FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (8th - 14th July 1969)
This week's stories include a protest march against plans to scrap Parr baths, the low level of arts spending in St Helens, St Julie's Church in Eccleston is consecrated, what St Helens folk thought of the ha’penny's demise, the lorry drivers that were using the Pewfall hedgerows to relieve themselves, the Pilkington Gala Girls and the council tenants without a television that still had to pay for a wired service.
However we begin with the Vicar of Haydock's comments in his monthly parish magazine in which he lamented a general decline in church attendances: "Are we drifting towards a situation when only a handful of people will turn up for church services?", pondered Rev. Wilson.
Ashton's Public Heath Committee heard on the 8th that women in Liverpool Road in Pewfall were complaining about lorry drivers using the hedgerows to relieve themselves. The councillors were, however, sympathetic to the plight of the men as there were no public toilets in Pewfall or Garswood and they felt the drivers might well have travelled some distance on the M6. The council's Surveyor said he would look for possible sites for public conveniences and report on how much such a scheme would cost.
A company director called G. L. Woodcock submitted a survey on culture to the council's Libraries, Museum and Arts Committee meeting on the 8th. Mr Woodcock had studied the level of arts spending in Bolton, Blackburn, Wigan, Huddersfield and Halifax and then compared his results with the expenditure in St Helens.
He found that the town came bottom with only £1,000 a year spent on the arts, compared to Blackburn and Bolton, which expended £24,000 and £12,000 respectively. A professional co-ordinator was needed, said Mr Woodcock, to work closely with the newly-formed St Helens Federation of Arts Societies.
Parr Central held their annual school sports day on their Fleet Lane field this week with a highlight being a tug-of-war contest.
On the 10th dozens of angry parents and children staged a three-mile walk to St Helens Town Hall to protest over the council's decision to scrap plans to build baths in Parr. Last week it had been announced that the councillors had plumped for a 9-hole golf course in Sherdley Park rather than the long-promised pool.
The reason was mainly down to cash. The golf course could be installed for £63,000 but new swimming baths would cost £500,000 (around £9m in today's money). But the Parr pool had been promised for nearly 40 years and the St Helens Reporter said the council's decision had sent a "wave of bitterness" throughout Parr. So campaigners had collected 4,000 signatures for a petition demanding that the decision be reversed, which the march delivered to the Mayor of St Helens, Tom Wilcock.
It was organised by the Cherry Tree Drive Flats Tenants Association who promised they would "not be fobbed off by dross talk from the authorities". Their chairman Joan Gallimore said they were not begrudging anyone a golf course but the decision should have been put to a public vote.
Schools in Parr had supported the protest, allowing petition forms to be circulated within their premises. A deputation of three marchers spent almost two hours with the Mayor who explained why the decision had been made. One of the organisers, Richard Coulburn, said: "We shall be at the next Council meeting. The Mayor has listened to us, but we are not happy yet."
On July 31st the halfpenny would cease being legal tender and the St Helens Reporter decided on the 11th to canvass opinion on its withdrawal. The consensus of the man and woman in the street was that prices would rise as shopkeepers added an extra ha’penny to the price of goods. Thomas O’Brien of Lyon Street was one cynic saying: "I think they should knock the halfpenny off prices. I don't think it fair to the public. I don't understand the new decimal currency, but I am sure we will get used to it."
Fred Ashley from William Street in Prescot agreed, saying he could remember the time when you could buy a ha’penny worth of cigarettes, adding: "I have used the ha’penny for the last 77 years, so I am going to miss it." However an unnamed woman from Clyde Street thought its removal could keep prices down in the long term: "I think it will stop this idea of putting on a ha’penny here and there". However she felt that many shops had already put their prices up by a halfpenny in advance of the coin's withdrawal from circulation.
Thomas Dempsey from Nuttall Street said: "Of course shops will charge the extra ha’penny, rather than knock it off. I don't think it is a good thing to withdraw the ha’penny. I don't see why they have to do it. I don't understand decimalisation either." The decimal version of the halfpenny coin would be introduced in February 1971 at the time of decimalisation.
