FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (15th - 21st JUNE 1970)
This week's stories include a bus smash in Corporation Street, the strange behaviour of a Haydock newsagent, St Helens teenagers cast their vote for the first time, a new library for Eccleston, the polluted Carr Mill Dam and a claim that unmarried mothers were losing their shame.
We begin with the news of two new clinics being planned for St Helens. After a seven-year-battle the residents of Eccleston were celebrating the announcement that a clinic would be built in Millbrook Lane. Ratepayers Association secretary Tom McCormack had been the campaign's driving force and said: "I breathed a great sigh of relief when I heard the news."
Then at a Health Committee meeting on the 15th a new children's clinic for Thatto Heath was approved. However it would be made to a prefabricated design and some members wondered why a more solid, permanent building was not being constructed. Alderman William Burrows said if a stone building was erected the old mine shafts and air raid shelters in the area could cause complications. And Ald. Margaret Shard added that there was an urgent need to have a clinic in operation by the winter.
At the same meeting Dr Julian Baines, the St Helens Medical Officer of Health, reported an upsurge in demand for nursery places from unmarried mothers. "We are baffled", he said. "There has only been a slight increase in illegitimate births." However Levinia Hare of the St Agnes Moral Welfare Association provided a possible answer, telling the St Helens Reporter: "It's just another move in the permissive society. These girls aren't ashamed any more because people are much kinder to them. We are not living in Victorian times any more. There is not so much of a stigma attached to unmarried mothers these days."
Mrs Hare added that just seven years earlier the society was booking many unmarried girls into special hospitals and around 70% wanted their child adopted. Now four out five mothers took their babies home. A new nursery was going to be built in College Street with the intention of giving unmarried mothers the chance to go out to work. Widowed and divorced women would also be able to take advantage of its facilities. The council's present nursery in Hall Street would be closed once the new 50-place building was completed. Ten of the places would be reserved for so-called mentally handicapped youngsters from St Helens.
During the evening of the 17th a driver's split-second decision saved a busload of passengers from plunging 30 feet into the St Helens Canal. Edward Martin was driving the 27A through Fingerpost to Sutton when – at the junction of Corporation Street and Parr Street – he was forced to swerve to avoid a lorry. The 42-year-old from Oxford Street steered the skidding bus into a lamp standard five yards from the brick wall of the canal bridge, as he explained to the Reporter: "It was a case of either hitting the lamp-post, or going on through the wall of the canal bridge. My first thought was for my passengers."
The left side of the bus was smashed in, the radiator grille was damaged and windows were smashed. There were about fifty people on the bus and four were hurt. They were Freda Mower (48) of Concourse Way, Sandra McCarthy (17) of Berrys Lane, Beatrice Kenny (20) of Alice Street and Linda Johnson (19) of Downland Way. Three of them were detained in Providence Hospital with head or leg injuries but Linda Johnson was allowed home after treatment.
A General Election was held on the 18th and for the first time eighteen-year-olds were allowed to vote. Jeanette Camm of St George's Avenue in Windle was believed to be the first St Helens teenager to cast a ballot, which she did at the polling station inside Bleak Hill Junior School. Oddly this was in Harold Wilson's Huyton constituency. Although the Prime Minister increased his personal majority, the election resulted in a surprise victory for the Tories under Edward Heath.
In the St Helens constituency, Leslie Spriggs retained his seat but had a reduced majority of over 4,000. However there was anger among trade unionists that the Labour Party MP had used a non-union firm to print his election pamphlet. Rainford was in the Ormskirk constituency and University of Liverpool politics lecturer Robert Kilroy-Silk was defeated in his first attempt at becoming a Labour MP. The 28-year-old would have better luck in 1974 and then become a daytime TV star twelve years later.
There was a bizarre lead story in the St Helens Reporter on the 19th. It concerned newsagent Peter Quinn from Haydock who had carried on serving customers after a woman had dashed into his shop and asked him to use the phone in his lounge to call an ambulance. A 79-year-old woman called Emma Fairclough was in agony after her clothes had caught fire but for ten minutes Mr Quinn would not dial 999, as he explained to the paper:
"I had people waiting to be served. I can't be expected to leave the shop with people in. Suppose someone had taken £10 out of the till while I was making the call, where would I have been then? Anyway it was a stupid time to come into the shop. I'm always busy in the afternoon. This is my own property, and my own phone – so nobody can do anything about it. As soon as I finished serving the customers I phoned. It only took ten minutes."
