FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 7 - 13 JULY 1975
This week's many stories include the Thatto Heath topless sunbathing row, the Pilks' workers protest over plans to close their Ravenhead plant, the fight for equal pay in Parr, an update on the Rainford murder investigation, Suttons win their battle with the council over a helicopter pad and the double death trap for children caused by a hole in a Rainhill Hospital wall.
We begin on the 8th when St Helens Council's Estates sub-committee decided to demolish a row of old cottages in Holme Road in Eccleston and put the land up for sale. Built in 1836, Clematis Cottages were deemed unfit to live in, despite another council committee recommending that the cottages should be sold for improvement.
Councillor Ray Crosby thought they had made a "dreadful mistake", explaining: "There are many buildings in the Eccleston area which are old and have been renovated, and they lend an air of character to the district."
Last week Pilkington's had make the shock announcement that they were closing their Ravenhead works with the loss of several hundred jobs. The television glassware factory had been in trouble for some time and was believed to be losing as much as £400,000 a month. The last straw had been when the Department of Industry had rejected Pilks' application for a temporary employment subsidy, while the long-term prospects of Ravenhead were investigated.
On the 10th 700 of the workers demonstrated outside Pilkington's head office in Prescot Road (pictured above) chanting, "We want work – we don't want the dole." Inside the building management and unions were meeting to discuss the situation but failed to reach any agreement other than to hold more talks.
The protestors carried a mock television set at the head of their column, which they dumped outside the glass museum. And in the House of Commons a junior industry minister confirmed to Leslie Spriggs, the St Helens MP, that there was no way the government could help keep the factory going.
What the St Helens Reporter on the 11th called a "bust-up" (with the emphasis firmly on the word bust!) between neighbours in Poynter Street in Thatto Heath made the front page of the paper. Eileen Burrows liked to sunbathe topless in her garden which her next door neighbour, Barbara Jeffries, did not want her son to see – and so she called the police.
"She had the briefest of bottom halves on I've ever seen", Barbara told the Reporter. "It wasn't much more than a G-string. I objected very strongly, because we've got a 16-year-old son. I would never have bothered but for Stephen's sake." When the police arrived the two officers went upstairs to have a look for themselves at the sunbathing Mrs Burrows. "They came down from looking out of our first floor window with eyes like organ stops," said Mrs Jeffries.
But the 32-year-old topless sunbather – who the Reporter said measured 38-26-38 – was unrepentant. "I'm not ashamed of my body, whatever anyone says," insisted Mrs Burrows. "But I've never sunbathed in the nude, and my bikini is just like anyone else's. The police never told me to stop – they just said they had to come round because they'd had a complaint."
Mrs Jeffries denied that she was a prude, saying: "Prudish? I'm far, far from it – but I don’t like this sort of thing being done blatantly. And what's the point of getting that part of her brown anyway? She's not going to walk round topless."
When the Reporter asked a police spokesman to comment on the case, he said: "If there's any more incidents like that I'll be out of the office and off to investigate myself!" The Reporter did not, however, reveal what 16-year-old Stephen Jeffries thought of the exhibition in his neighbour's garden and his protective Mum's action in calling the police!
"Net Tightens On A Savage Killer – Is Village Key To Death Of ‘Gay Hairdresser’?", was the headline to an article in the Reporter and it was the first time I've seen the word "gay" used in a sexual context in the paper. It was a change to last week when the Reporter wrote that the police were making house to house enquiries in which they were asking the people of Rainford: "Do they know of people with Birmingham connections, or any homosexuals in the area?"
The thirty officers that had been drafted into the village were searching for the killer of Birmingham hairdresser Tom Walker, after the victim's Ford Capri had been discovered abandoned in a cornfield off Mossborough Road. But Mr Walker's body had been found in a Warwickshire ditch and seemingly neither he nor his killer had any connection with Rainford.
The Reporter also described how a hole in a Rainhill Hospital wall was creating what they called a "double death trap" for children. Youngsters who scrambled through it risked falling 60 feet down a railway cutting or being killed by a train on the line below. John Lappin of Main Avenue in Portico said:
"Kids can be found playing on the railway every night. Only a few days ago I discovered my eldest son, John, on the line with a train heading towards him. He was unaware of the danger until I pulled him off." Rainhill Hospital blamed vandals and said they were fed up with carrying out repairs but promised that the wall would be repaired during the next few days.
