FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (7th - 13th FEBRUARY 1972)
This week's many stories include damning criticism of the St Helens Ambulance Service, the packed family planning clinic in Bickerstaffe Street, the Cambridge Road post office robbery, a power cuts rota is organised for St Helens and the egg and sausage artist of Duke Street is back in 'Whalley's World'.
We begin with the Rainhill woman who found a fly in her sausage. Teresa Mulvaney of Longton Lane had bought the pork sausages from Fine Fare in Warrington Road and discovered the greater part of a fly in one. On the 7th the supermarket's sausage supplier, King Brothers of Birkenhead, were fined £25 by Prescot magistrates.
On the same day raiders brazenly smashed their way into the Cambridge Road post office in St Helens and stole £1,000. The staff were on their lunch break when the intrusion at the rear of the premises occurred. The raiders disconnected a makeshift burglar alarm and then rifled tills for cash and postal orders. Sub-postmaster William Chesser was quoted as saying: "The thieves obviously knew what they were doing. I have two other staff members here, and we always take our lunch at the same time, from 1.5 p.m. to 1.45 p.m. When I came back after lunch I found the money had gone."
The Prescot annual licensing sessions had jurisdiction over Rainford, Rainhill, Windle and Eccleston – as well as the town of Prescot itself. This year's meeting took place on the 8th and heard that drink-driving offences in the region over the past year had increased by 44%.
It was folk night at the Theatre Royal during the evening of the 8th with Jackie & Bridie making a return appearance.
The council's Health Committee met on the 9th and heard that evening trips to their family planning clinic in Bickerstaffe Street were embarrassing female clients. That was because up to sixty people were being crammed into a tiny waiting room that had been designed to hold no more than sixteen. "It can be extremely embarrassing for a young girl coming to the clinic for the first time to be confronted by a sea of faces," commented Edna Brown, secretary of the clinic.
Dr Julian Baines, Medical Officer of Health, added that sometimes the waiting crowd spilled down the stairs and into the street. "The number of people using the clinic is increasing," he said, "and the waiting room facilities are completely inadequate." The committee agreed to look into the possibility of extending the waiting room into some Corporation premises next door.
The committee also received a petition from twenty residents of Moxon Street, near Taylor Park, calling for the demolition of derelict properties surrounding their homes. Children, they claimed, were lighting fires in the old houses and tramps and other undesirables slept in them at night. Cllr. Peggy McNamara said part of the problem was that two of the houses in the centre of Moxon Street were still occupied by families and their houses could not be demolished. Nat Birch, of the Public Health Inspector's Department, said it was the responsibility of the owners to demolish derelict property – but the council could do it if they failed to do so.
The council's Amenities Committee also met on the 9th and discussed the new, semi-complete golf clubhouse in Sherdley Park. A full drinks licence was sought for the £46,000 pavilion. However, it was likely to only qualify for a club licence accommodating members and their friends. That was unless the design of the building and the proposed location of its toilets were revised.
Also on the 9th, there was a daylight raid at the Gamble Institute in St Helens in which relics of the Napoleonic Wars were stolen. The haul included two straw boxes, four needle cases, a Turkish pipe, a tea caddy and a copper casket.
During the evening of the 9th, it was "country meets folk" at the Theatre Royal with Tex Withers. Then on the following night, the 1971 brass band champions Wingates Temperance Band were on stage in Corporation Street.
The St Helens Reporter's lead story this week was an expose of the St Helens Ambulance Service (HQ pictured above), after journalist Nick Peake had met four whistle-blowers in a local pub. It was claimed that critical equipment failures were routine, with one ambulance worker telling the Reporter: "When a member of the St. Helens public rides in an ambulance he does not know how close to death he is." The ambulance men claimed that:
• A baby had died because ambulances did not have vital life-saving machines on board. • A road crash victim had also unnecessarily died before reaching hospital. • Ambulances on their way to road accidents had been recalled to base to avoid having to make overtime payments to staff. • Seven of the twelve ambulances based in St Helens were not fit for purpose and were even in a dangerous condition.