Not only did Mr Quinn make these insensitive comments to the Reporter but he also agreed to be photographed. It was Florence Turner who had dashed into his shop after she and Veronica Ratcliffe had heard Mrs Fairclough's screams from her bungalow in Arrowsmith Road. Mrs Turner said: "I told him: “Telephone for an ambulance or a doctor because there is a woman on fire”. He said he was too busy. I was nearly collapsing but I ran down the road to the Catholic Club and they phoned. I was very annoyed."
Mrs Ratcliffe of Elizabeth Road in Haydock described how the elderly woman had been on fire "from top to bottom". She said: "I tried to beat the flames out with my hands and eventually managed to stop the burning". Three days after her ordeal, Mrs Fairclough was described as "improving" in Whiston Hospital.
The Reporter also claimed that forty doctors in St Helens were prepared to resign from the National Health Service if asked to do so by the British Medical Guild. They were in a pay dispute with the Government and had begun refusing to write sick notes for patients.
As well as a new clinic, the paper described how the 13,000 inhabitants of Eccleston would also be getting a new library at a cost of £48,000 (nearly £1 million in today's money). They said it was expected to be a "showpiece of modern architecture" and replace the existing building in Kiln Lane. The library would be situated on the corner of Gunning Avenue and Walmsley Road, although work was not expected to begin until the end of 1971.
It was also reported that residents on a new "showpiece estate" at Nutgrove were concerned that their children were "playing on a bomb". Petrol cans had been strewn on a children's playground off the Birchfield Street estate and although some mothers had gathered them up, the cans had been placed inside nearby garages. "It only needs one kiddy playing with matches to send them sky-high", complained mother-of-three May Hawley.
The Reporter related how Billy the killer swan's reign of terror in Prescot Road had finally come to an end. A month ago it was decided that the swan on the lake at Pilkington's head office (pictured above) had to be removed, as he had been seeing off too many ducks. But catching Billy proved difficult as he became highly elusive. Peter O’Neill who looked after the birds on the water told the Reporter:
"He knew we were after him. I tried to coax him with food and even went in the water after him, but he dodged me every time." Eventually the swan was captured using a combination of a net and a flying rugby tackle from Peter, who then bundled Billy into a case and took him to a lake in Northwich. "Billy, always was a nowtie swan", said Peter. "But when his mate died a few months ago he became a killer."
Good job they didn't take Billy to Carr Mill Dam as the water was highly polluted with sewage. The pollution was thought to have been caused by a drain getting blocked at Billinge. That had happened three weeks earlier killing hundreds of fish and the St Helens Angling Association was far from happy.
Their secretary Joe Powell was highly critical of Billinge Council, saying: "They are still using Carr Mill as a cesspool. It is becoming nothing more than a settling place for their sewage. So far, pike, roach, bream and perch have been slaughtered. Unless something is done we could lose between 600 and 1,000 members. Carr Mill is one of our biggest attractions."
And finally the annual Billinge Hospital Gala took place on the 20th. The Reporter summed it up as: "Bright sunshine, pony rides, masses of colourful balloons, cold drinks and ice creams."
Next week's stories will include the Kiln Lane residents accused of being selfish, the Daktari boy of Billinge, Rockware design a "lighta pinta" milk bottle, Billinge Council consider selling off their council homes and the "massacre" of Carr Mill Dam is blamed mainly on the weather.
We begin with the news of two new clinics being planned for St Helens. After a seven-year-battle the residents of Eccleston were celebrating the announcement that a clinic would be built in Millbrook Lane. Ratepayers Association secretary Tom McCormack had been the campaign's driving force and said: "I breathed a great sigh of relief when I heard the news."
Then at a Health Committee meeting on the 15th a new children's clinic for Thatto Heath was approved. However it would be made to a prefabricated design and some members wondered why a more solid, permanent building was not being constructed. Alderman William Burrows said if a stone building was erected the old mine shafts and air raid shelters in the area could cause complications. And Ald. Margaret Shard added that there was an urgent need to have a clinic in operation by the winter.