During the 1970s equal pay between men and women was starting to become an issue. In 1969 Barbara Castle, the Secretary of State for Employment, had promised equal pay for women by 1975 – but that was a forlorn hope. Most campaigners were not yet demanding pay parity between males and females undertaking similar work, but for gender equality in performing the same work.
And women were generally demanding a move towards equality, rather than demanding exactly the same pay straightaway. The old rule that male workers should be paid more because they were likely to have a family to support was being eroded – but only slowly.
In 1973 women office workers at Pilkingtons had set up their first committee to fight for equality and in May 1974 when the General and Municipal Workers Union struck a new pay deal with Pilkingtons, male workers received £31.25 and women £30 for a 40 hour week. The company claimed that it was the highest female basic rate in the country and the Liverpool Daily Post said it was further progress towards equal pay.
This week the Reporter described how women clerks at a gas appliance factory had threatened what the paper said could be the first equal pay strike in St Helens. Eight women in the sales office at Sperryn and Co had given their bosses a 7-day ultimatum to pay up or else they would walk out. Shop steward Sheila Ashall of Brookland Lane in Parr said they were looking for a "reasonable offer towards equal pay".
From the firm's point of view, hiking up wages so that males and females were on the same pay rate could be a massive cost increase and so they wanted to make the journey to equality a slow one – but the female workers, of course, wanted the pace to be quickened. So far the firm had only offered the women a cost of living rise of £2.50 and an additional £2 towards equal pay and the female clerks said they would only call off their threatened strike if the amount on offer was increased.
This week Suttons Transport was celebrating after winning the right to use land at their Elton Head Road offices for a helicopter pad. St Helens Council had refused them permission but the firm had appealed to the Department of the Environment and a public inquiry had been held last May.
The inspector's report was published this week and said the main issue in having a helicopter pad had been the prospect of noise but after visiting the site he felt it would be in no way objectionable and so he upheld the appeal.
On the 12th the Society of Friends Meeting House in Church Street opened its doors to the public for the first time in its 375-year history. Thirteen members of the Quaker religion still met at the house but the public had not until now been allowed access. Admission was free and for one week the house would be open daily for visitors to inspect.
A sponsored 2-hour litter-pick took place in St Helens on the 12th in which hundreds of schoolchildren took part. Their sponsors were asked to pay a certain amount for each filled bag with the cash going to the school that collected the most rubbish, as well as the Guide Dogs for the Blind charity. The scheme was the idea of St Helens Civic Society and was supported by the council.
Meanwhile at Prescot Girls Grammar School on the 12th, Liverpool footballer John Toshack opened their Summer Fair with visitors able to ride in a replica Model-T Ford car that had been loaned by Ashall's of St Helens.
And finally, on the 13th the Capitol Cinema replaced 'The Exorcist' with 'The Poseidon Adventure' in a double-header with 'The French Connection'. But there was no change in programme at the ABC Savoy as 'The Towering Inferno', starring Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, was retained for a third week.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the retirement of the Town Hall Keeper, Dana opens Rumbelows new superstore in Church Street, the new phenomenon of wellie throwing comes to the St Helens Show and M & S cause trouble for Northgate in Parr.
We begin on the 8th when St Helens Council's Estates sub-committee decided to demolish a row of old cottages in Holme Road in Eccleston and put the land up for sale. Built in 1836, Clematis Cottages were deemed unfit to live in, despite another council committee recommending that the cottages should be sold for improvement.
Councillor Ray Crosby thought they had made a "dreadful mistake", explaining: "There are many buildings in the Eccleston area which are old and have been renovated, and they lend an air of character to the district."
Last week Pilkington's had make the shock announcement that they were closing their Ravenhead works with the loss of several hundred jobs. The television glassware factory had been in trouble for some time and was believed to be losing as much as £400,000 a month. The last straw had been when the Department of Industry had rejected Pilks' application for a temporary employment subsidy, while the long-term prospects of Ravenhead were investigated.