One of the whistle-blowers said: "We have brought this out in the open because our men have reached the point of desperation. They feel these things should be covered up no longer. The public of St. Helens should know what is going on."
The coal miners' strike had led to the Government issuing a state of emergency and power cuts were now taking place in various parts of St Helens. A Manweb spokesman promised that no blackout would last longer than four hours, with no more than six hours of outages in any area in any 24-hour period. The Reporter published a rota involving six groups of locations – identified as groups A to F – which showed when they were at low, medium or high risk of power cuts. Further details of the emergency plans, including maps, were available for viewing at electricity board showrooms and offices. They were not always geographical groupings – as group F included areas of Sutton and Billinge.
Graham Smith was back in 'Whalley's World' this week in the Reporter. For many years the talented artist was a fixture down Duke Street, based in his wife Shelagh's Christian Book Shop and later in his own Religious Shop, a few doors away. A flamboyant dresser with his floppy hat and cravat, who, when interviewed in newspapers or on television, would invariably say: "I want to be famous". Graham would become known as the "Egg and Sausage Artist" and some would laugh at his eccentricities, not realising that these had been borne out of a severe nervous breakdown.
Alan Whalley had previously written: "Graham's courageous comeback is an example to all who are broken down by the pressures of modern living." Graham's stunts – such as painting eggs and sausages, offering to sell his work for kisses and putting million pound price tags on paintings in his shop window – were still some years away. This week Graham was featured after ringing up Alan Whalley and telling the journalist: "I thought it would be a nice challenge to do you in oils". A free portrait was in the offing, which Alan said he would not be turning down.
Furious families in Clock Face Road were also featured in the Reporter after the police booked them for leaving their cars outside their homes without lights. They claimed that land behind their houses had been churned into mud when a fleet of builder's lorries had moved in. Miner Harry Lawrenson said: "I've parked at the front for a year, because of the mud. Often I can't get round the back. At times, it's blocked by pipes and building materials that have nothing to do with us."
Mineworker Bob Dickinson added: "We can't park at the back, and now we can't park at the front either. The lorries have turned the land into a sea of mud." The residents also said that if they left the lights on their cars, as the law then required, then their batteries would be flat in the morning.
St Helens shopkeeper May Wills was also featured in the Reporter after being banned by a bakery. A salesman from William Moore's had called at May's shop on the corner of Chapel Street and persuaded her to stock their bread. Suddenly her supply dried up and May eventually discovered that a competitor had complained about her sales, prompting the 52-year-old to tell the paper: "I'm absolutely disgusted. It is terrible that a bakery should allow someone to dictate to them like this."
The suffering caused by the ongoing miners' strike was exemplified on the 11th when two miners appeared before Widnes magistrates separately charged with stealing coal from Bold Colliery (pictured above). One man had taken just one cwt. of coal worth 60p and was fined £10. The father of four told the Bench that he had no coal and it was causing hardship to his family. The second man told the court: "I did it because of the children".
To end a busy week at the Theatre Royal, the Halle Orchestra performed their 'Viennese Night' concert on the 12th. It was no use for anyone in St Helens thinking they could pay at the door, as the performance had been sold out for months.
Next week's stories will include the Derbyshire Hill woman who didn't trust electricity, another post office robbery takes place in Cambridge Road, the hole-in-the-heart Haydock boy returns to school and there's a near-train crash at Marshalls Cross.
We begin with the Rainhill woman who found a fly in her sausage. Teresa Mulvaney of Longton Lane had bought the pork sausages from Fine Fare in Warrington Road and discovered the greater part of a fly in one. On the 7th the supermarket's sausage supplier, King Brothers of Birkenhead, were fined £25 by Prescot magistrates.
On the same day raiders brazenly smashed their way into the Cambridge Road post office in St Helens and stole £1,000. The staff were on their lunch break when the intrusion at the rear of the premises occurred. The raiders disconnected a makeshift burglar alarm and then rifled tills for cash and postal orders. Sub-postmaster William Chesser was quoted as saying: "The thieves obviously knew what they were doing. I have two other staff members here, and we always take our lunch at the same time, from 1.5 p.m. to 1.45 p.m. When I came back after lunch I found the money had gone."