At the same meeting Dr Julian Baines, the St Helens Medical Officer of Health, reported an upsurge in demand for nursery places from unmarried mothers. "We are baffled", he said. "There has only been a slight increase in illegitimate births." However Levinia Hare of the St Agnes Moral Welfare Association provided a possible answer, telling the St Helens Reporter: "It's just another move in the permissive society. These girls aren't ashamed any more because people are much kinder to them. We are not living in Victorian times any more. There is not so much of a stigma attached to unmarried mothers these days."
Mrs Hare added that just seven years earlier the society was booking many unmarried girls into special hospitals and around 70% wanted their child adopted. Now four out five mothers took their babies home. A new nursery was going to be built in College Street with the intention of giving unmarried mothers the chance to go out to work. Widowed and divorced women would also be able to take advantage of its facilities. The council's present nursery in Hall Street would be closed once the new 50-place building was completed. Ten of the places would be reserved for so-called mentally handicapped youngsters from St Helens.
During the evening of the 17th a driver's split-second decision saved a busload of passengers from plunging 30 feet into the St Helens Canal. Edward Martin was driving the 27A through Fingerpost to Sutton when – at the junction of Corporation Street and Parr Street – he was forced to swerve to avoid a lorry. The 42-year-old from Oxford Street steered the skidding bus into a lamp standard five yards from the brick wall of the canal bridge, as he explained to the Reporter: "It was a case of either hitting the lamp-post, or going on through the wall of the canal bridge. My first thought was for my passengers."
The left side of the bus was smashed in, the radiator grille was damaged and windows were smashed. There were about fifty people on the bus and four were hurt. They were Freda Mower (48) of Concourse Way, Sandra McCarthy (17) of Berrys Lane, Beatrice Kenny (20) of Alice Street and Linda Johnson (19) of Downland Way. Three of them were detained in Providence Hospital with head or leg injuries but Linda Johnson was allowed home after treatment.
A General Election was held on the 18th and for the first time eighteen-year-olds were allowed to vote. Jeanette Camm of St George's Avenue in Windle was believed to be the first St Helens teenager to cast a ballot, which she did at the polling station inside Bleak Hill Junior School. Oddly this was in Harold Wilson's Huyton constituency. Although the Prime Minister increased his personal majority, the election resulted in a surprise victory for the Tories under Edward Heath.
In the St Helens constituency, Leslie Spriggs retained his seat but had a reduced majority of over 4,000. However there was anger among trade unionists that the Labour Party MP had used a non-union firm to print his election pamphlet. Rainford was in the Ormskirk constituency and University of Liverpool politics lecturer Robert Kilroy-Silk was defeated in his first attempt at becoming a Labour MP. The 28-year-old would have better luck in 1974 and then become a daytime TV star twelve years later.
There was a bizarre lead story in the St Helens Reporter on the 19th. It concerned newsagent Peter Quinn from Haydock who had carried on serving customers after a woman had dashed into his shop and asked him to use the phone in his lounge to call an ambulance. A 79-year-old woman called Emma Fairclough was in agony after her clothes had caught fire but for ten minutes Mr Quinn would not dial 999, as he explained to the paper:
"I had people waiting to be served. I can't be expected to leave the shop with people in. Suppose someone had taken £10 out of the till while I was making the call, where would I have been then? Anyway it was a stupid time to come into the shop. I'm always busy in the afternoon. This is my own property, and my own phone – so nobody can do anything about it. As soon as I finished serving the customers I phoned. It only took ten minutes."
Not only did Mr Quinn make these insensitive comments to the Reporter but he also agreed to be photographed. It was Florence Turner who had dashed into his shop after she and Veronica Ratcliffe had heard Mrs Fairclough's screams from her bungalow in Arrowsmith Road. Mrs Turner said: "I told him: “Telephone for an ambulance or a doctor because there is a woman on fire”. He said he was too busy. I was nearly collapsing but I ran down the road to the Catholic Club and they phoned. I was very annoyed."
Mrs Ratcliffe of Elizabeth Road in Haydock described how the elderly woman had been on fire "from top to bottom". She said: "I tried to beat the flames out with my hands and eventually managed to stop the burning". Three days after her ordeal, Mrs Fairclough was described as "improving" in Whiston Hospital.
The Reporter also claimed that forty doctors in St Helens were prepared to resign from the National Health Service if asked to do so by the British Medical Guild. They were in a pay dispute with the Government and had begun refusing to write sick notes for patients.
