FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (19th - 25th APRIL 1971)
This week's many stories include the redundancies at bottle-makers UGB, the big Thatto Heath family reunion, St Helens's World Cup referee suffers a life-changing car crash, the 1971 census forms are completed in St Helens and Red Bank's controversial blood tests on the boys in their care.
We begin on the 21st when the five possible routes for the Liverpool section of a new motorway to be known as the M62 were displayed at two schools in the city. The head of transport planning in Liverpool described the public consultation over the Lancashire to Yorkshire motorway as an "interesting experiment". Samir Rihani said: "We want the public to get acquainted with the work we have been doing and then to challenge our methods". Public meetings would also be held in May.
Whatever next? The public being asked their views on things that affect them! Although one attendee, a Mrs O’Grady, expressed the cynicism that many probably felt over this new concept of consultation, telling the Echo: "I hope the council is genuinely interested in the public's point of view. If so this exhibition is a very good idea."
On the 22nd The Guardian profiled the Peasley works of United Glass (UGB) in St Helens, which had been rebuilt in 1966. Its advanced design contrasted sharply with UGB's Sherdley works nearby which the article said:
"…looks old and cluttered, but it formed a closely knit environment for the workers. Moving to the flow-line production of Peasley was something which may look more attractive to an outsider, but obviously was less impressive for the workers. On an automated glass container machine, there seems little skilled work to be done. In fact, the workers can have a crucial influence on the success of a plant. “Making a bottle is more complicated than making a car as far as the people on the shop floor are concerned,” a spokesman said. “Those of our works that are making the most rapid progress are those that do not regard them simply as machine minders.”"
The statement that the Sherdley bottle and drinks container works was somewhat antiquated was underlined on the following day by a report in the Liverpool Echo. The paper announced that 110 jobs were to go in July when UGB closed its no. 27 furnace. That manufactured green bottles but was out of date and would be too expensive to modernise. At their Sherdley plant, UGB then employed 1,850 workers, with another 1,500 working at the company's Ravenhead plant.
Although consultations with the public were taking place as "interesting experiments", other aspects of openness were not yet high on the agenda of many in authority. The Guardian reported on the 23rd that Red Bank approved school at Newton-le-Willows had been taking blood samples from boys without their parents being told why. Principal Stanley Woollock told the paper: "The only reason was not to cause anxiety for the parent and I think it would be quite wrong to worry them". Although parents had been asked to give consent, they were not told that Liverpool University researchers would be studying the blood samples to see whether the chromosomes could be related to anti-social behaviour.
On the 24th the well-known St Helens football referee Jim Finney was seriously injured in a road crash at Donnington in Shopshire. He was rushed to Royal Salop Infirmary and operated on for internal injuries and reported as being very ill. Jim was brought up in Sutton Road and attended Robins Lane School, playing for their soccer team in 1937. Three years after being appointed to the Football League referee's list, Finney took charge of the 1962 FA Cup Final between Burnley and Tottenham Hotspur and at the end of the game was presented with the match ball by Danny Blanchflower.
Just weeks after refereeing the Cup Final, Jim returned to Robins Lane and presented headmaster Joseph Woods and head boy John Rimmer with a photograph of himself with his linesmen at Wembley (pictured above). Jim also officiated at the 1966 World Cup Finals. However the injuries sustained in the road accident would prematurely bring his officiating career to an end.
Leslie Woodhead in the Echo wrote that Saints "who already have one of the smartest grounds in the Rugby League" were planning improvements to their Knowsley Road arena. The club's proposed projects included a restaurant that would be open all week, a major extension to the lounge of their social club, a new medical room with all the latest equipment and new baths and shower facilities for the players.
In a separate article club secretary Basil Lowe called for the four-tackle rule – that had been introduced in 1967 – to be replaced by six tackles, blaming the new law for disjointed play and driving away spectators. That change did take place in time for the start of the 1972-73 season.
The Sunday People did not adopt that name until January 1972 and so when the huge family of Agnes Sharples of Thatto Heath was pictured in the paper on the 25th it was known simply as 'The People'. The accompanying article began: "You've heard people talk about being one great big happy family haven't you? But have you ever seen them prove it – since they invented the telly I mean! Well, then, let me introduce you to Mrs. Sharples. No, not Ena, although that is what a lot of folk call her these days, but Agnes."
