FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (8 - 14 MAY 1973)
This week's many stories include the Grange Park geography lesson from the air, there's a mass escape of baboons from Knowsley Safari Park, Ashalls are fined for breaching Sunday trading laws, Lenny the Lion comes to Hamblett school, more on the lengthy telephone waiting list in St Helens, the robbery in Peasley Cross Lane and St Helens' first kidney transplant is judged a success.
We begin on the 8th at the Theatre Royal in St Helens with a production of Sheilagh Delaney's 'A Taste Of Honey', which continued nightly throughout the week. The lead was taken by Elizabeth Larner who was then best known for her performances in 'Up Pompeii!'.
Also on the 8th seventy pupils from Grange Park Secondary School took part in a geography lesson with a difference – from thousands of feet up in the air. The 11 and 12-year-olds were able to study Lancashire from the comfort of a four-engine Viscount plane, as teacher Alan Jones explained:
"The children are doing a project on Lancashire, its history, geography etc., and we thought that it was a good idea to look at it from the air. All the children got a chance to go into the cockpit, and I suppose one of the highlights was when the pilot flew the aircraft over the school."
Ford dealer's Ashall's of City Road were the latest St Helens car dealers to transgress the Sunday trading laws. They were allowed to sell such things as car accessories on the Sabbath – but not the actual vehicles themselves. The St Helens Weights and Measures Department had warned the firm not to open on Sundays – but Ashall's had taken no notice. So one of their inspectors had kept a watch on their showroom and spoken to customers who confirmed they were buying a car.
When the management of J. Ashall and Son was told they were going to be prosecuted, they said: "We are here to sell cars. We do 50 per cent. of our business on Sundays." This week St Helens' magistrates fined the firm £5 – a level of fine that meant it was still well worth the car dealers opening on the Sabbath. Although Weights and Measures inspectors were often criticised for their strict enforcement of the Sunday trading laws, their argument was that those retailers that abided by the law were penalised when their competitors broke it.
The Liverpool Echo's 'Helping Hand' column had featured the lengthy telephone waiting list in St Helens on a number of occasions when frustrated would-be subscribers complained about lengthy delays. On the 9th a woman identified as Mrs E. S. of Parr stated her puzzlement as why she could not get connected:
"I am an elderly person living alone, with my family scattered all over the country. My children have kindly agreed to pay for a telephone for me and many months ago I applied for one, but the Post Office tell me that they don't have enough equipment to install one. Yet there is a telephone pole just outside my front gate."
When the Echo's 'Helping Hand' team contacted firms about problems that had been reported to them by their readers, the issues tended to be rapidly sorted. But they had to admit that there was nothing they could do to expedite Mrs E. S.'s long wait. The Post Office's new exchange at Marshalls Cross had allowed 4,000 new residential telephones to be installed in St Helens over the previous two years. But there were still some areas in the town that lacked capacity, with the issue unconnected to the proximity of telephone poles.
A Post Office spokesman explained: "We have been faced with special problems in St. Helens, where a shortage of exchange equipment and underground line plant, coupled with an explosion in demand for residential telephones, resulted in a large waiting list. Unfortunately, there are still isolated pockets where our work to provide new cable is not yet finished." Parr was clearly one of these areas and Mrs E. S. would only be able to talk to her family on the phone in the autumn.
On the 10th two men wielding pickaxe handles attacked a 60-year-old quantity surveyor as he arrived at the builders' premises of A. R. Keay in Peasley Cross Lane. The robbers coshed Robert Sharratt over the head and knocked him to the ground. The pair then snatched the £1,800 that he was carrying and made their escape in a white Cortina. Some hours later what was thought to have been the same car was spotted at Crank with two men seen fumbling with its number-plate. The surveyor was taken to hospital but his injuries were not thought to be serious.
A 5-day Open Air Camping Show began on the 10th at St Helens RUFC's ground at Moss Lane. "Everything For The Camper And Outdoor Enthusiast", said their advert. Admission was 15p.