As well as a new clinic, the paper described how the 13,000 inhabitants of Eccleston would also be getting a new library at a cost of £48,000 (nearly £1 million in today's money). They said it was expected to be a "showpiece of modern architecture" and replace the existing building in Kiln Lane. The library would be situated on the corner of Gunning Avenue and Walmsley Road, although work was not expected to begin until the end of 1971.
It was also reported that residents on a new "showpiece estate" at Nutgrove were concerned that their children were "playing on a bomb". Petrol cans had been strewn on a children's playground off the Birchfield Street estate and although some mothers had gathered them up, the cans had been placed inside nearby garages. "It only needs one kiddy playing with matches to send them sky-high", complained mother-of-three May Hawley.
"He knew we were after him. I tried to coax him with food and even went in the water after him, but he dodged me every time." Eventually the swan was captured using a combination of a net and a flying rugby tackle from Peter, who then bundled Billy into a case and took him to a lake in Northwich. "Billy, always was a nowtie swan", said Peter. "But when his mate died a few months ago he became a killer."
Good job they didn't take Billy to Carr Mill Dam as the water was highly polluted with sewage. The pollution was thought to have been caused by a drain getting blocked at Billinge. That had happened three weeks earlier killing hundreds of fish and the St Helens Angling Association was far from happy.
Their secretary Joe Powell was highly critical of Billinge Council, saying: "They are still using Carr Mill as a cesspool. It is becoming nothing more than a settling place for their sewage. So far, pike, roach, bream and perch have been slaughtered. Unless something is done we could lose between 600 and 1,000 members. Carr Mill is one of our biggest attractions."
And finally the annual Billinge Hospital Gala took place on the 20th. The Reporter summed it up as: "Bright sunshine, pony rides, masses of colourful balloons, cold drinks and ice creams."
Next week's stories will include the Kiln Lane residents accused of being selfish, the Daktari boy of Billinge, Rockware design a "lighta pinta" milk bottle, Billinge Council consider selling off their council homes and the "massacre" of Carr Mill Dam is blamed mainly on the weather.
This week's stories include a bus smash in Corporation Street, the strange behaviour of a Haydock newsagent, St Helens teenagers cast their vote for the first time, a new library for Eccleston, the polluted Carr Mill Dam and a claim that unmarried mothers were losing their shame.
We begin with the news of two new clinics being planned for St Helens.
After a seven-year-battle the residents of Eccleston were celebrating the announcement that a clinic would be built in Millbrook Lane.
Ratepayers Association secretary Tom McCormack had been the campaign's driving force and said: "I breathed a great sigh of relief when I heard the news."
Then at a Health Committee meeting on the 15th a new children's clinic for Thatto Heath was approved.
However it would be made to a prefabricated design and some members wondered why a more solid, permanent building was not being constructed.
Alderman William Burrows said if a stone building was erected the old mine shafts and air raid shelters in the area could cause complications.
And Ald. Margaret Shard added that there was an urgent need to have a clinic in operation by the winter.
At the same meeting Dr Julian Baines, the St Helens Medical Officer of Health, reported an upsurge in demand for nursery places from unmarried mothers.
"We are baffled", he said. "There has only been a slight increase in illegitimate births."
However Levinia Hare of the St Agnes Moral Welfare Association provided a possible answer, telling the St Helens Reporter:
"It's just another move in the permissive society. These girls aren't ashamed any more because people are much kinder to them. We are not living in Victorian times any more. There is not so much of a stigma attached to unmarried mothers these days."
Mrs Hare added that just seven years earlier the society was booking many unmarried girls into special hospitals and around 70% wanted their child adopted.
Now four out five mothers took their babies home. A new nursery was going to be built in College Street with the intention of giving unmarried mothers the chance to go out to work.
Widowed and divorced women would also be able to take advantage of its facilities.
The council's present nursery in Hall Street would be closed once the new 50-place building was completed.
Ten of the places would be reserved for so-called mentally handicapped youngsters from St Helens.
During the evening of the 17th a driver's split-second decision saved a busload of passengers from plunging 30 feet into the St Helens Canal.
Edward Martin was driving the 27A through Fingerpost to Sutton when – at the junction of Corporation Street and Parr Street – he was forced to swerve to avoid a lorry.
The 42-year-old from Oxford Street steered the skidding bus into a lamp standard five yards from the brick wall of the canal bridge, as he explained to the Reporter:
"It was a case of either hitting the lamp-post, or going on through the wall of the canal bridge. My first thought was for my passengers."
