a £2 million Carr Mill leisure scheme gets turned down, the remarkable clock man of Sutton who had sixty clocks in his house, the proposed investment on public transport and the major changes in St Helens markets, including the opening of the Tontine.
We begin with the short-time working in a section of BICC in Prescot which started this week.
A slump in house building had led to many of their 240 hourly-paid workers in its wiring accessories unit only being required one week in three, while others would only work three days a week.
However, St Helens Council's Treasurer, Douglas Pennington, had some good news to impart this week about the country's current economic crisis.
He told the St Helens Housing and Building Committee that it would all be over in four years' time!
Mr Pennington described the present troubles as a five-year recession and predicted that it would not be before 1979 before Britain returned to a position of real growth.
Here's a poser. How much did St Helens' bus fares cost in 1975?
That's not a straightforward question to answer as they varied much more than today depending on the distance that passengers travelled.
But I can tell you that the minimum adult fare was 2p and for children it was just a penny. And the maximum fares were 12p and 5p, respectively.
This information was conveyed in a St Helens Newspaper article on the 7th in which it was stated that the Merseyside Passenger Transport Committee were applying to the Traffic Commissioners to increase the minimum fares on St Helens' buses to 4p for adults and 3p for children.
There would also be other increases, although the maximum fares would be unchanged.
The report also revealed that passengers had made nearly 28 million trips on St Helens' buses during the year ending March 1974 and travelled over 4 million miles.
In August 1974 a London-based company had applied to St Helens Council for permission to build a 150-bed hotel, conference centre, casino, club, cinema, swimming pool and boating centre at Carr Mill.
The main opposition to the £2 million plans came from members of St Helens Angling Association who had been out in force with their petitions and had now collected 10,000 signatures against the scheme.
On Christmas Eve they had also visited the homes of all 16 members of the council's Planning Committee.
Their efforts paid off as on the 7th the committee rejected the application, with the St Helens Reporter later in the week stating that their intention was to make the beauty spot a "no-go area" for private developers.
It had been the second failed attempt in three years to build a large leisure complex at Carr Mill.
In September 1969 the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster opened the Deacon Trading Estate in Earlestown.
The 32-acre industrial estate had previously housed railway workshops that British Rail had closed in 1964, costing nearly 2,000 jobs.
A star tenant on the new estate had been the Green Shield Trading Stamp Company and in 1973 their shops had been rebranded as Argos.
But on the 8th the 230 workers in Earlestown were informed that their distribution centre was closing with the loss of all jobs.
The 17 Argos showrooms / shops that had previously been serviced from Earlestown would now be looked after by a warehouse in Daventry in Northamptonshire.
At 9:30 am on the 9th three men took part in a wages snatch at a Rainhill factory and got away with £2,635. That's around £40,000 in today's money.
The raiders struck outside Hemmings Insulation Contractors on Stoney Lane as the firm's accountant Mike Gardner from Thatto Heath and sales office manager Harold Woods from Litherland were returning from a bank in a car after collecting their staff's wages.
As the pair approached the factory, another car blocked their route and two masked men began attacking their vehicle with pickaxes.
They smashed open the windows and grabbed a briefcase lying on the back seat that contained the money and escaped in their waiting car.
Mr Gardner and Mr Woods were not injured but were clearly shocked by their chastening experience.
As part of their inquiries police said they were interviewing ironmongers to try and obtain information about the pickaxes used in the raid.
Later Raymond Jackson, the St Helens CID Chief, advised companies to pay their employees by cheque instead of using cash or hire a security firm to undertake the transfer for them.
But if they still insisted on doing it themselves, then the cash bag should be secured to a person or to a strong point in the vehicle, explaining:
"The time element in a robbery of this type is essential to criminals. The more time they waste trying to get the money gives the police more time to seal off all the exits from the area."
That, no doubt, is true, although I expect Mr Gardner and Mr Woods were glad that their briefcase had not been tethered to them, with their violent robbers wielding pickaxes.
In the same Reporter interview, Detective Superintendent Jackson hit out at television and the cinema for their influence on crime.
He said TV and film bosses picked up their material from true criminal methods and youngsters that were easily influenced were not long in copying what they saw.
But his theory only applied to the inexperienced criminal, with Mr Jackson saying:
"The higher value robberies and the like are carried out by experienced criminals. This is because the pay off has to be enough to warrant the number of men and organisation involved."
My favourite article in this week's St Helens Reporter, which was published on the 10th, was written by Jeanette Mason and describes the clock man of Sutton. She wrote:
"You can actually hear the passing of time at Fred Hindley's home, because his 60 clocks chime it, tell it, or cuckoo it every minute of the day.
"Fred is a clock collector extraordinaire. He has clocks as big as a man, statuette clocks, bronzed clocks, cuckoo clocks, grandmother clocks, clocks of every shape and size.
"His home in Eliza Avenue, Sutton, is filled with antique timepieces, lovingly restored and cherished by him and his wife, Seline.