The article explained how 22-year-old Agnes Rampling had married miner Dick Sharples at St John's Church at Ravenhead in 1917. The couple had only three daughters, which for those times was below the offspring average for St Helens. But the girls compensated big time! Doris had six children, Lily had seven and Renie had nine. The 22 kids had lots of kids of their own until the brood became so big that the family began to lose touch with each other.
Some of the youngsters were even in the same schools as their cousins but didn't know them. Agnes's daughter Doris Harrison put the blame firmly and squarely on television: "Nowadays the telly has taken over. The get-togethers we used to have as a matter of course are a thing of the past. It's possible for children living next door to each other to grow up as strangers." So Doris and her sisters decided to give their mother a surprise on her 76th birthday and booked the church hall at Thatto Heath for a reunion.
A total of sixty family members were able to attend and as The People put it, "to the delight and surprise of Great-Great-Grandma!" There was a tea party and games for the children and during the evening the mums and dads enjoyed themselves in the Thatto Heath Labour Club, where Mrs Sharples worked part-time since the death of her husband Dick. "Everything went a treat," said Agnes. "One of Lillian's girls even won £10 at Bingo. It went straight into the kitty and we all had a drink on it."
The 25th was also the day when everyone in St Helens was due to complete the 1971 census form that the Liverpool Echo was calling the "biggest survey in the history of the British people". Although I suspect with an ever-rising population, that claim can be made every ten years. The Echo added: "Anyone believing they can avoid the census by pitching a tent in the middle of a field is wrong. A Census Office spokesman said to-day that an enumerator will find you, wherever you are."
I expect that's true. The 1901 census lists the remarkable Yorkshire showman William Shufflebottom (aka 'Texas' Bill) as temporary resident on the "FairGround Fisher Street" in Sutton. In the early days of moving pictures Shufflebottom combined short films with his Wild West show and his occupation in the census while inhabiting Sutton's Showfield in a tent is recorded as "Exhibitor of Cinematograph".
The Echo also reported that some were calling the 1971 census a "nosey parkers charter" and an "intrusion into individual privacy". That was because the form contained more questions than ever and the data was being fed into computers for the very first time prompting fears of "Big Brother" surveillance. This was the era of the radio comedy series 'The Men From The Ministry', which often satirised bureaucratic form filling in Whitehall. As if to prove some aspects of the series were true to life, the 1971 census came in eight versions identified by a letter of the alphabet.
If you were making a personal return you had to fill in a P-form. If you wanted to make a return for a whole household then you submitted an H-form. If you lived in Wales your P-form became a Pw-form and the household form was called a W-form. If you were staying in a hotel, hospital or prison on census day you needed an L-form and an S-form if you were on a boat. Unless the latter was a Royal Navy vessel then it was an F-form. If you could only speak Welsh, then you needed a C-form. I wonder what form you got if you were living in a tent? A T-form presumably? And perhaps an FO-form if you wanted the census enumerator to go away!
I don't imagine that many people wrote their name on the form as a number – but the former David Shilling from London did. Not that he had a problem with the census as such – but he was fed up with the mickey-taking over his surname, as the Liverpool Echo explained:
"David Shilling got fed up with being called five new pence when decimal money was introduced. So he began referring to himself by number instead of name. He signs his cheques with the number 27-6, and he used it when he filled in his census form. David, aged 21, a Lloyd's underwriter, said:
"“The girl who brought the census form was a little surprised. But after all the abuse she had been given earlier from other people, she was quite pleasant about it. I am deadly serious, I reckon that in five years' time we'll all be called by number and not by our present names. I see no harm in giving myself a number now. All the names people suggested after I decided to stop calling myself Shilling were not much good. I am far happier with a number. I chose 27-6 because I was born on the 27th day of the sixth month in the year.”"
Next week's stories will include the opening of Sherdley Primary School in Sutton, the man accused of ruining 20,000 bottles at UGB, the silent army of kind St Helens schoolchildren and the campaigning mothers of Rainhill who blocked the motorists' "mad mile".