The Prescot annual licensing sessions had jurisdiction over Rainford, Rainhill, Windle and Eccleston – as well as the town of Prescot itself. This year's meeting took place on the 8th and heard that drink-driving offences in the region over the past year had increased by 44%.
It was folk night at the Theatre Royal during the evening of the 8th with Jackie & Bridie making a return appearance.
The council's Health Committee met on the 9th and heard that evening trips to their family planning clinic in Bickerstaffe Street were embarrassing female clients. That was because up to sixty people were being crammed into a tiny waiting room that had been designed to hold no more than sixteen. "It can be extremely embarrassing for a young girl coming to the clinic for the first time to be confronted by a sea of faces," commented Edna Brown, secretary of the clinic.
Dr Julian Baines, Medical Officer of Health, added that sometimes the waiting crowd spilled down the stairs and into the street. "The number of people using the clinic is increasing," he said, "and the waiting room facilities are completely inadequate." The committee agreed to look into the possibility of extending the waiting room into some Corporation premises next door.
The committee also received a petition from twenty residents of Moxon Street, near Taylor Park, calling for the demolition of derelict properties surrounding their homes. Children, they claimed, were lighting fires in the old houses and tramps and other undesirables slept in them at night. Cllr. Peggy McNamara said part of the problem was that two of the houses in the centre of Moxon Street were still occupied by families and their houses could not be demolished. Nat Birch, of the Public Health Inspector's Department, said it was the responsibility of the owners to demolish derelict property – but the council could do it if they failed to do so.
The council's Amenities Committee also met on the 9th and discussed the new, semi-complete golf clubhouse in Sherdley Park. A full drinks licence was sought for the £46,000 pavilion. However, it was likely to only qualify for a club licence accommodating members and their friends. That was unless the design of the building and the proposed location of its toilets were revised.
Also on the 9th, there was a daylight raid at the Gamble Institute in St Helens in which relics of the Napoleonic Wars were stolen. The haul included two straw boxes, four needle cases, a Turkish pipe, a tea caddy and a copper casket.
During the evening of the 9th, it was "country meets folk" at the Theatre Royal with Tex Withers. Then on the following night, the 1971 brass band champions Wingates Temperance Band were on stage in Corporation Street.
• A baby had died because ambulances did not have vital life-saving machines on board. • A road crash victim had also unnecessarily died before reaching hospital. • Ambulances on their way to road accidents had been recalled to base to avoid having to make overtime payments to staff. • Seven of the twelve ambulances based in St Helens were not fit for purpose and were even in a dangerous condition.
One of the whistle-blowers said: "We have brought this out in the open because our men have reached the point of desperation. They feel these things should be covered up no longer. The public of St. Helens should know what is going on."
The coal miners' strike had led to the Government issuing a state of emergency and power cuts were now taking place in various parts of St Helens. A Manweb spokesman promised that no blackout would last longer than four hours, with no more than six hours of outages in any area in any 24-hour period. The Reporter published a rota involving six groups of locations – identified as groups A to F – which showed when they were at low, medium or high risk of power cuts. Further details of the emergency plans, including maps, were available for viewing at electricity board showrooms and offices. They were not always geographical groupings – as group F included areas of Sutton and Billinge.
Graham Smith was back in 'Whalley's World' this week in the Reporter. For many years the talented artist was a fixture down Duke Street, based in his wife Shelagh's Christian Book Shop and later in his own Religious Shop, a few doors away. A flamboyant dresser with his floppy hat and cravat, who, when interviewed in newspapers or on television, would invariably say: "I want to be famous". Graham would become known as the "Egg and Sausage Artist" and some would laugh at his eccentricities, not realising that these had been borne out of a severe nervous breakdown.