Also in the Reporter there was a picture of the five "gala girl beauties" from different Pilkington' works and offices within St Helens that would be competing at Blackpool on August 7th. That was when the final of the Pilkington National Gala Girls contest would be held in which the winners of local contests throughout the country would compete.
The young women were Jennifer Green (Head Office – "keen campanologist"), Margaret Becque (Cowley Hill – "keen on rock climbing"), Kathleen Connolly (Sheet Works, Grove Street – "won prizes for pencil sketching"), Lynn Atherton (Ravenhead – "likes dancing and collecting pop records") and Helen Williams (City Road – "wants to travel all over the world").
The final would be held in the Locarno Ballroom in Blackpool two days before Pilkington's Gala took place at Ruskin Drive. The annual gala had taken a break in 1968 due to the Centenary Celebrations but this year would be held on a Friday evening and all day Saturday.
The crowning of Miss Gala Girl would be one of the highlights and the winner would receive a dress for Gala Day and a holiday in London. The latter would include a free fashion outfit from an Oxford Street store. Actually there were six representatives from St Helens, with Eileen White from Gladstone Street representing Triplex not in the picture.
The Reporter also stated that Sutton curate Derek Bailey would be leaving in September for a post in Derbyshire and would be replaced by Rev Eric Rotherham. Last year Reverend Bailey had his bike nicked while visiting parishioners in St Helens Hospital.
F&H Warehouse of Duke Street was advertising a "grand warehouse clearance sale" in the Reporter with "bargains galore". They said all their furniture "must go regardless of cost" because of "bulk purchasing and pre-stocktaking review". As good a couple of reasons for a sale as any!
The Capitol rarely retained films for a second week but they announced in the Reporter that Franco Zeffirelli's production of 'Romeo and Juliet' would have that honour. The price of admission was 4/6 in the stalls and 5/6 in the circle. Meanwhile the ABC Savoy would from Monday be showing the Raquel Welch western '100 Rifles'.
Also advertising was the New Earlestown Entertainment Centre, which would have a "Grand Gala Opening" soon. The former Curzon would incorporate a new luxury Studio 1 Cinema with "every seat a circle seat" and a separate Star Bingo and Social Club.
The 12th was St Mark's Church Field Day on the Gamble Memorial field where the work of children and parents was entered into competitions, including photography, handicrafts, knitting and baking.
Also on that day an Eccleston church became the first in the world to be consecrated to St Julie, the French foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur of Belgium. Blessed Julie Billiart had only been canonised in Rome in June and the 5-year-old church in Howards Lane that bore her name was consecrated to St Julie by the Archbishop of Liverpool. The Most Reverend George Beck led a procession of priests and 200 nuns of the Sisters of Notre Dame. Relics of the saint enclosed in silver caskets were buried under the altar and sealed in cement.
A new Toll Bar Congregational Church in Freckleton Road was also opened this week. It cost £20,000 and parishioners had undertaken most of the building work. On the 13th St Luke's Church held their second open-air service of the summer in Taylor Park. These were held once a month with members of the congregation leading the service and reading lessons.
In 1995 Cable North West dug up the streets of St Helens to install cable TV and radio in subscribers' homes. However Rediffusion had pioneered a similar service many years earlier. They attracted viewers in parts of the town that suffered from poor reception or where communal aerials in flats proved unsatisfactory. However Rediffusion only offered the existing TV channels and radio stations, unlike modern day cable and satellite services – although new stations could easily be added in the future.
The council's Housing Committee met on the 14th and heard that plans to install wired television in some of their tenants' homes – almost certainly using Rediffusion – had an anomaly. The committee had decided to recommend to the full council that they should opt for wired TV because of the number of complaints they had received about communal aerials.
The service would be installed as a service to tenants but all would have to pay the rental for the wiring whether or not they had a TV set. So those people in council properties who did not want to have television would still be expected to pay between 1s 9d and 1s 11d per week.