Installing central heating was big business in the 1970s. The Runcorn Weekly News had previously published a short feature on Laughton & Wallace, which were then located in Nutgrove Road in St Helens. The firm was a partnership between George Wallace and Dougie Laughton – the captain of Wigan’s rugby league team – and they boasted of installing central heating in just two days, while other firms took at least a week.
However, this week on the 10th the same paper ran an advertising feature on Barton's of St Helens. They said the Duke Street firm was "regularly beating the clock", as over the last four years they'd made over 1,000 one-day installations. And their customers could pay for their central heating on HP with no deposit and repayments spread over 10 years.
On the 11th the Echo reported that Elsie Jones had come safely through St Helens' first kidney transplant operation with the donor having been her brother Harry. Although such transplants had begun in the early 1950s, drugs to help prevent rejection had not been available until the mid-‘60s. So such operations were still fairly new and had a fair level of risk. But Mossley Hill Hospital in Liverpool had reported that Mrs Jones was "quite satisfactory" after the op.
Her brother was Harry Davies, a steeplejack from Frodsham Drive in Blackbrook, who said: "I never thought of refusing. I feel fine after the operation." Mrs Jones had been seriously ill for a year and had spent two months in a coma. Doctors discovered that she only possessed one kidney, which was not functioning correctly. Before the operation the 33-year-old from Wyresdale Avenue in St Helens had presented her brother with a beer tankard bearing the inscription: "To Harry, the best brother in the world."
Susan Lowe was pictured in the Reporter on the 11th after winning the title of Bold Miners Queen for the second year in succession. The paper also described a baboon escape from a compound at Knowsley Safari Park. Over thirty of the monkeys had scaled a high fence to go walkies on two nearby farms. The first to spot them was Jean Newsholme of Parkside Farm and then the animals moved off to Clay Lane Farm giving Barbara Rainford a bit of a shock. She dialled 999 and police and keepers were soon on the scene to round up the escapees.
A Safari spokesman said: "Their fence is about 10 feet high and at the top is a slippery plastic material which has stopped them climbing out until now. But baboons are clever and they must have been getting in some practice. "We assume what happened was that one of the bigger baboons mastered the fence and gave all the others a hand up." Mrs Newsholme told the Reporter: "I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw them. But I wasn't scared – just fascinated."
The paper also described how British Rail had promised action over a disused cutting in St Helens that had been turned into a tip. It followed a petition by forty householders in Dunriding Lane and Knowsley Road that had demanded a clean up of the eyesore. Since the railway line behind their homes had been closed, it had been turned into a dumping ground containing old mattresses, fridges, washers, building waste, and domestic rubbish.
To many the name Terry Hall means the lead singer of the Specials who died last Christmas. But to me it is associated more with the ventriloquist behind Lenny the Lion. The Reporter carried a picture of Terry entertaining children with his puppet at Hamblett School, which he had visited during the previous week. The man with the cuddly lion was also a writer of children's books and his show was partly undertaken to publicise his literary work.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the high crime rate in St Helens, the new scheme to ease town centre traffic, a profile of the St Helens Marriage Guidance Council and the man that stabbed a stranger after watching Clockwork Orange at the Savoy.
We begin on the 8th at the Theatre Royal in St Helens with a production of Sheilagh Delaney's 'A Taste Of Honey', which continued nightly throughout the week. The lead was taken by Elizabeth Larner who was then best known for her performances in 'Up Pompeii!'.
Also on the 8th seventy pupils from Grange Park Secondary School took part in a geography lesson with a difference – from thousands of feet up in the air. The 11 and 12-year-olds were able to study Lancashire from the comfort of a four-engine Viscount plane, as teacher Alan Jones explained:
"The children are doing a project on Lancashire, its history, geography etc., and we thought that it was a good idea to look at it from the air. All the children got a chance to go into the cockpit, and I suppose one of the highlights was when the pilot flew the aircraft over the school."