Alan Whalley had previously written: "Graham's courageous comeback is an example to all who are broken down by the pressures of modern living." Graham's stunts – such as painting eggs and sausages, offering to sell his work for kisses and putting million pound price tags on paintings in his shop window – were still some years away. This week Graham was featured after ringing up Alan Whalley and telling the journalist: "I thought it would be a nice challenge to do you in oils". A free portrait was in the offing, which Alan said he would not be turning down.
Furious families in Clock Face Road were also featured in the Reporter after the police booked them for leaving their cars outside their homes without lights. They claimed that land behind their houses had been churned into mud when a fleet of builder's lorries had moved in. Miner Harry Lawrenson said: "I've parked at the front for a year, because of the mud. Often I can't get round the back. At times, it's blocked by pipes and building materials that have nothing to do with us."
Mineworker Bob Dickinson added: "We can't park at the back, and now we can't park at the front either. The lorries have turned the land into a sea of mud." The residents also said that if they left the lights on their cars, as the law then required, then their batteries would be flat in the morning.
St Helens shopkeeper May Wills was also featured in the Reporter after being banned by a bakery. A salesman from William Moore's had called at May's shop on the corner of Chapel Street and persuaded her to stock their bread. Suddenly her supply dried up and May eventually discovered that a competitor had complained about her sales, prompting the 52-year-old to tell the paper: "I'm absolutely disgusted. It is terrible that a bakery should allow someone to dictate to them like this."
To end a busy week at the Theatre Royal, the Halle Orchestra performed their 'Viennese Night' concert on the 12th. It was no use for anyone in St Helens thinking they could pay at the door, as the performance had been sold out for months.
Next week's stories will include the Derbyshire Hill woman who didn't trust electricity, another post office robbery takes place in Cambridge Road, the hole-in-the-heart Haydock boy returns to school and there's a near-train crash at Marshalls Cross.
This week's many stories include damning criticism of the St Helens Ambulance Service, the packed family planning clinic in Bickerstaffe Street, the Cambridge Road post office robbery, a power cuts rota is organised for St Helens and the egg and sausage artist of Duke Street is back in 'Whalley's World'.
We begin with the Rainhill woman who found a fly in her sausage. Teresa Mulvaney of Longton Lane had bought the pork sausages from Fine Fare in Warrington Road and discovered the greater part of a fly in one.
On the 7th the supermarket's sausage supplier, King Brothers of Birkenhead, were fined £25 by Prescot magistrates.
On the same day raiders brazenly smashed their way into the Cambridge Road post office in St Helens and stole £1,000.
The staff were on their lunch break when the intrusion at the rear of the premises occurred.
The raiders disconnected a makeshift burglar alarm and then rifled tills for cash and postal orders.
Sub-postmaster William Chesser was quoted as saying: "The thieves obviously knew what they were doing. I have two other staff members here, and we always take our lunch at the same time, from 1.5 p.m. to 1.45 p.m. When I came back after lunch I found the money had gone."
The Prescot annual licensing sessions had jurisdiction over Rainford, Rainhill, Windle and Eccleston – as well as the town of Prescot itself.
This year's meeting took place on the 8th and heard that drink-driving offences in the region over the past year had increased by 44%.
It was folk night at the Theatre Royal during the evening of the 8th with Jackie & Bridie making a return appearance.
The council's Health Committee met on the 9th and heard that evening trips to their family planning clinic in Bickerstaffe Street were embarrassing female clients.
That was because up to sixty people were being crammed into a tiny waiting room that had been designed to hold no more than sixteen.
"It can be extremely embarrassing for a young girl coming to the clinic for the first time to be confronted by a sea of faces," commented Edna Brown, secretary of the clinic.
Dr Julian Baines, Medical Officer of Health, added that sometimes the waiting crowd spilled down the stairs and into the street.
"The number of people using the clinic is increasing," he said, "and the waiting room facilities are completely inadequate."
The committee agreed to look into the possibility of extending the waiting room into some Corporation premises next door.
The committee also received a petition from twenty residents of Moxon Street, near Taylor Park, calling for the demolition of derelict properties surrounding their homes.