Next week's stories will include a hosepipe ban in St Helens, Phythians Travel want to take their customers to the Moon (really!), bravery awards at the Town Hall, Cowley Boys speech day, the Saints chairman warns of the threat from live TV, the dawn of the Rainford Industrial Estate and nine teacher retire as schools break up for the summer.
However we begin with the Vicar of Haydock's comments in his monthly parish magazine in which he lamented a general decline in church attendances: "Are we drifting towards a situation when only a handful of people will turn up for church services?", pondered Rev. Wilson.
Ashton's Public Heath Committee heard on the 8th that women in Liverpool Road in Pewfall were complaining about lorry drivers using the hedgerows to relieve themselves. The councillors were, however, sympathetic to the plight of the men as there were no public toilets in Pewfall or Garswood and they felt the drivers might well have travelled some distance on the M6. The council's Surveyor said he would look for possible sites for public conveniences and report on how much such a scheme would cost.
A company director called G. L. Woodcock submitted a survey on culture to the council's Libraries, Museum and Arts Committee meeting on the 8th. Mr Woodcock had studied the level of arts spending in Bolton, Blackburn, Wigan, Huddersfield and Halifax and then compared his results with the expenditure in St Helens.
He found that the town came bottom with only £1,000 a year spent on the arts, compared to Blackburn and Bolton, which expended £24,000 and £12,000 respectively. A professional co-ordinator was needed, said Mr Woodcock, to work closely with the newly-formed St Helens Federation of Arts Societies.
Parr Central held their annual school sports day on their Fleet Lane field this week with a highlight being a tug-of-war contest.
On the 10th dozens of angry parents and children staged a three-mile walk to St Helens Town Hall to protest over the council's decision to scrap plans to build baths in Parr. Last week it had been announced that the councillors had plumped for a 9-hole golf course in Sherdley Park rather than the long-promised pool.
The reason was mainly down to cash. The golf course could be installed for £63,000 but new swimming baths would cost £500,000 (around £9m in today's money). But the Parr pool had been promised for nearly 40 years and the St Helens Reporter said the council's decision had sent a "wave of bitterness" throughout Parr. So campaigners had collected 4,000 signatures for a petition demanding that the decision be reversed, which the march delivered to the Mayor of St Helens, Tom Wilcock.
It was organised by the Cherry Tree Drive Flats Tenants Association who promised they would "not be fobbed off by dross talk from the authorities". Their chairman Joan Gallimore said they were not begrudging anyone a golf course but the decision should have been put to a public vote.
Schools in Parr had supported the protest, allowing petition forms to be circulated within their premises. A deputation of three marchers spent almost two hours with the Mayor who explained why the decision had been made. One of the organisers, Richard Coulburn, said: "We shall be at the next Council meeting. The Mayor has listened to us, but we are not happy yet."
On July 31st the halfpenny would cease being legal tender and the St Helens Reporter decided on the 11th to canvass opinion on its withdrawal. The consensus of the man and woman in the street was that prices would rise as shopkeepers added an extra ha’penny to the price of goods. Thomas O’Brien of Lyon Street was one cynic saying: "I think they should knock the halfpenny off prices. I don't think it fair to the public. I don't understand the new decimal currency, but I am sure we will get used to it."
Fred Ashley from William Street in Prescot agreed, saying he could remember the time when you could buy a ha’penny worth of cigarettes, adding: "I have used the ha’penny for the last 77 years, so I am going to miss it." However an unnamed woman from Clyde Street thought its removal could keep prices down in the long term: "I think it will stop this idea of putting on a ha’penny here and there". However she felt that many shops had already put their prices up by a halfpenny in advance of the coin's withdrawal from circulation.
Thomas Dempsey from Nuttall Street said: "Of course shops will charge the extra ha’penny, rather than knock it off. I don't think it is a good thing to withdraw the ha’penny. I don't see why they have to do it. I don't understand decimalisation either." The decimal version of the halfpenny coin would be introduced in February 1971 at the time of decimalisation.