The protestors carried a mock television set at the head of their column, which they dumped outside the glass museum. And in the House of Commons a junior industry minister confirmed to Leslie Spriggs, the St Helens MP, that there was no way the government could help keep the factory going.
What the St Helens Reporter on the 11th called a "bust-up" (with the emphasis firmly on the word bust!) between neighbours in Poynter Street in Thatto Heath made the front page of the paper. Eileen Burrows liked to sunbathe topless in her garden which her next door neighbour, Barbara Jeffries, did not want her son to see – and so she called the police.
"She had the briefest of bottom halves on I've ever seen", Barbara told the Reporter. "It wasn't much more than a G-string. I objected very strongly, because we've got a 16-year-old son. I would never have bothered but for Stephen's sake." When the police arrived the two officers went upstairs to have a look for themselves at the sunbathing Mrs Burrows. "They came down from looking out of our first floor window with eyes like organ stops," said Mrs Jeffries.
But the 32-year-old topless sunbather – who the Reporter said measured 38-26-38 – was unrepentant. "I'm not ashamed of my body, whatever anyone says," insisted Mrs Burrows. "But I've never sunbathed in the nude, and my bikini is just like anyone else's. The police never told me to stop – they just said they had to come round because they'd had a complaint."
Mrs Jeffries denied that she was a prude, saying: "Prudish? I'm far, far from it – but I don’t like this sort of thing being done blatantly. And what's the point of getting that part of her brown anyway? She's not going to walk round topless."
When the Reporter asked a police spokesman to comment on the case, he said: "If there's any more incidents like that I'll be out of the office and off to investigate myself!" The Reporter did not, however, reveal what 16-year-old Stephen Jeffries thought of the exhibition in his neighbour's garden and his protective Mum's action in calling the police!
"Net Tightens On A Savage Killer – Is Village Key To Death Of ‘Gay Hairdresser’?", was the headline to an article in the Reporter and it was the first time I've seen the word "gay" used in a sexual context in the paper. It was a change to last week when the Reporter wrote that the police were making house to house enquiries in which they were asking the people of Rainford: "Do they know of people with Birmingham connections, or any homosexuals in the area?"
The thirty officers that had been drafted into the village were searching for the killer of Birmingham hairdresser Tom Walker, after the victim's Ford Capri had been discovered abandoned in a cornfield off Mossborough Road. But Mr Walker's body had been found in a Warwickshire ditch and seemingly neither he nor his killer had any connection with Rainford.
The Reporter also described how a hole in a Rainhill Hospital wall was creating what they called a "double death trap" for children. Youngsters who scrambled through it risked falling 60 feet down a railway cutting or being killed by a train on the line below. John Lappin of Main Avenue in Portico said:
"Kids can be found playing on the railway every night. Only a few days ago I discovered my eldest son, John, on the line with a train heading towards him. He was unaware of the danger until I pulled him off." Rainhill Hospital blamed vandals and said they were fed up with carrying out repairs but promised that the wall would be repaired during the next few days.
During the 1970s equal pay between men and women was starting to become an issue. In 1969 Barbara Castle, the Secretary of State for Employment, had promised equal pay for women by 1975 – but that was a forlorn hope. Most campaigners were not yet demanding pay parity between males and females undertaking similar work, but for gender equality in performing the same work.
And women were generally demanding a move towards equality, rather than demanding exactly the same pay straightaway. The old rule that male workers should be paid more because they were likely to have a family to support was being eroded – but only slowly.
In 1973 women office workers at Pilkingtons had set up their first committee to fight for equality and in May 1974 when the General and Municipal Workers Union struck a new pay deal with Pilkingtons, male workers received £31.25 and women £30 for a 40 hour week. The company claimed that it was the highest female basic rate in the country and the Liverpool Daily Post said it was further progress towards equal pay.
This week the Reporter described how women clerks at a gas appliance factory had threatened what the paper said could be the first equal pay strike in St Helens. Eight women in the sales office at Sperryn and Co had given their bosses a 7-day ultimatum to pay up or else they would walk out. Shop steward Sheila Ashall of Brookland Lane in Parr said they were looking for a "reasonable offer towards equal pay".