"Clocks appear in every conceivable nook and cranny, ledge, corner and wall in the house…Seline says that at first, she wasn't at all impressed – and Fred had to smuggle his clocks into the house.
"And he does admit, the sound of a dozen or so “grandaddies” booming out at midnight is a bit disturbing at first. “But you get used to it,” he says."
There was also a report that described a "revolutionary plan" by Merseyside County Council to spend more on public transport with less investment on amenities for car owners.
The reason was the congestion caused by more traffic being on the road rather than any environmental concerns. One councillor said, "Transport is being strangled by a section of the community."
One of the last acts of the old Newton Council before its amalgamation into St Helens had been to plant saplings in Rob Lane, which the Reporter described as "one of Newton's prettiest highways".
However, the paper now had to report that "heartless vandals" had wrecked most of the trees with nine of them beyond repair.
And it was all change in St Helens markets this week as the Town Centre redevelopment stepped up a gear.
The Water Street open market shut on the 6th with the Covered Market in Bridge Street closing on the 7th.
St Mary's Market also closed on the 6th but only for alterations and it reopened on the 10th.
And Phase 2 of the Tontine Market was also scheduled to open on the 10th. In describing the changes the Reporter wrote:
"With the recent opening of the new Tontine Market to complement the St. Mary's Market opened in October, 1972, St. Helens now has a completely modern market trading centre in what has traditionally been the town's main shopping thoroughfare – Church Street.
"Both the Tontine and St. Mary's Markets are completely under cover and are linked by several precincts opening on to Church Square at the front of the Parish Church.
"The first market to be opened – St. Mary's – has proved so successful that almost half the existing traders have now elected to stay there rather than move into the Tontine Market as they originally requested.
"One of the main features of the new shopping complex is the complete segregation of pedestrians from vehicles.
"Other features are that the motorist shopper is under cover from the moment of leaving his car, and the whole market area is warmed in Winter and cooled in Summer."
Some of the market traders that were advertising in the Reporter were Joe's Handbag Stall, Evelyn's Boutique, Barrie Smith – The Fashion Corner, Howarth's Household and Fancy Goods, C & J Strettle Jeans, Parka's & Footwear, Ben's Costume Jewellery and R & M T Abram Shellfish.
And finally, on the 12th the war film 'The Dirty Dozen' starring Lee Marvin began a week's screening at the ABC Savoy, with the Capitol Cinema showing a sex film called 'Erotic Bed'.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the closure of Oxleys and Rigby's, the sacking row at Saints' Social Club, another attempt to close down Leathers Chemicals and the opening of a new Waterloo Street club featuring go-go dancers.
We begin with the short-time working in a section of BICC in Prescot which started this week.
A slump in house building had led to many of their 240 hourly-paid workers in its wiring accessories unit only being required one week in three, while others would only work three days a week.
However, St Helens Council's Treasurer, Douglas Pennington, had some good news to impart this week about the country's current economic crisis.
He told the St Helens Housing and Building Committee that it would all be over in four years' time!
Mr Pennington described the present troubles as a five-year recession and predicted that it would not be before 1979 before Britain returned to a position of real growth.
That's not a straightforward question to answer as they varied much more than today depending on the distance that passengers travelled.
But I can tell you that the minimum adult fare was 2p and for children it was just a penny. And the maximum fares were 12p and 5p, respectively.
This information was conveyed in a St Helens Newspaper article on the 7th in which it was stated that the Merseyside Passenger Transport Committee were applying to the Traffic Commissioners to increase the minimum fares on St Helens' buses to 4p for adults and 3p for children.
There would also be other increases, although the maximum fares would be unchanged.
The report also revealed that passengers had made nearly 28 million trips on St Helens' buses during the year ending March 1974 and travelled over 4 million miles.
In August 1974 a London-based company had applied to St Helens Council for permission to build a 150-bed hotel, conference centre, casino, club, cinema, swimming pool and boating centre at Carr Mill.
The main opposition to the £2 million plans came from members of St Helens Angling Association who had been out in force with their petitions and had now collected 10,000 signatures against the scheme.
On Christmas Eve they had also visited the homes of all 16 members of the council's Planning Committee.
Their efforts paid off as on the 7th the committee rejected the application, with the St Helens Reporter later in the week stating that their intention was to make the beauty spot a "no-go area" for private developers.
It had been the second failed attempt in three years to build a large leisure complex at Carr Mill.
In September 1969 the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster opened the Deacon Trading Estate in Earlestown.
The 32-acre industrial estate had previously housed railway workshops that British Rail had closed in 1964, costing nearly 2,000 jobs.
A star tenant on the new estate had been the Green Shield Trading Stamp Company and in 1973 their shops had been rebranded as Argos.
But on the 8th the 230 workers in Earlestown were informed that their distribution centre was closing with the loss of all jobs.
The 17 Argos showrooms / shops that had previously been serviced from Earlestown would now be looked after by a warehouse in Daventry in Northamptonshire.