Ford dealer's Ashall's of City Road were the latest St Helens car dealers to transgress the Sunday trading laws. They were allowed to sell such things as car accessories on the Sabbath – but not the actual vehicles themselves. The St Helens Weights and Measures Department had warned the firm not to open on Sundays – but Ashall's had taken no notice. So one of their inspectors had kept a watch on their showroom and spoken to customers who confirmed they were buying a car.
When the management of J. Ashall and Son was told they were going to be prosecuted, they said: "We are here to sell cars. We do 50 per cent. of our business on Sundays." This week St Helens' magistrates fined the firm £5 – a level of fine that meant it was still well worth the car dealers opening on the Sabbath. Although Weights and Measures inspectors were often criticised for their strict enforcement of the Sunday trading laws, their argument was that those retailers that abided by the law were penalised when their competitors broke it.
The Liverpool Echo's 'Helping Hand' column had featured the lengthy telephone waiting list in St Helens on a number of occasions when frustrated would-be subscribers complained about lengthy delays. On the 9th a woman identified as Mrs E. S. of Parr stated her puzzlement as why she could not get connected:
"I am an elderly person living alone, with my family scattered all over the country. My children have kindly agreed to pay for a telephone for me and many months ago I applied for one, but the Post Office tell me that they don't have enough equipment to install one. Yet there is a telephone pole just outside my front gate."
When the Echo's 'Helping Hand' team contacted firms about problems that had been reported to them by their readers, the issues tended to be rapidly sorted. But they had to admit that there was nothing they could do to expedite Mrs E. S.'s long wait. The Post Office's new exchange at Marshalls Cross had allowed 4,000 new residential telephones to be installed in St Helens over the previous two years. But there were still some areas in the town that lacked capacity, with the issue unconnected to the proximity of telephone poles.
A Post Office spokesman explained: "We have been faced with special problems in St. Helens, where a shortage of exchange equipment and underground line plant, coupled with an explosion in demand for residential telephones, resulted in a large waiting list. Unfortunately, there are still isolated pockets where our work to provide new cable is not yet finished." Parr was clearly one of these areas and Mrs E. S. would only be able to talk to her family on the phone in the autumn.
On the 10th two men wielding pickaxe handles attacked a 60-year-old quantity surveyor as he arrived at the builders' premises of A. R. Keay in Peasley Cross Lane. The robbers coshed Robert Sharratt over the head and knocked him to the ground. The pair then snatched the £1,800 that he was carrying and made their escape in a white Cortina. Some hours later what was thought to have been the same car was spotted at Crank with two men seen fumbling with its number-plate. The surveyor was taken to hospital but his injuries were not thought to be serious.
A 5-day Open Air Camping Show began on the 10th at St Helens RUFC's ground at Moss Lane. "Everything For The Camper And Outdoor Enthusiast", said their advert. Admission was 15p.
Installing central heating was big business in the 1970s. The Runcorn Weekly News had previously published a short feature on Laughton & Wallace, which were then located in Nutgrove Road in St Helens. The firm was a partnership between George Wallace and Dougie Laughton – the captain of Wigan’s rugby league team – and they boasted of installing central heating in just two days, while other firms took at least a week.
However, this week on the 10th the same paper ran an advertising feature on Barton's of St Helens. They said the Duke Street firm was "regularly beating the clock", as over the last four years they'd made over 1,000 one-day installations. And their customers could pay for their central heating on HP with no deposit and repayments spread over 10 years.
On the 11th the Echo reported that Elsie Jones had come safely through St Helens' first kidney transplant operation with the donor having been her brother Harry. Although such transplants had begun in the early 1950s, drugs to help prevent rejection had not been available until the mid-‘60s. So such operations were still fairly new and had a fair level of risk. But Mossley Hill Hospital in Liverpool had reported that Mrs Jones was "quite satisfactory" after the op.