We begin on the 21st when the five possible routes for the Liverpool section of a new motorway to be known as the M62 were displayed at two schools in the city. The head of transport planning in Liverpool described the public consultation over the Lancashire to Yorkshire motorway as an "interesting experiment". Samir Rihani said: "We want the public to get acquainted with the work we have been doing and then to challenge our methods". Public meetings would also be held in May.
Whatever next? The public being asked their views on things that affect them! Although one attendee, a Mrs O’Grady, expressed the cynicism that many probably felt over this new concept of consultation, telling the Echo: "I hope the council is genuinely interested in the public's point of view. If so this exhibition is a very good idea."
On the 22nd The Guardian profiled the Peasley works of United Glass (UGB) in St Helens, which had been rebuilt in 1966. Its advanced design contrasted sharply with UGB's Sherdley works nearby which the article said:
"…looks old and cluttered, but it formed a closely knit environment for the workers. Moving to the flow-line production of Peasley was something which may look more attractive to an outsider, but obviously was less impressive for the workers. On an automated glass container machine, there seems little skilled work to be done. In fact, the workers can have a crucial influence on the success of a plant. “Making a bottle is more complicated than making a car as far as the people on the shop floor are concerned,” a spokesman said. “Those of our works that are making the most rapid progress are those that do not regard them simply as machine minders.”"
The statement that the Sherdley bottle and drinks container works was somewhat antiquated was underlined on the following day by a report in the Liverpool Echo. The paper announced that 110 jobs were to go in July when UGB closed its no. 27 furnace. That manufactured green bottles but was out of date and would be too expensive to modernise. At their Sherdley plant, UGB then employed 1,850 workers, with another 1,500 working at the company's Ravenhead plant.
Although consultations with the public were taking place as "interesting experiments", other aspects of openness were not yet high on the agenda of many in authority. The Guardian reported on the 23rd that Red Bank approved school at Newton-le-Willows had been taking blood samples from boys without their parents being told why. Principal Stanley Woollock told the paper: "The only reason was not to cause anxiety for the parent and I think it would be quite wrong to worry them". Although parents had been asked to give consent, they were not told that Liverpool University researchers would be studying the blood samples to see whether the chromosomes could be related to anti-social behaviour.
On the 24th the well-known St Helens football referee Jim Finney was seriously injured in a road crash at Donnington in Shopshire. He was rushed to Royal Salop Infirmary and operated on for internal injuries and reported as being very ill. Jim was brought up in Sutton Road and attended Robins Lane School, playing for their soccer team in 1937. Three years after being appointed to the Football League referee's list, Finney took charge of the 1962 FA Cup Final between Burnley and Tottenham Hotspur and at the end of the game was presented with the match ball by Danny Blanchflower.
Leslie Woodhead in the Echo wrote that Saints "who already have one of the smartest grounds in the Rugby League" were planning improvements to their Knowsley Road arena. The club's proposed projects included a restaurant that would be open all week, a major extension to the lounge of their social club, a new medical room with all the latest equipment and new baths and shower facilities for the players.
In a separate article club secretary Basil Lowe called for the four-tackle rule – that had been introduced in 1967 – to be replaced by six tackles, blaming the new law for disjointed play and driving away spectators. That change did take place in time for the start of the 1972-73 season.
The Sunday People did not adopt that name until January 1972 and so when the huge family of Agnes Sharples of Thatto Heath was pictured in the paper on the 25th it was known simply as 'The People'. The accompanying article began: "You've heard people talk about being one great big happy family haven't you? But have you ever seen them prove it – since they invented the telly I mean! Well, then, let me introduce you to Mrs. Sharples. No, not Ena, although that is what a lot of folk call her these days, but Agnes."
The article explained how 22-year-old Agnes Rampling had married miner Dick Sharples at St John's Church at Ravenhead in 1917. The couple had only three daughters, which for those times was below the offspring average for St Helens. But the girls compensated big time! Doris had six children, Lily had seven and Renie had nine. The 22 kids had lots of kids of their own until the brood became so big that the family began to lose touch with each other.
Some of the youngsters were even in the same schools as their cousins but didn't know them. Agnes's daughter Doris Harrison put the blame firmly and squarely on television: "Nowadays the telly has taken over. The get-togethers we used to have as a matter of course are a thing of the past. It's possible for children living next door to each other to grow up as strangers." So Doris and her sisters decided to give their mother a surprise on her 76th birthday and booked the church hall at Thatto Heath for a reunion.