From the firm's point of view, hiking up wages so that males and females were on the same pay rate could be a massive cost increase and so they wanted to make the journey to equality a slow one – but the female workers, of course, wanted the pace to be quickened. So far the firm had only offered the women a cost of living rise of £2.50 and an additional £2 towards equal pay and the female clerks said they would only call off their threatened strike if the amount on offer was increased.
The inspector's report was published this week and said the main issue in having a helicopter pad had been the prospect of noise but after visiting the site he felt it would be in no way objectionable and so he upheld the appeal.
On the 12th the Society of Friends Meeting House in Church Street opened its doors to the public for the first time in its 375-year history. Thirteen members of the Quaker religion still met at the house but the public had not until now been allowed access. Admission was free and for one week the house would be open daily for visitors to inspect.
A sponsored 2-hour litter-pick took place in St Helens on the 12th in which hundreds of schoolchildren took part. Their sponsors were asked to pay a certain amount for each filled bag with the cash going to the school that collected the most rubbish, as well as the Guide Dogs for the Blind charity. The scheme was the idea of St Helens Civic Society and was supported by the council.
Meanwhile at Prescot Girls Grammar School on the 12th, Liverpool footballer John Toshack opened their Summer Fair with visitors able to ride in a replica Model-T Ford car that had been loaned by Ashall's of St Helens.
And finally, on the 13th the Capitol Cinema replaced 'The Exorcist' with 'The Poseidon Adventure' in a double-header with 'The French Connection'. But there was no change in programme at the ABC Savoy as 'The Towering Inferno', starring Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, was retained for a third week.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the retirement of the Town Hall Keeper, Dana opens Rumbelows new superstore in Church Street, the new phenomenon of wellie throwing comes to the St Helens Show and M & S cause trouble for Northgate in Parr.
This week's many stories include the Thatto Heath topless sunbathing row, the Pilks' workers protest over plans to close their Ravenhead plant, the fight for equal pay in Parr, an update on the Rainford murder investigation, Suttons win their battle with the council over a helicopter pad and the double death trap for children caused by a hole in a Rainhill Hospital wall.
We begin on the 8th when St Helens Council's Estates sub-committee decided to demolish a row of old cottages in Holme Road in Eccleston and put the land up for sale.
Built in 1836, Clematis Cottages were deemed unfit to live in, despite another council committee recommending that the cottages should be sold for improvement.
Councillor Ray Crosby thought they had made a "dreadful mistake", explaining:
"There are many buildings in the Eccleston area which are old and have been renovated, and they lend an air of character to the district."
Last week Pilkington's had make the shock announcement that they were closing their Ravenhead works with the loss of several hundred jobs.
The television glassware factory had been in trouble for some time and was believed to be losing as much as £400,000 a month.
The last straw had been when the Department of Industry had rejected Pilks' application for a temporary employment subsidy, while the long-term prospects of Ravenhead were investigated.
On the 10th 700 of the workers demonstrated outside Pilkington's head office in Prescot Road (pictured above) chanting, "We want work – we don't want the dole."
Inside the building management and unions were meeting to discuss the situation but failed to reach any agreement other than to hold more talks.
The protestors carried a mock television set at the head of their column, which they dumped outside the glass museum.
And in the House of Commons a junior industry minister confirmed to Leslie Spriggs, the St Helens MP, that there was no way the government could help keep the factory going.
What the St Helens Reporter on the 11th called a "bust-up" (with the emphasis firmly on the word bust!) between neighbours in Poynter Street in Thatto Heath made the front page of the paper.
Eileen Burrows liked to sunbathe topless in her garden which her next door neighbour, Barbara Jeffries, did not want her son to see – and so she called the police.
"She had the briefest of bottom halves on I've ever seen", Barbara told the Reporter. "It wasn't much more than a G-string. I objected very strongly, because we've got a 16-year-old son. I would never have bothered but for Stephen's sake."
When the police arrived the two officers went upstairs to have a look for themselves at the sunbathing Mrs Burrows.