At 9:30 am on the 9th three men took part in a wages snatch at a Rainhill factory and got away with £2,635. That's around £40,000 in today's money.
The raiders struck outside Hemmings Insulation Contractors on Stoney Lane as the firm's accountant Mike Gardner from Thatto Heath and sales office manager Harold Woods from Litherland were returning from a bank in a car after collecting their staff's wages.
As the pair approached the factory, another car blocked their route and two masked men began attacking their vehicle with pickaxes.
They smashed open the windows and grabbed a briefcase lying on the back seat that contained the money and escaped in their waiting car.
Mr Gardner and Mr Woods were not injured but were clearly shocked by their chastening experience.
As part of their inquiries police said they were interviewing ironmongers to try and obtain information about the pickaxes used in the raid.
Later Raymond Jackson, the St Helens CID Chief, advised companies to pay their employees by cheque instead of using cash or hire a security firm to undertake the transfer for them.
But if they still insisted on doing it themselves, then the cash bag should be secured to a person or to a strong point in the vehicle, explaining:
"The time element in a robbery of this type is essential to criminals. The more time they waste trying to get the money gives the police more time to seal off all the exits from the area."
That, no doubt, is true, although I expect Mr Gardner and Mr Woods were glad that their briefcase had not been tethered to them, with their violent robbers wielding pickaxes.
In the same Reporter interview, Detective Superintendent Jackson hit out at television and the cinema for their influence on crime.
He said TV and film bosses picked up their material from true criminal methods and youngsters that were easily influenced were not long in copying what they saw.
But his theory only applied to the inexperienced criminal, with Mr Jackson saying:
"The higher value robberies and the like are carried out by experienced criminals. This is because the pay off has to be enough to warrant the number of men and organisation involved."
My favourite article in this week's St Helens Reporter, which was published on the 10th, was written by Jeanette Mason and describes the clock man of Sutton. She wrote:
"You can actually hear the passing of time at Fred Hindley's home, because his 60 clocks chime it, tell it, or cuckoo it every minute of the day.
"Fred is a clock collector extraordinaire. He has clocks as big as a man, statuette clocks, bronzed clocks, cuckoo clocks, grandmother clocks, clocks of every shape and size.
"His home in Eliza Avenue, Sutton, is filled with antique timepieces, lovingly restored and cherished by him and his wife, Seline.
"Clocks appear in every conceivable nook and cranny, ledge, corner and wall in the house…Seline says that at first, she wasn't at all impressed – and Fred had to smuggle his clocks into the house.
"And he does admit, the sound of a dozen or so “grandaddies” booming out at midnight is a bit disturbing at first. “But you get used to it,” he says."
There was also a report that described a "revolutionary plan" by Merseyside County Council to spend more on public transport with less investment on amenities for car owners.
The reason was the congestion caused by more traffic being on the road rather than any environmental concerns. One councillor said, "Transport is being strangled by a section of the community."
One of the last acts of the old Newton Council before its amalgamation into St Helens had been to plant saplings in Rob Lane, which the Reporter described as "one of Newton's prettiest highways".
However, the paper now had to report that "heartless vandals" had wrecked most of the trees with nine of them beyond repair.
And it was all change in St Helens markets this week as the Town Centre redevelopment stepped up a gear.
The Water Street open market shut on the 6th with the Covered Market in Bridge Street closing on the 7th.
St Mary's Market also closed on the 6th but only for alterations and it reopened on the 10th.
And Phase 2 of the Tontine Market was also scheduled to open on the 10th. In describing the changes the Reporter wrote:
"With the recent opening of the new Tontine Market to complement the St. Mary's Market opened in October, 1972, St. Helens now has a completely modern market trading centre in what has traditionally been the town's main shopping thoroughfare – Church Street.
"Both the Tontine and St. Mary's Markets are completely under cover and are linked by several precincts opening on to Church Square at the front of the Parish Church.
"The first market to be opened – St. Mary's – has proved so successful that almost half the existing traders have now elected to stay there rather than move into the Tontine Market as they originally requested.
"One of the main features of the new shopping complex is the complete segregation of pedestrians from vehicles.
"Other features are that the motorist shopper is under cover from the moment of leaving his car, and the whole market area is warmed in Winter and cooled in Summer."
Some of the market traders that were advertising in the Reporter were Joe's Handbag Stall, Evelyn's Boutique, Barrie Smith – The Fashion Corner, Howarth's Household and Fancy Goods, C & J Strettle Jeans, Parka's & Footwear, Ben's Costume Jewellery and R & M T Abram Shellfish.
And finally, on the 12th the war film 'The Dirty Dozen' starring Lee Marvin began a week's screening at the ABC Savoy, with the Capitol Cinema showing a sex film called 'Erotic Bed'.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the closure of Oxleys and Rigby's, the sacking row at Saints' Social Club, another attempt to close down Leathers Chemicals and the opening of a new Waterloo Street club featuring go-go dancers.