A total of sixty family members were able to attend and as The People put it, "to the delight and surprise of Great-Great-Grandma!" There was a tea party and games for the children and during the evening the mums and dads enjoyed themselves in the Thatto Heath Labour Club, where Mrs Sharples worked part-time since the death of her husband Dick. "Everything went a treat," said Agnes. "One of Lillian's girls even won £10 at Bingo. It went straight into the kitty and we all had a drink on it."
I expect that's true. The 1901 census lists the remarkable Yorkshire showman William Shufflebottom (aka 'Texas' Bill) as temporary resident on the "FairGround Fisher Street" in Sutton. In the early days of moving pictures Shufflebottom combined short films with his Wild West show and his occupation in the census while inhabiting Sutton's Showfield in a tent is recorded as "Exhibitor of Cinematograph".
The Echo also reported that some were calling the 1971 census a "nosey parkers charter" and an "intrusion into individual privacy". That was because the form contained more questions than ever and the data was being fed into computers for the very first time prompting fears of "Big Brother" surveillance. This was the era of the radio comedy series 'The Men From The Ministry', which often satirised bureaucratic form filling in Whitehall. As if to prove some aspects of the series were true to life, the 1971 census came in eight versions identified by a letter of the alphabet.
If you were making a personal return you had to fill in a P-form. If you wanted to make a return for a whole household then you submitted an H-form. If you lived in Wales your P-form became a Pw-form and the household form was called a W-form. If you were staying in a hotel, hospital or prison on census day you needed an L-form and an S-form if you were on a boat. Unless the latter was a Royal Navy vessel then it was an F-form. If you could only speak Welsh, then you needed a C-form. I wonder what form you got if you were living in a tent? A T-form presumably? And perhaps an FO-form if you wanted the census enumerator to go away!
I don't imagine that many people wrote their name on the form as a number – but the former David Shilling from London did. Not that he had a problem with the census as such – but he was fed up with the mickey-taking over his surname, as the Liverpool Echo explained:
"David Shilling got fed up with being called five new pence when decimal money was introduced. So he began referring to himself by number instead of name. He signs his cheques with the number 27-6, and he used it when he filled in his census form. David, aged 21, a Lloyd's underwriter, said:
"“The girl who brought the census form was a little surprised. But after all the abuse she had been given earlier from other people, she was quite pleasant about it. I am deadly serious, I reckon that in five years' time we'll all be called by number and not by our present names. I see no harm in giving myself a number now. All the names people suggested after I decided to stop calling myself Shilling were not much good. I am far happier with a number. I chose 27-6 because I was born on the 27th day of the sixth month in the year.”"
Next week's stories will include the opening of Sherdley Primary School in Sutton, the man accused of ruining 20,000 bottles at UGB, the silent army of kind St Helens schoolchildren and the campaigning mothers of Rainhill who blocked the motorists' "mad mile".
This week's many stories include the redundancies at bottle-makers UGB, the big Thatto Heath family reunion, St Helens's World Cup referee suffers a life-changing car crash, the 1971 census forms are completed in St Helens and Red Bank's controversial blood tests on the boys in their care.
We begin on the 21st when the five possible routes for the Liverpool section of a new motorway to be known as the M62 were displayed at two schools in the city.
The head of transport planning in Liverpool described the public consultation over the Lancashire to Yorkshire motorway as an "interesting experiment".
"We want the public to get acquainted with the work we have been doing and then to challenge our methods", said Samir Rihani. Public meetings would also be held in May.
Whatever next? The public being asked their views on things that affect them!
Although one attendee, a Mrs O’Grady, expressed the cynicism that many probably felt over this new concept of consultation, telling the Echo:
"I hope the council is genuinely interested in the public's point of view. If so this exhibition is a very good idea."
On the 22nd The Guardian profiled the Peasley works of United Glass (UGB) in St Helens, which had been rebuilt in 1966.
Its advanced design contrasted sharply with UGB's Sherdley works nearby which the article said:
"…looks old and cluttered, but it formed a closely knit environment for the workers. Moving to the flow-line production of Peasley was something which may look more attractive to an outsider, but obviously was less impressive for the workers.