Her brother was Harry Davies, a steeplejack from Frodsham Drive in Blackbrook, who said: "I never thought of refusing. I feel fine after the operation." Mrs Jones had been seriously ill for a year and had spent two months in a coma. Doctors discovered that she only possessed one kidney, which was not functioning correctly. Before the operation the 33-year-old from Wyresdale Avenue in St Helens had presented her brother with a beer tankard bearing the inscription: "To Harry, the best brother in the world."
Susan Lowe was pictured in the Reporter on the 11th after winning the title of Bold Miners Queen for the second year in succession. The paper also described a baboon escape from a compound at Knowsley Safari Park. Over thirty of the monkeys had scaled a high fence to go walkies on two nearby farms. The first to spot them was Jean Newsholme of Parkside Farm and then the animals moved off to Clay Lane Farm giving Barbara Rainford a bit of a shock. She dialled 999 and police and keepers were soon on the scene to round up the escapees.
A Safari spokesman said: "Their fence is about 10 feet high and at the top is a slippery plastic material which has stopped them climbing out until now. But baboons are clever and they must have been getting in some practice. "We assume what happened was that one of the bigger baboons mastered the fence and gave all the others a hand up." Mrs Newsholme told the Reporter: "I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw them. But I wasn't scared – just fascinated."
The paper also described how British Rail had promised action over a disused cutting in St Helens that had been turned into a tip. It followed a petition by forty householders in Dunriding Lane and Knowsley Road that had demanded a clean up of the eyesore. Since the railway line behind their homes had been closed, it had been turned into a dumping ground containing old mattresses, fridges, washers, building waste, and domestic rubbish.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the high crime rate in St Helens, the new scheme to ease town centre traffic, a profile of the St Helens Marriage Guidance Council and the man that stabbed a stranger after watching Clockwork Orange at the Savoy.
This week's many stories include the Grange Park geography lesson from the air, there's a mass escape of baboons from Knowsley Safari Park, Ashalls are fined for breaching Sunday trading laws, Lenny the Lion comes to Hamblett school, more on the lengthy telephone waiting list in St Helens, the robbery in Peasley Cross Lane and St Helens' first kidney transplant is judged a success.
We begin on the 8th at the Theatre Royal in St Helens with a production of Sheilagh Delaney's 'A Taste Of Honey', which continued nightly throughout the week.
The lead was taken by Elizabeth Larner who was then best known for her performances in 'Up Pompeii!'.
Also on the 8th seventy pupils from Grange Park Secondary School took part in a geography lesson with a difference – from thousands of feet up in the air.
The 11 and 12-year-olds were able to study Lancashire from the comfort of a four-engine Viscount plane, as teacher Alan Jones explained:
"The children are doing a project on Lancashire, its history, geography etc., and we thought that it was a good idea to look at it from the air.
"All the children got a chance to go into the cockpit, and I suppose one of the highlights was when the pilot flew the aircraft over the school."
Ford dealer's Ashall's of City Road were the latest St Helens car dealers to transgress the Sunday trading laws.
They were allowed to sell such things as car accessories on the Sabbath – but not the actual vehicles themselves.
The St Helens Weights and Measures Department had warned the firm not to open on Sundays – but Ashall's had taken no notice.
So one of their inspectors had kept a watch on their showroom and spoken to customers who confirmed they were buying a car.
When the management of J. Ashall and Son was told they were going to be prosecuted, they said: "We are here to sell cars. We do 50 per cent. of our business on Sundays."
This week St Helens' magistrates fined the firm £5 – a level of fine that meant it was still well worth the car dealers opening on the Sabbath.
Although Weights and Measures inspectors were often criticised for their strict enforcement of the Sunday trading laws, their argument was that those retailers that abided by the law were penalised when their competitors broke it.
The Liverpool Echo's 'Helping Hand' column had featured the lengthy telephone waiting list in St Helens on a number of occasions when frustrated would-be subscribers complained about lengthy delays.