The left side of the bus was smashed in, the radiator grille was damaged and windows were smashed. There were about fifty people on the bus and four were hurt.
They were Freda Mower (48) of Concourse Way, Sandra McCarthy (17) of Berrys Lane, Beatrice Kenny (20) of Alice Street and Linda Johnson (19) of Downland Way.
Three of them were detained in Providence Hospital with head or leg injuries but Linda Johnson was allowed home after treatment.
A General Election was held on the 18th and for the first time eighteen-year-olds were allowed to vote.
Jeanette Camm of St George's Avenue in Windle was believed to be the first St Helens teenager to cast a ballot, which she did at the polling station inside Bleak Hill Junior School.
Oddly this was in Harold Wilson's Huyton constituency. Although the Prime Minister increased his personal majority, the election resulted in a surprise victory for the Tories under Edward Heath.
In the St Helens constituency, Leslie Spriggs retained his seat but had a reduced majority of over 4,000.
However there was anger among trade unionists that the Labour Party MP had used a non-union firm to print his election pamphlet.
Rainford was in the Ormskirk constituency and University of Liverpool politics lecturer Robert Kilroy-Silk was defeated in his first attempt at becoming a Labour MP.
The 28-year-old would have better luck in 1974 and then become a daytime TV star twelve years later.
There was a bizarre lead story in the St Helens Reporter on the 19th.
It concerned newsagent Peter Quinn from Haydock who had carried on serving customers after a woman had dashed into his shop and asked him to use the phone in his lounge to call an ambulance.
A 79-year-old woman called Emma Fairclough was in agony after her clothes had caught fire but for ten minutes Mr Quinn would not dial 999, as he explained to the paper:
"I had people waiting to be served. I can't be expected to leave the shop with people in. Suppose someone had taken £10 out of the till while I was making the call, where would I have been then? Anyway it was a stupid time to come into the shop.
"I'm always busy in the afternoon. This is my own property, and my own phone – so nobody can do anything about it. As soon as I finished serving the customers I phoned. It only took ten minutes."
Not only did Mr Quinn make these insensitive comments to the Reporter but he also agreed to be photographed.
It was Florence Turner who had dashed into his shop after she and Veronica Ratcliffe had heard Mrs Fairclough's screams from her bungalow in Arrowsmith Road. Mrs Turner said: "I told him:
“Telephone for an ambulance or a doctor because there is a woman on fire”. He said he was too busy. I was nearly collapsing but I ran down the road to the Catholic Club and they phoned. I was very annoyed."
Mrs Ratcliffe of Elizabeth Road in Haydock described how the elderly woman had been on fire "from top to bottom".
She said: "I tried to beat the flames out with my hands and eventually managed to stop the burning".
Three days after her ordeal, Mrs Fairclough was described as "improving" in Whiston Hospital.
The Reporter also claimed that forty doctors in St Helens were prepared to resign from the National Health Service if asked to do so by the British Medical Guild.
They were in a pay dispute with the Government and had begun refusing to write sick notes for patients.
As well as a new clinic, the paper described how the 13,000 inhabitants of Eccleston would also be getting a new library at a cost of £48,000 (nearly £1 million in today's money).
They said it was expected to be a "showpiece of modern architecture" and replace the existing building in Kiln Lane.
The library would be situated on the corner of Gunning Avenue and Walmsley Road, although work was not expected to begin until the end of 1971.
It was also reported that residents on a new "showpiece estate" at Nutgrove were concerned that their children were "playing on a bomb".
Petrol cans had been strewn on a children's playground off the Birchfield Street estate and although some mothers had gathered them up, the cans had been placed inside nearby garages.
"It only needs one kiddy playing with matches to send them sky-high", complained mother-of-three May Hawley.
The Reporter related how Billy the killer swan's reign of terror in Prescot Road had finally come to an end.
A month ago it was decided that the swan on the lake at Pilkington's head office (pictured above) had to be removed, as he had been seeing off too many ducks.
But catching Billy proved difficult as he became highly elusive. Peter O’Neill who looked after the birds on the water told the Reporter:
"He knew we were after him. I tried to coax him with food and even went in the water after him, but he dodged me every time."
Eventually the swan was captured using a combination of a net and a flying rugby tackle from Peter, who then bundled Billy into a case and took him to a lake in Northwich.