Children, they claimed, were lighting fires in the old houses and tramps and other undesirables slept in them at night.
Cllr. Peggy McNamara said part of the problem was that two of the houses in the centre of Moxon Street were still occupied by families and their houses could not be demolished.
Nat Birch, of the Public Health Inspector's Department, said it was the responsibility of the owners to demolish derelict property – but the council could do it if they failed to do so.
The council's Amenities Committee also met on the 9th and discussed the new, semi-complete golf clubhouse in Sherdley Park.
A full drinks licence was sought for the £46,000 pavilion. However, it was likely to only qualify for a club licence accommodating members and their friends.
That was unless the design of the building and the proposed location of its toilets were revised.
Also on the 9th, there was a daylight raid at the Gamble Institute in St Helens in which relics of the Napoleonic Wars were stolen.
The haul included two straw boxes, four needle cases, a Turkish pipe, a tea caddy and a copper casket.
During the evening of the 9th, it was "country meets folk" at the Theatre Royal with Tex Withers.
Then on the following night, the 1971 brass band champions Wingates Temperance Band were on stage in Corporation Street.
The St Helens Reporter's lead story this week was an expose of the St Helens Ambulance Service (HQ pictured above), after journalist Nick Peake had met four whistle-blowers in a local pub.
It was claimed that critical equipment failures were routine, with one ambulance worker telling the Reporter:
"When a member of the St. Helens public rides in an ambulance he does not know how close to death he is." The ambulance men claimed that:
• A baby had died because ambulances did not have vital life-saving machines on board.
• A road crash victim had also unnecessarily died before reaching hospital.
• Ambulances on their way to road accidents had been recalled to base to avoid having to make overtime payments to staff.
• Seven of the twelve ambulances based in St Helens were not fit for purpose and were even in a dangerous condition.
One of the whistle-blowers said: "We have brought this out in the open because our men have reached the point of desperation. They feel these things should be covered up no longer. The public of St. Helens should know what is going on."
The coal miners' strike had led to the Government issuing a state of emergency and power cuts were now taking place in various parts of St Helens.
A Manweb spokesman promised that no blackout would last longer than four hours, with no more than six hours of outages in any area in any 24-hour period.
The Reporter published a rota involving six groups of locations – identified as groups A to F – which showed when they were at low, medium or high risk of power cuts.
Further details of the emergency plans, including maps, were available for viewing at electricity board showrooms and offices.
They were not always geographical groupings – as group F included areas of Sutton and Billinge.
Graham Smith was back in 'Whalley's World' this week in the Reporter.
For many years the talented artist was a fixture down Duke Street, based in his wife Shelagh's Christian Book Shop and later in his own Religious Shop, a few doors away.
A flamboyant dresser with his floppy hat and cravat, who, when interviewed in newspapers or on television, would invariably say: "I want to be famous".
Graham would become known as the "Egg and Sausage Artist" and some would laugh at his eccentricities, not realising that these had been borne out of a severe nervous breakdown.
Alan Whalley had previously written: "Graham's courageous comeback is an example to all who are broken down by the pressures of modern living."
Graham's stunts – such as painting eggs and sausages, offering to sell his work for kisses and putting million pound price tags on paintings in his shop window – were still some years away.
This week Graham was featured after ringing up Alan Whalley and telling the journalist: "I thought it would be a nice challenge to do you in oils".
A free portrait was in the offing, which Alan said he would not be turning down.
Furious families in Clock Face Road were also featured in the Reporter after the police booked them for leaving their cars outside their homes without lights.
They claimed that land behind their houses had been churned into mud when a fleet of builder's lorries had moved in. Miner Harry Lawrenson said:
"I've parked at the front for a year, because of the mud. Often I can't get round the back. At times, it's blocked by pipes and building materials that have nothing to do with us."
Mineworker Bob Dickinson added: "We can't park at the back, and now we can't park at the front either. The lorries have turned the land into a sea of mud."
The residents also said that if they left the lights on their cars, as the law then required, then their batteries would be flat in the morning.