On the 9th a woman identified as Mrs E. S. of Parr stated her puzzlement as why she could not get connected:
"I am an elderly person living alone, with my family scattered all over the country. My children have kindly agreed to pay for a telephone for me and many months ago I applied for one, but the Post Office tell me that they don't have enough equipment to install one. Yet there is a telephone pole just outside my front gate."
When the Echo's 'Helping Hand' team contacted firms about problems that had been reported to them by their readers, the issues tended to be rapidly sorted.
But they had to admit that there was nothing they could do to expedite Mrs E. S.'s long wait.
The Post Office's new exchange at Marshalls Cross had allowed 4,000 new residential telephones to be installed in St Helens over the previous two years.
But there were still some areas in the town that lacked capacity, with the issue unconnected to the proximity of telephone poles. A Post Office spokesman explained:
"We have been faced with special problems in St. Helens, where a shortage of exchange equipment and underground line plant, coupled with an explosion in demand for residential telephones, resulted in a large waiting list. Unfortunately, there are still isolated pockets where our work to provide new cable is not yet finished."
Parr was clearly one of these areas and Mrs E. S. would only be able to talk to her family on the phone in the autumn.
On the 10th two men wielding pickaxe handles attacked a 60-year-old quantity surveyor as he arrived at the builders' premises of A. R. Keay in Peasley Cross Lane.
The robbers coshed Robert Sharratt over the head and knocked him to the ground. The pair then snatched the £1,800 that he was carrying and made their escape in a white Cortina.
Some hours later what was thought to have been the same car was spotted at Crank with two men seen fumbling with its number-plate.
The surveyor was taken to hospital but his injuries were not thought to be serious.
A 5-day Open Air Camping Show began on the 10th at St Helens RUFC's ground at Moss Lane. "Everything For The Camper And Outdoor Enthusiast", said their advert. Admission was 15p.
Installing central heating was big business in the 1970s. The Runcorn Weekly News had previously published a short feature on Laughton & Wallace, which were then located in Nutgrove Road in St Helens.
The firm was a partnership between George Wallace and Dougie Laughton – the captain of Wigan’s rugby league team – and they boasted of installing central heating in just two days, while other firms took at least a week.
However, this week on the 10th the same paper ran an advertising feature on Barton's of St Helens.
They said the Duke Street firm was "regularly beating the clock", as over the last four years they'd made over 1,000 one-day installations.
And their customers could pay for their central heating on HP with no deposit and repayments spread over 10 years.
On the 11th the Echo reported that Elsie Jones had come safely through St Helens' first kidney transplant operation with the donor having been her brother Harry.
Although such transplants had begun in the early 1950s, drugs to help prevent rejection had not been available until the mid-‘60s.
So such operations were still fairly new and had a fair level of risk. But Mossley Hill Hospital in Liverpool had reported that Mrs Jones was "quite satisfactory" after the op.
Her brother was Harry Davies, a steeplejack from Frodsham Drive in Blackbrook, who said: "I never thought of refusing. I feel fine after the operation."
Mrs Jones had been seriously ill for a year and had spent two months in a coma. Doctors discovered that she only possessed one kidney, which was not functioning correctly.
Before the operation the 33-year-old from Wyresdale Avenue in St Helens had presented her brother with a beer tankard bearing the inscription: "To Harry, the best brother in the world."
Susan Lowe was pictured in the Reporter on the 11th after winning the title of Bold Miners Queen for the second year in succession.
The paper also described a baboon escape from a compound at Knowsley Safari Park. Over thirty of the monkeys had scaled a high fence to go walkies on two nearby farms.
The first to spot them was Jean Newsholme of Parkside Farm and then the animals moved off to Clay Lane Farm giving Barbara Rainford a bit of a shock.
She dialled 999 and police and keepers were soon on the scene to round up the escapees.
A Safari spokesman said: "Their fence is about 10 feet high and at the top is a slippery plastic material which has stopped them climbing out until now. But baboons are clever and they must have been getting in some practice.