"Billy, always was a nowtie swan", said Peter. "But when his mate died a few months ago he became a killer."
Good job they didn't take Billy to Carr Mill Dam as the water was highly polluted with sewage.
The pollution was thought to have been caused by a drain getting blocked at Billinge.
That had happened three weeks earlier killing hundreds of fish and the St Helens Angling Association was far from happy.
Their secretary Joe Powell was highly critical of Billinge Council, saying:
"They are still using Carr Mill as a cesspool. It is becoming nothing more than a settling place for their sewage. So far, pike, roach, bream and perch have been slaughtered.
"Unless something is done we could lose between 600 and 1,000 members. Carr Mill is one of our biggest attractions."
And finally the annual Billinge Hospital Gala took place on the 20th. The Reporter summed it up as: "Bright sunshine, pony rides, masses of colourful balloons, cold drinks and ice creams."
Next week's stories will include the Kiln Lane residents accused of being selfish, the Daktari boy of Billinge, Rockware design a "lighta pinta" milk bottle, Billinge Council consider selling off their council homes and the "massacre" of Carr Mill Dam is blamed mainly on the weather.
We begin with the news of two new clinics being planned for St Helens.
After a seven-year-battle the residents of Eccleston were celebrating the announcement that a clinic would be built in Millbrook Lane.
Ratepayers Association secretary Tom McCormack had been the campaign's driving force and said: "I breathed a great sigh of relief when I heard the news."
Then at a Health Committee meeting on the 15th a new children's clinic for Thatto Heath was approved.
However it would be made to a prefabricated design and some members wondered why a more solid, permanent building was not being constructed.
Alderman William Burrows said if a stone building was erected the old mine shafts and air raid shelters in the area could cause complications.
And Ald. Margaret Shard added that there was an urgent need to have a clinic in operation by the winter.
At the same meeting Dr Julian Baines, the St Helens Medical Officer of Health, reported an upsurge in demand for nursery places from unmarried mothers.
"We are baffled", he said. "There has only been a slight increase in illegitimate births."
However Levinia Hare of the St Agnes Moral Welfare Association provided a possible answer, telling the St Helens Reporter:
"It's just another move in the permissive society. These girls aren't ashamed any more because people are much kinder to them. We are not living in Victorian times any more. There is not so much of a stigma attached to unmarried mothers these days."
Mrs Hare added that just seven years earlier the society was booking many unmarried girls into special hospitals and around 70% wanted their child adopted.
Now four out five mothers took their babies home. A new nursery was going to be built in College Street with the intention of giving unmarried mothers the chance to go out to work.
Widowed and divorced women would also be able to take advantage of its facilities.
The council's present nursery in Hall Street would be closed once the new 50-place building was completed.
Ten of the places would be reserved for so-called mentally handicapped youngsters from St Helens.
During the evening of the 17th a driver's split-second decision saved a busload of passengers from plunging 30 feet into the St Helens Canal.
Edward Martin was driving the 27A through Fingerpost to Sutton when – at the junction of Corporation Street and Parr Street – he was forced to swerve to avoid a lorry.
The 42-year-old from Oxford Street steered the skidding bus into a lamp standard five yards from the brick wall of the canal bridge, as he explained to the Reporter:
"It was a case of either hitting the lamp-post, or going on through the wall of the canal bridge. My first thought was for my passengers."
The left side of the bus was smashed in, the radiator grille was damaged and windows were smashed. There were about fifty people on the bus and four were hurt.
They were Freda Mower (48) of Concourse Way, Sandra McCarthy (17) of Berrys Lane, Beatrice Kenny (20) of Alice Street and Linda Johnson (19) of Downland Way.
Three of them were detained in Providence Hospital with head or leg injuries but Linda Johnson was allowed home after treatment.
A General Election was held on the 18th and for the first time eighteen-year-olds were allowed to vote.
Jeanette Camm of St George's Avenue in Windle was believed to be the first St Helens teenager to cast a ballot, which she did at the polling station inside Bleak Hill Junior School.
Oddly this was in Harold Wilson's Huyton constituency. Although the Prime Minister increased his personal majority, the election resulted in a surprise victory for the Tories under Edward Heath.
In the St Helens constituency, Leslie Spriggs retained his seat but had a reduced majority of over 4,000.