"On an automated glass container machine, there seems little skilled work to be done. In fact, the workers can have a crucial influence on the success of a plant.
"“Making a bottle is more complicated than making a car as far as the people on the shop floor are concerned,” a spokesman said.
"“Those of our works that are making the most rapid progress are those that do not regard them simply as machine minders.”"
The statement that the Sherdley bottle and drinks container works was somewhat antiquated was underlined on the following day by a report in the Liverpool Echo.
The paper announced that 110 jobs were to go in July when UGB closed its no. 27 furnace.
That manufactured green bottles but was out of date and would be too expensive to modernise.
At their Sherdley plant, UGB then employed 1,850 workers, with another 1,500 working at the company's Ravenhead plant.
Although consultations with the public were taking place as "interesting experiments", other aspects of openness were not yet high on the agenda of many in authority.
The Guardian reported on the 23rd that Red Bank approved school at Newton-le-Willows had been taking blood samples from boys without their parents being told why.
Principal Stanley Woollock told the paper: "The only reason was not to cause anxiety for the parent and I think it would be quite wrong to worry them".
Although parents had been asked to give consent, they were not told that Liverpool University researchers would be studying the blood samples to see whether the chromosomes could be related to anti-social behaviour.
On the 24th the well-known St Helens football referee Jim Finney was seriously injured in a road crash at Donnington in Shopshire.
He was rushed to Royal Salop Infirmary and operated on for internal injuries and reported as being very ill.
Jim was brought up in Sutton Road and attended Robins Lane School, playing for their soccer team in 1937.
Three years after being appointed to the Football League referee's list, Finney took charge of the 1962 FA Cup Final between Burnley and Tottenham Hotspur and at the end of the game was presented with the match ball by Danny Blanchflower.
Just weeks after refereeing the Cup Final, Jim returned to Robins Lane and presented headmaster Joseph Woods and head boy John Rimmer with a photograph of himself with his linesmen at Wembley (pictured above).
Jim also officiated at the 1966 World Cup Finals. However the injuries sustained in the road accident would prematurely bring his officiating career to an end.
Leslie Woodhead in the Echo wrote that Saints "who already have one of the smartest grounds in the Rugby League" were planning improvements to their Knowsley Road arena.
The club's proposed projects included a restaurant that would be open all week, a major extension to the lounge of their social club, a new medical room with all the latest equipment and new baths and shower facilities for the players.
In a separate article club secretary Basil Lowe called for the four-tackle rule – that had been introduced in 1967 – to be replaced by six tackles, blaming the new law for disjointed play and driving away spectators.
That change did take place in time for the start of the 1972-73 season.
The Sunday People did not adopt that name until January 1972 and so when the huge family of Agnes Sharples of Thatto Heath was pictured in the paper on the 25th it was known simply as 'The People'.
The accompanying article began: "You've heard people talk about being one great big happy family haven't you? But have you ever seen them prove it – since they invented the telly I mean!
"Well, then, let me introduce you to Mrs. Sharples. No, not Ena, although that is what a lot of folk call her these days, but Agnes."
The article explained how 22-year-old Agnes Rampling had married miner Dick Sharples at St John's Church at Ravenhead in 1917.
The couple had only three daughters, which for those times was below the offspring average for St Helens. But the girls compensated big time!
Doris had six children, Lily had seven and Renie had nine. The 22 kids had lots of kids of their own until the brood became so big that the family began to lose touch with each other.
Some of the youngsters were even in the same schools as their cousins but didn't know them. Agnes's daughter Doris Harrison put the blame firmly and squarely on television:
"Nowadays the telly has taken over. The get-togethers we used to have as a matter of course are a thing of the past. It's possible for children living next door to each other to grow up as strangers."
So Doris and her sisters decided to give their mother a surprise on her 76th birthday and booked the church hall at Thatto Heath for a reunion.
A total of sixty family members were able to attend and as The People put it, "to the delight and surprise of Great-Great-Grandma!"
There was a tea party and games for the children and during the evening the mums and dads enjoyed themselves in the Thatto Heath Labour Club, where Mrs Sharples worked part-time since the death of her husband Dick.
"Everything went a treat," said Agnes. "One of Lillian's girls even won £10 at Bingo. It went straight into the kitty and we all had a drink on it."