Also in the Reporter there was a picture of the five "gala girl beauties" from different Pilkington' works and offices within St Helens that would be competing at Blackpool on August 7th. That was when the final of the Pilkington National Gala Girls contest would be held in which the winners of local contests throughout the country would compete.
The young women were Jennifer Green (Head Office – "keen campanologist"), Margaret Becque (Cowley Hill – "keen on rock climbing"), Kathleen Connolly (Sheet Works, Grove Street – "won prizes for pencil sketching"), Lynn Atherton (Ravenhead – "likes dancing and collecting pop records") and Helen Williams (City Road – "wants to travel all over the world").
The final would be held in the Locarno Ballroom in Blackpool two days before Pilkington's Gala took place at Ruskin Drive. The annual gala had taken a break in 1968 due to the Centenary Celebrations but this year would be held on a Friday evening and all day Saturday.
The crowning of Miss Gala Girl would be one of the highlights and the winner would receive a dress for Gala Day and a holiday in London. The latter would include a free fashion outfit from an Oxford Street store. Actually there were six representatives from St Helens, with Eileen White from Gladstone Street representing Triplex not in the picture.
The Reporter also stated that Sutton curate Derek Bailey would be leaving in September for a post in Derbyshire and would be replaced by Rev Eric Rotherham. Last year Reverend Bailey had his bike nicked while visiting parishioners in St Helens Hospital.
F&H Warehouse of Duke Street was advertising a "grand warehouse clearance sale" in the Reporter with "bargains galore". They said all their furniture "must go regardless of cost" because of "bulk purchasing and pre-stocktaking review". As good a couple of reasons for a sale as any!
Also advertising was the New Earlestown Entertainment Centre, which would have a "Grand Gala Opening" soon. The former Curzon would incorporate a new luxury Studio 1 Cinema with "every seat a circle seat" and a separate Star Bingo and Social Club.
The 12th was St Mark's Church Field Day on the Gamble Memorial field where the work of children and parents was entered into competitions, including photography, handicrafts, knitting and baking.
Also on that day an Eccleston church became the first in the world to be consecrated to St Julie, the French foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur of Belgium. Blessed Julie Billiart had only been canonised in Rome in June and the 5-year-old church in Howards Lane that bore her name was consecrated to St Julie by the Archbishop of Liverpool. The Most Reverend George Beck led a procession of priests and 200 nuns of the Sisters of Notre Dame. Relics of the saint enclosed in silver caskets were buried under the altar and sealed in cement.
A new Toll Bar Congregational Church in Freckleton Road was also opened this week. It cost £20,000 and parishioners had undertaken most of the building work. On the 13th St Luke's Church held their second open-air service of the summer in Taylor Park. These were held once a month with members of the congregation leading the service and reading lessons.
In 1995 Cable North West dug up the streets of St Helens to install cable TV and radio in subscribers' homes. However Rediffusion had pioneered a similar service many years earlier. They attracted viewers in parts of the town that suffered from poor reception or where communal aerials in flats proved unsatisfactory. However Rediffusion only offered the existing TV channels and radio stations, unlike modern day cable and satellite services – although new stations could easily be added in the future.
The council's Housing Committee met on the 14th and heard that plans to install wired television in some of their tenants' homes – almost certainly using Rediffusion – had an anomaly. The committee had decided to recommend to the full council that they should opt for wired TV because of the number of complaints they had received about communal aerials.
The service would be installed as a service to tenants but all would have to pay the rental for the wiring whether or not they had a TV set. So those people in council properties who did not want to have television would still be expected to pay between 1s 9d and 1s 11d per week.
Next week's stories will include a hosepipe ban in St Helens, Phythians Travel want to take their customers to the Moon (really!), bravery awards at the Town Hall, Cowley Boys speech day, the Saints chairman warns of the threat from live TV, the dawn of the Rainford Industrial Estate and nine teacher retire as schools break up for the summer.