St Helens shopkeeper May Wills was also featured in the Reporter after being banned by a bakery.
A salesman from William Moore's had called at May's shop on the corner of Chapel Street and persuaded her to stock their bread.
Suddenly her supply dried up and May eventually discovered that a competitor had complained about her sales, prompting the 52-year-old to tell the paper:
"I'm absolutely disgusted. It is terrible that a bakery should allow someone to dictate to them like this."
The suffering caused by the ongoing miners' strike was exemplified on the 11th when two miners appeared before Widnes magistrates separately charged with stealing coal from Bold Colliery (pictured above).
One man had taken just one cwt. of coal worth 60p and was fined £10. The father of four told the Bench that he had no coal and it was causing hardship to his family.
The second man told the court: "I did it because of the children".
To end a busy week at the Theatre Royal, the Halle Orchestra performed their 'Viennese Night' concert on the 12th.
It was no use for anyone in St Helens thinking they could pay at the door, as the performance had been sold out for months.
Next week's stories will include the Derbyshire Hill woman who didn't trust electricity, another post office robbery takes place in Cambridge Road, the hole-in-the-heart Haydock boy returns to school and there's a near-train crash at Marshalls Cross.
We begin with the Rainhill woman who found a fly in her sausage. Teresa Mulvaney of Longton Lane had bought the pork sausages from Fine Fare in Warrington Road and discovered the greater part of a fly in one.
On the 7th the supermarket's sausage supplier, King Brothers of Birkenhead, were fined £25 by Prescot magistrates.
On the same day raiders brazenly smashed their way into the Cambridge Road post office in St Helens and stole £1,000.
The staff were on their lunch break when the intrusion at the rear of the premises occurred.
The raiders disconnected a makeshift burglar alarm and then rifled tills for cash and postal orders.
Sub-postmaster William Chesser was quoted as saying: "The thieves obviously knew what they were doing. I have two other staff members here, and we always take our lunch at the same time, from 1.5 p.m. to 1.45 p.m. When I came back after lunch I found the money had gone."
The Prescot annual licensing sessions had jurisdiction over Rainford, Rainhill, Windle and Eccleston – as well as the town of Prescot itself.
This year's meeting took place on the 8th and heard that drink-driving offences in the region over the past year had increased by 44%.
It was folk night at the Theatre Royal during the evening of the 8th with Jackie & Bridie making a return appearance.
The council's Health Committee met on the 9th and heard that evening trips to their family planning clinic in Bickerstaffe Street were embarrassing female clients.
That was because up to sixty people were being crammed into a tiny waiting room that had been designed to hold no more than sixteen.
"It can be extremely embarrassing for a young girl coming to the clinic for the first time to be confronted by a sea of faces," commented Edna Brown, secretary of the clinic.
Dr Julian Baines, Medical Officer of Health, added that sometimes the waiting crowd spilled down the stairs and into the street.
"The number of people using the clinic is increasing," he said, "and the waiting room facilities are completely inadequate."
The committee agreed to look into the possibility of extending the waiting room into some Corporation premises next door.
The committee also received a petition from twenty residents of Moxon Street, near Taylor Park, calling for the demolition of derelict properties surrounding their homes.
Children, they claimed, were lighting fires in the old houses and tramps and other undesirables slept in them at night.
Cllr. Peggy McNamara said part of the problem was that two of the houses in the centre of Moxon Street were still occupied by families and their houses could not be demolished.
Nat Birch, of the Public Health Inspector's Department, said it was the responsibility of the owners to demolish derelict property – but the council could do it if they failed to do so.
The council's Amenities Committee also met on the 9th and discussed the new, semi-complete golf clubhouse in Sherdley Park.
A full drinks licence was sought for the £46,000 pavilion. However, it was likely to only qualify for a club licence accommodating members and their friends.
That was unless the design of the building and the proposed location of its toilets were revised.
Also on the 9th, there was a daylight raid at the Gamble Institute in St Helens in which relics of the Napoleonic Wars were stolen.