However there was anger among trade unionists that the Labour Party MP had used a non-union firm to print his election pamphlet.
Rainford was in the Ormskirk constituency and University of Liverpool politics lecturer Robert Kilroy-Silk was defeated in his first attempt at becoming a Labour MP.
The 28-year-old would have better luck in 1974 and then become a daytime TV star twelve years later.
There was a bizarre lead story in the St Helens Reporter on the 19th.
It concerned newsagent Peter Quinn from Haydock who had carried on serving customers after a woman had dashed into his shop and asked him to use the phone in his lounge to call an ambulance.
A 79-year-old woman called Emma Fairclough was in agony after her clothes had caught fire but for ten minutes Mr Quinn would not dial 999, as he explained to the paper:
"I had people waiting to be served. I can't be expected to leave the shop with people in. Suppose someone had taken £10 out of the till while I was making the call, where would I have been then? Anyway it was a stupid time to come into the shop.
"I'm always busy in the afternoon. This is my own property, and my own phone – so nobody can do anything about it. As soon as I finished serving the customers I phoned. It only took ten minutes."
Not only did Mr Quinn make these insensitive comments to the Reporter but he also agreed to be photographed.
It was Florence Turner who had dashed into his shop after she and Veronica Ratcliffe had heard Mrs Fairclough's screams from her bungalow in Arrowsmith Road. Mrs Turner said: "I told him:
“Telephone for an ambulance or a doctor because there is a woman on fire”. He said he was too busy. I was nearly collapsing but I ran down the road to the Catholic Club and they phoned. I was very annoyed."
Mrs Ratcliffe of Elizabeth Road in Haydock described how the elderly woman had been on fire "from top to bottom".
She said: "I tried to beat the flames out with my hands and eventually managed to stop the burning".
Three days after her ordeal, Mrs Fairclough was described as "improving" in Whiston Hospital.
The Reporter also claimed that forty doctors in St Helens were prepared to resign from the National Health Service if asked to do so by the British Medical Guild.
They were in a pay dispute with the Government and had begun refusing to write sick notes for patients.
As well as a new clinic, the paper described how the 13,000 inhabitants of Eccleston would also be getting a new library at a cost of £48,000 (nearly £1 million in today's money).
They said it was expected to be a "showpiece of modern architecture" and replace the existing building in Kiln Lane.
The library would be situated on the corner of Gunning Avenue and Walmsley Road, although work was not expected to begin until the end of 1971.
It was also reported that residents on a new "showpiece estate" at Nutgrove were concerned that their children were "playing on a bomb".
Petrol cans had been strewn on a children's playground off the Birchfield Street estate and although some mothers had gathered them up, the cans had been placed inside nearby garages.
"It only needs one kiddy playing with matches to send them sky-high", complained mother-of-three May Hawley.
The Reporter related how Billy the killer swan's reign of terror in Prescot Road had finally come to an end.
But catching Billy proved difficult as he became highly elusive. Peter O’Neill who looked after the birds on the water told the Reporter:
"He knew we were after him. I tried to coax him with food and even went in the water after him, but he dodged me every time."
Eventually the swan was captured using a combination of a net and a flying rugby tackle from Peter, who then bundled Billy into a case and took him to a lake in Northwich.
"Billy, always was a nowtie swan", said Peter. "But when his mate died a few months ago he became a killer."
Good job they didn't take Billy to Carr Mill Dam as the water was highly polluted with sewage.
The pollution was thought to have been caused by a drain getting blocked at Billinge.
That had happened three weeks earlier killing hundreds of fish and the St Helens Angling Association was far from happy.
Their secretary Joe Powell was highly critical of Billinge Council, saying:
"They are still using Carr Mill as a cesspool. It is becoming nothing more than a settling place for their sewage. So far, pike, roach, bream and perch have been slaughtered.
"Unless something is done we could lose between 600 and 1,000 members. Carr Mill is one of our biggest attractions."
And finally the annual Billinge Hospital Gala took place on the 20th. The Reporter summed it up as: "Bright sunshine, pony rides, masses of colourful balloons, cold drinks and ice creams."
Next week's stories will include the Kiln Lane residents accused of being selfish, the Daktari boy of Billinge, Rockware design a "lighta pinta" milk bottle, Billinge Council consider selling off their council homes and the "massacre" of Carr Mill Dam is blamed mainly on the weather.