"We assume what happened was that one of the bigger baboons mastered the fence and gave all the others a hand up."
Mrs Newsholme told the Reporter: "I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw them. But I wasn't scared – just fascinated."
The paper also described how British Rail had promised action over a disused cutting in St Helens that had been turned into a tip.
It followed a petition by forty householders in Dunriding Lane and Knowsley Road that had demanded a clean up of the eyesore.
Since the railway line behind their homes had been closed, it had been turned into a dumping ground containing old mattresses, fridges, washers, building waste, and domestic rubbish.
To many the name Terry Hall means the lead singer of the Specials who died last Christmas. But to me it is associated more with the ventriloquist behind Lenny the Lion.
The Reporter carried a picture of Terry entertaining children with his puppet at Hamblett School, which he had visited during the previous week.
The man with the cuddly lion was also a writer of children's books and his show was partly undertaken to publicise his literary work.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the high crime rate in St Helens, the new scheme to ease town centre traffic, a profile of the St Helens Marriage Guidance Council and the man that stabbed a stranger after watching Clockwork Orange at the Savoy.
We begin on the 8th at the Theatre Royal in St Helens with a production of Sheilagh Delaney's 'A Taste Of Honey', which continued nightly throughout the week.
The lead was taken by Elizabeth Larner who was then best known for her performances in 'Up Pompeii!'.
Also on the 8th seventy pupils from Grange Park Secondary School took part in a geography lesson with a difference – from thousands of feet up in the air.
The 11 and 12-year-olds were able to study Lancashire from the comfort of a four-engine Viscount plane, as teacher Alan Jones explained:
"The children are doing a project on Lancashire, its history, geography etc., and we thought that it was a good idea to look at it from the air.
"All the children got a chance to go into the cockpit, and I suppose one of the highlights was when the pilot flew the aircraft over the school."
Ford dealer's Ashall's of City Road were the latest St Helens car dealers to transgress the Sunday trading laws.
They were allowed to sell such things as car accessories on the Sabbath – but not the actual vehicles themselves.
The St Helens Weights and Measures Department had warned the firm not to open on Sundays – but Ashall's had taken no notice.
So one of their inspectors had kept a watch on their showroom and spoken to customers who confirmed they were buying a car.
When the management of J. Ashall and Son was told they were going to be prosecuted, they said: "We are here to sell cars. We do 50 per cent. of our business on Sundays."
This week St Helens' magistrates fined the firm £5 – a level of fine that meant it was still well worth the car dealers opening on the Sabbath.
Although Weights and Measures inspectors were often criticised for their strict enforcement of the Sunday trading laws, their argument was that those retailers that abided by the law were penalised when their competitors broke it.
The Liverpool Echo's 'Helping Hand' column had featured the lengthy telephone waiting list in St Helens on a number of occasions when frustrated would-be subscribers complained about lengthy delays.
On the 9th a woman identified as Mrs E. S. of Parr stated her puzzlement as why she could not get connected:
"I am an elderly person living alone, with my family scattered all over the country. My children have kindly agreed to pay for a telephone for me and many months ago I applied for one, but the Post Office tell me that they don't have enough equipment to install one. Yet there is a telephone pole just outside my front gate."
When the Echo's 'Helping Hand' team contacted firms about problems that had been reported to them by their readers, the issues tended to be rapidly sorted.
But they had to admit that there was nothing they could do to expedite Mrs E. S.'s long wait.
The Post Office's new exchange at Marshalls Cross had allowed 4,000 new residential telephones to be installed in St Helens over the previous two years.
But there were still some areas in the town that lacked capacity, with the issue unconnected to the proximity of telephone poles. A Post Office spokesman explained:
"We have been faced with special problems in St. Helens, where a shortage of exchange equipment and underground line plant, coupled with an explosion in demand for residential telephones, resulted in a large waiting list. Unfortunately, there are still isolated pockets where our work to provide new cable is not yet finished."