"They came down from looking out of our first floor window with eyes like organ stops," said Mrs Jeffries.
But the 32-year-old topless sunbather – who the Reporter said measured 38-26-38 – was unrepentant.
"I'm not ashamed of my body, whatever anyone says," insisted Mrs Burrows. "But I've never sunbathed in the nude, and my bikini is just like anyone else's. The police never told me to stop – they just said they had to come round because they'd had a complaint."
Mrs Jeffries denied that she was a prude, saying:
"Prudish? I'm far, far from it – but I don’t like this sort of thing being done blatantly. And what's the point of getting that part of her brown anyway? She's not going to walk round topless."
When the Reporter asked a police spokesman to comment on the case, he said: "If there's any more incidents like that I'll be out of the office and off to investigate myself!"
The Reporter did not, however, reveal what 16-year-old Stephen Jeffries thought of the exhibition in his neighbour's garden and his protective Mum's action in calling the police!
"Net Tightens On A Savage Killer – Is Village Key To Death Of ‘Gay Hairdresser’?", was the headline to an article in the Reporter and it was the first time I've seen the word "gay" used in a sexual context in the paper.
It was a change to last week when the Reporter wrote that the police were making house to house enquiries in which they were asking the people of Rainford: "Do they know of people with Birmingham connections, or any homosexuals in the area?"
The thirty officers that had been drafted into the village were searching for the killer of Birmingham hairdresser Tom Walker, after the victim's Ford Capri had been discovered abandoned in a cornfield off Mossborough Road.
But Mr Walker's body had been found in a Warwickshire ditch and seemingly neither he nor his killer had any connection with Rainford.
The Reporter also described how a hole in a Rainhill Hospital wall was creating what they called a "double death trap" for children.
Youngsters who scrambled through it risked falling 60 feet down a railway cutting or being killed by a train on the line below. John Lappin of Main Avenue in Portico said:
"Kids can be found playing on the railway every night. Only a few days ago I discovered my eldest son, John, on the line with a train heading towards him. He was unaware of the danger until I pulled him off."
Rainhill Hospital blamed vandals and said they were fed up with carrying out repairs but promised that the wall would be repaired during the next few days.
During the 1970s equal pay between men and women was starting to become an issue. In 1969 Barbara Castle, the Secretary of State for Employment, had promised equal pay for women by 1975 – but that was a forlorn hope.
Most campaigners were not yet demanding pay parity between males and females undertaking similar work, but for gender equality in performing the same work.
And women were generally demanding a move towards equality, rather than demanding exactly the same pay straightaway.
The old rule that male workers should be paid more because they were likely to have a family to support was being eroded – but only slowly.
In 1973 women office workers at Pilkingtons had set up their first committee to fight for equality and in May 1974 when the General and Municipal Workers Union struck a new pay deal with Pilkingtons, male workers received £31.25 and women £30 for a 40 hour week.
The company claimed that it was the highest female basic rate in the country and the Liverpool Daily Post said it was further progress towards equal pay.
This week the Reporter described how women clerks at a gas appliance factory had threatened what the paper said could be the first equal pay strike in St Helens.
Eight women in the sales office at Sperryn and Co had given their bosses a 7-day ultimatum to pay up or else they would walk out.
Shop steward Sheila Ashall of Brookland Lane in Parr said they were looking for a "reasonable offer towards equal pay".
From the firm's point of view, hiking up wages so that males and females were on the same pay rate could be a massive cost increase and so they wanted to make the journey to equality a slow one – but the female workers, of course, wanted the pace to be quickened.
So far the firm had only offered the women a cost of living rise of £2.50 and an additional £2 towards equal pay and the female clerks said they would only call off their threatened strike if the amount on offer was increased.
This week Sutton's Transport was celebrating after winning the right to use land at their Elton Head Road offices for a helicopter pad.
St Helens Council had refused them permission but the firm had appealed to the Department of the Environment and a public inquiry had been held last May.
The inspector's report was published this week and said the main issue in having a helicopter pad had been the prospect of noise but after visiting the site he felt it would be in no way objectionable and so he upheld the appeal.