The haul included two straw boxes, four needle cases, a Turkish pipe, a tea caddy and a copper casket.
During the evening of the 9th, it was "country meets folk" at the Theatre Royal with Tex Withers.
Then on the following night, the 1971 brass band champions Wingates Temperance Band were on stage in Corporation Street.
It was claimed that critical equipment failures were routine, with one ambulance worker telling the Reporter:
"When a member of the St. Helens public rides in an ambulance he does not know how close to death he is." The ambulance men claimed that:
• A baby had died because ambulances did not have vital life-saving machines on board.
• A road crash victim had also unnecessarily died before reaching hospital.
• Ambulances on their way to road accidents had been recalled to base to avoid having to make overtime payments to staff.
• Seven of the twelve ambulances based in St Helens were not fit for purpose and were even in a dangerous condition.
One of the whistle-blowers said: "We have brought this out in the open because our men have reached the point of desperation. They feel these things should be covered up no longer. The public of St. Helens should know what is going on."
The coal miners' strike had led to the Government issuing a state of emergency and power cuts were now taking place in various parts of St Helens.
A Manweb spokesman promised that no blackout would last longer than four hours, with no more than six hours of outages in any area in any 24-hour period.
The Reporter published a rota involving six groups of locations – identified as groups A to F – which showed when they were at low, medium or high risk of power cuts.
Further details of the emergency plans, including maps, were available for viewing at electricity board showrooms and offices.
They were not always geographical groupings – as group F included areas of Sutton and Billinge.
Graham Smith was back in 'Whalley's World' this week in the Reporter.
For many years the talented artist was a fixture down Duke Street, based in his wife Shelagh's Christian Book Shop and later in his own Religious Shop, a few doors away.
A flamboyant dresser with his floppy hat and cravat, who, when interviewed in newspapers or on television, would invariably say: "I want to be famous".
Graham would become known as the "Egg and Sausage Artist" and some would laugh at his eccentricities, not realising that these had been borne out of a severe nervous breakdown.
Alan Whalley had previously written: "Graham's courageous comeback is an example to all who are broken down by the pressures of modern living."
Graham's stunts – such as painting eggs and sausages, offering to sell his work for kisses and putting million pound price tags on paintings in his shop window – were still some years away.
This week Graham was featured after ringing up Alan Whalley and telling the journalist: "I thought it would be a nice challenge to do you in oils".
A free portrait was in the offing, which Alan said he would not be turning down.
Furious families in Clock Face Road were also featured in the Reporter after the police booked them for leaving their cars outside their homes without lights.
They claimed that land behind their houses had been churned into mud when a fleet of builder's lorries had moved in. Miner Harry Lawrenson said:
"I've parked at the front for a year, because of the mud. Often I can't get round the back. At times, it's blocked by pipes and building materials that have nothing to do with us."
Mineworker Bob Dickinson added: "We can't park at the back, and now we can't park at the front either. The lorries have turned the land into a sea of mud."
The residents also said that if they left the lights on their cars, as the law then required, then their batteries would be flat in the morning.
St Helens shopkeeper May Wills was also featured in the Reporter after being banned by a bakery.
A salesman from William Moore's had called at May's shop on the corner of Chapel Street and persuaded her to stock their bread.
Suddenly her supply dried up and May eventually discovered that a competitor had complained about her sales, prompting the 52-year-old to tell the paper:
"I'm absolutely disgusted. It is terrible that a bakery should allow someone to dictate to them like this."
One man had taken just one cwt. of coal worth 60p and was fined £10. The father of four told the Bench that he had no coal and it was causing hardship to his family.
The second man told the court: "I did it because of the children".
To end a busy week at the Theatre Royal, the Halle Orchestra performed their 'Viennese Night' concert on the 12th.
It was no use for anyone in St Helens thinking they could pay at the door, as the performance had been sold out for months.
Next week's stories will include the Derbyshire Hill woman who didn't trust electricity, another post office robbery takes place in Cambridge Road, the hole-in-the-heart Haydock boy returns to school and there's a near-train crash at Marshalls Cross.