Parr was clearly one of these areas and Mrs E. S. would only be able to talk to her family on the phone in the autumn.
On the 10th two men wielding pickaxe handles attacked a 60-year-old quantity surveyor as he arrived at the builders' premises of A. R. Keay in Peasley Cross Lane.
The robbers coshed Robert Sharratt over the head and knocked him to the ground. The pair then snatched the £1,800 that he was carrying and made their escape in a white Cortina.
Some hours later what was thought to have been the same car was spotted at Crank with two men seen fumbling with its number-plate.
The surveyor was taken to hospital but his injuries were not thought to be serious.
A 5-day Open Air Camping Show began on the 10th at St Helens RUFC's ground at Moss Lane. "Everything For The Camper And Outdoor Enthusiast", said their advert. Admission was 15p.
Installing central heating was big business in the 1970s. The Runcorn Weekly News had previously published a short feature on Laughton & Wallace, which were then located in Nutgrove Road in St Helens.
The firm was a partnership between George Wallace and Dougie Laughton – the captain of Wigan’s rugby league team – and they boasted of installing central heating in just two days, while other firms took at least a week.
However, this week on the 10th the same paper ran an advertising feature on Barton's of St Helens.
They said the Duke Street firm was "regularly beating the clock", as over the last four years they'd made over 1,000 one-day installations.
And their customers could pay for their central heating on HP with no deposit and repayments spread over 10 years.
On the 11th the Echo reported that Elsie Jones had come safely through St Helens' first kidney transplant operation with the donor having been her brother Harry.
Although such transplants had begun in the early 1950s, drugs to help prevent rejection had not been available until the mid-‘60s.
So such operations were still fairly new and had a fair level of risk. But Mossley Hill Hospital in Liverpool had reported that Mrs Jones was "quite satisfactory" after the op.
Her brother was Harry Davies, a steeplejack from Frodsham Drive in Blackbrook, who said: "I never thought of refusing. I feel fine after the operation."
Mrs Jones had been seriously ill for a year and had spent two months in a coma. Doctors discovered that she only possessed one kidney, which was not functioning correctly.
Before the operation the 33-year-old from Wyresdale Avenue in St Helens had presented her brother with a beer tankard bearing the inscription: "To Harry, the best brother in the world."
Susan Lowe was pictured in the Reporter on the 11th after winning the title of Bold Miners Queen for the second year in succession.
The paper also described a baboon escape from a compound at Knowsley Safari Park. Over thirty of the monkeys had scaled a high fence to go walkies on two nearby farms.
The first to spot them was Jean Newsholme of Parkside Farm and then the animals moved off to Clay Lane Farm giving Barbara Rainford a bit of a shock.
She dialled 999 and police and keepers were soon on the scene to round up the escapees.
A Safari spokesman said: "Their fence is about 10 feet high and at the top is a slippery plastic material which has stopped them climbing out until now. But baboons are clever and they must have been getting in some practice.
"We assume what happened was that one of the bigger baboons mastered the fence and gave all the others a hand up."
Mrs Newsholme told the Reporter: "I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw them. But I wasn't scared – just fascinated."
The paper also described how British Rail had promised action over a disused cutting in St Helens that had been turned into a tip.
It followed a petition by forty householders in Dunriding Lane and Knowsley Road that had demanded a clean up of the eyesore.
Since the railway line behind their homes had been closed, it had been turned into a dumping ground containing old mattresses, fridges, washers, building waste, and domestic rubbish.
The Reporter carried a picture of Terry entertaining children with his puppet at Hamblett School, which he had visited during the previous week.
The man with the cuddly lion was also a writer of children's books and his show was partly undertaken to publicise his literary work.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the high crime rate in St Helens, the new scheme to ease town centre traffic, a profile of the St Helens Marriage Guidance Council and the man that stabbed a stranger after watching Clockwork Orange at the Savoy.