On the 12th the Society of Friends Meeting House in Church Street opened its doors to the public for the first time in its 375-year history.
Thirteen members of the Quaker religion still met at the house but the public had not until now been allowed access.
Admission was free and for one week the house would be open daily for visitors to inspect.
A sponsored 2-hour litter-pick took place in St Helens on the 12th in which hundreds of schoolchildren took part.
Their sponsors were asked to pay a certain amount for each filled bag with the cash going to the school that collected the most rubbish, as well as the Guide Dogs for the Blind charity.
The scheme was the idea of St Helens Civic Society and was supported by the council.
Meanwhile at Prescot Girls Grammar School on the 12th, Liverpool footballer John Toshack opened their Summer Fair with visitors able to ride in a replica Model-T Ford car that had been loaned by Ashall's of St Helens.
And finally, on the 13th the Capitol Cinema replaced 'The Exorcist' with 'The Poseidon Adventure' in a double-header with 'The French Connection'.
But there was no change in programme at the ABC Savoy as 'The Towering Inferno', starring Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, was retained for a third week.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the retirement of the Town Hall Keeper, Dana opens Rumbelows new superstore in Church Street, the new phenomenon of wellie throwing comes to the St Helens Show and M & S cause trouble for Northgate in Parr.
We begin on the 8th when St Helens Council's Estates sub-committee decided to demolish a row of old cottages in Holme Road in Eccleston and put the land up for sale.
Built in 1836, Clematis Cottages were deemed unfit to live in, despite another council committee recommending that the cottages should be sold for improvement.
Councillor Ray Crosby thought they had made a "dreadful mistake", explaining:
"There are many buildings in the Eccleston area which are old and have been renovated, and they lend an air of character to the district."
Last week Pilkington's had make the shock announcement that they were closing their Ravenhead works with the loss of several hundred jobs.
The television glassware factory had been in trouble for some time and was believed to be losing as much as £400,000 a month.
The last straw had been when the Department of Industry had rejected Pilks' application for a temporary employment subsidy, while the long-term prospects of Ravenhead were investigated.
Inside the building management and unions were meeting to discuss the situation but failed to reach any agreement other than to hold more talks.
The protestors carried a mock television set at the head of their column, which they dumped outside the glass museum.
And in the House of Commons a junior industry minister confirmed to Leslie Spriggs, the St Helens MP, that there was no way the government could help keep the factory going.
What the St Helens Reporter on the 11th called a "bust-up" (with the emphasis firmly on the word bust!) between neighbours in Poynter Street in Thatto Heath made the front page of the paper.
Eileen Burrows liked to sunbathe topless in her garden which her next door neighbour, Barbara Jeffries, did not want her son to see – and so she called the police.
"She had the briefest of bottom halves on I've ever seen", Barbara told the Reporter. "It wasn't much more than a G-string. I objected very strongly, because we've got a 16-year-old son. I would never have bothered but for Stephen's sake."
When the police arrived the two officers went upstairs to have a look for themselves at the sunbathing Mrs Burrows.
"They came down from looking out of our first floor window with eyes like organ stops," said Mrs Jeffries.
But the 32-year-old topless sunbather – who the Reporter said measured 38-26-38 – was unrepentant.
"I'm not ashamed of my body, whatever anyone says," insisted Mrs Burrows. "But I've never sunbathed in the nude, and my bikini is just like anyone else's. The police never told me to stop – they just said they had to come round because they'd had a complaint."
Mrs Jeffries denied that she was a prude, saying:
"Prudish? I'm far, far from it – but I don’t like this sort of thing being done blatantly. And what's the point of getting that part of her brown anyway? She's not going to walk round topless."
When the Reporter asked a police spokesman to comment on the case, he said: "If there's any more incidents like that I'll be out of the office and off to investigate myself!"
The Reporter did not, however, reveal what 16-year-old Stephen Jeffries thought of the exhibition in his neighbour's garden and his protective Mum's action in calling the police!
"Net Tightens On A Savage Killer – Is Village Key To Death Of ‘Gay Hairdresser’?", was the headline to an article in the Reporter and it was the first time I've seen the word "gay" used in a sexual context in the paper.
It was a change to last week when the Reporter wrote that the police were making house to house enquiries in which they were asking the people of Rainford: "Do they know of people with Birmingham connections, or any homosexuals in the area?"
The thirty officers that had been drafted into the village were searching for the killer of Birmingham hairdresser Tom Walker, after the victim's Ford Capri had been discovered abandoned in a cornfield off Mossborough Road.
But Mr Walker's body had been found in a Warwickshire ditch and seemingly neither he nor his killer had any connection with Rainford.
The Reporter also described how a hole in a Rainhill Hospital wall was creating what they called a "double death trap" for children.
Youngsters who scrambled through it risked falling 60 feet down a railway cutting or being killed by a train on the line below. John Lappin of Main Avenue in Portico said:
"Kids can be found playing on the railway every night. Only a few days ago I discovered my eldest son, John, on the line with a train heading towards him. He was unaware of the danger until I pulled him off."
Rainhill Hospital blamed vandals and said they were fed up with carrying out repairs but promised that the wall would be repaired during the next few days.
During the 1970s equal pay between men and women was starting to become an issue. In 1969 Barbara Castle, the Secretary of State for Employment, had promised equal pay for women by 1975 – but that was a forlorn hope.
Most campaigners were not yet demanding pay parity between males and females undertaking similar work, but for gender equality in performing the same work.
And women were generally demanding a move towards equality, rather than demanding exactly the same pay straightaway.
The old rule that male workers should be paid more because they were likely to have a family to support was being eroded – but only slowly.
In 1973 women office workers at Pilkingtons had set up their first committee to fight for equality and in May 1974 when the General and Municipal Workers Union struck a new pay deal with Pilkingtons, male workers received £31.25 and women £30 for a 40 hour week.
The company claimed that it was the highest female basic rate in the country and the Liverpool Daily Post said it was further progress towards equal pay.
This week the Reporter described how women clerks at a gas appliance factory had threatened what the paper said could be the first equal pay strike in St Helens.
Eight women in the sales office at Sperryn and Co had given their bosses a 7-day ultimatum to pay up or else they would walk out.
Shop steward Sheila Ashall of Brookland Lane in Parr said they were looking for a "reasonable offer towards equal pay".
From the firm's point of view, hiking up wages so that males and females were on the same pay rate could be a massive cost increase and so they wanted to make the journey to equality a slow one – but the female workers, of course, wanted the pace to be quickened.
So far the firm had only offered the women a cost of living rise of £2.50 and an additional £2 towards equal pay and the female clerks said they would only call off their threatened strike if the amount on offer was increased.
St Helens Council had refused them permission but the firm had appealed to the Department of the Environment and a public inquiry had been held last May.
The inspector's report was published this week and said the main issue in having a helicopter pad had been the prospect of noise but after visiting the site he felt it would be in no way objectionable and so he upheld the appeal.
On the 12th the Society of Friends Meeting House in Church Street opened its doors to the public for the first time in its 375-year history.
Thirteen members of the Quaker religion still met at the house but the public had not until now been allowed access.
Admission was free and for one week the house would be open daily for visitors to inspect.
A sponsored 2-hour litter-pick took place in St Helens on the 12th in which hundreds of schoolchildren took part.
Their sponsors were asked to pay a certain amount for each filled bag with the cash going to the school that collected the most rubbish, as well as the Guide Dogs for the Blind charity.
The scheme was the idea of St Helens Civic Society and was supported by the council.
Meanwhile at Prescot Girls Grammar School on the 12th, Liverpool footballer John Toshack opened their Summer Fair with visitors able to ride in a replica Model-T Ford car that had been loaned by Ashall's of St Helens.
And finally, on the 13th the Capitol Cinema replaced 'The Exorcist' with 'The Poseidon Adventure' in a double-header with 'The French Connection'.
But there was no change in programme at the ABC Savoy as 'The Towering Inferno', starring Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, was retained for a third week.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the retirement of the Town Hall Keeper, Dana opens Rumbelows new superstore in Church Street, the new phenomenon of wellie throwing comes to the St Helens Show and M & S cause trouble for Northgate in Parr.