The 25th was also the day when everyone in St Helens was due to complete the 1971 census form that the Liverpool Echo was calling the "biggest survey in the history of the British people".
Although I suspect with an ever-rising population, that claim can be made every ten years.
The Echo added: "Anyone believing they can avoid the census by pitching a tent in the middle of a field is wrong. A Census Office spokesman said to-day that an enumerator will find you, wherever you are."
I expect that's true. The 1901 census lists the remarkable Yorkshire showman William Shufflebottom (aka 'Texas' Bill) as temporary resident on the "FairGround Fisher Street" in Sutton.
In the early days of moving pictures Shufflebottom combined short films with his Wild West show and his occupation in the census while inhabiting Sutton's Showfield in a tent is recorded as "Exhibitor of Cinematograph".
The Echo also reported that some were calling the 1971 census a "nosey parkers charter" and an "intrusion into individual privacy".
That was because the form contained more questions than ever and the data was being fed into computers for the very first time prompting fears of "Big Brother" surveillance.
This was the era of the radio comedy series 'The Men From The Ministry', which often satirised bureaucratic form filling in Whitehall.
As if to prove some aspects of the series were true to life, the 1971 census came in eight versions identified by a letter of the alphabet.
If you were making a personal return you had to fill in a P-form. If you wanted to make a return for a whole household then you submitted an H-form.
If you lived in Wales your P-form became a Pw-form and the household form was called a W-form.
If you were staying in a hotel, hospital or prison on census day you needed an L-form and an S-form if you were on a boat.
Unless the latter was a Royal Navy vessel then it was an F-form. If you could only speak Welsh, then you needed a C-form.
I wonder what form you got if you were living in a tent? A T-form presumably? And perhaps an FO-form if you wanted the census enumerator to go away!
I don't imagine that many people wrote their name on the form as a number – but the former David Shilling from London did.
Not that he had a problem with the census as such – but he was fed up with the mickey-taking over his surname, as the Echo explained:
"David Shilling got fed up with being called five new pence when decimal money was introduced. So he began referring to himself by number instead of name.
"He signs his cheques with the number 27-6, and he used it when he filled in his census form.
"David, aged 21, a Lloyd's underwriter, said: “The girl who brought the census form was a little surprised. But after all the abuse she had been given earlier from other people, she was quite pleasant about it.
"“I am deadly serious, I reckon that in five years' time we'll all be called by number and not by our present names. I see no harm in giving myself a number now.
"“All the names people suggested after I decided to stop calling myself Shilling were not much good. I am far happier with a number. I chose 27-6 because I was born on the 27th day of the sixth month in the year.”"
Next week's stories will include the opening of Sherdley Primary School in Sutton, the man accused of ruining 20,000 bottles at UGB, the silent army of kind St Helens schoolchildren and the campaigning mothers of Rainhill who blocked the motorists' "mad mile".
We begin on the 21st when the five possible routes for the Liverpool section of a new motorway to be known as the M62 were displayed at two schools in the city.
The head of transport planning in Liverpool described the public consultation over the Lancashire to Yorkshire motorway as an "interesting experiment".
"We want the public to get acquainted with the work we have been doing and then to challenge our methods", said Samir Rihani. Public meetings would also be held in May.
Whatever next? The public being asked their views on things that affect them!
Although one attendee, a Mrs O’Grady, expressed the cynicism that many probably felt over this new concept of consultation, telling the Echo:
"I hope the council is genuinely interested in the public's point of view. If so this exhibition is a very good idea."
On the 22nd The Guardian profiled the Peasley works of United Glass (UGB) in St Helens, which had been rebuilt in 1966.
Its advanced design contrasted sharply with UGB's Sherdley works nearby which the article said:
"…looks old and cluttered, but it formed a closely knit environment for the workers. Moving to the flow-line production of Peasley was something which may look more attractive to an outsider, but obviously was less impressive for the workers.
"On an automated glass container machine, there seems little skilled work to be done. In fact, the workers can have a crucial influence on the success of a plant.
"“Making a bottle is more complicated than making a car as far as the people on the shop floor are concerned,” a spokesman said.
"“Those of our works that are making the most rapid progress are those that do not regard them simply as machine minders.”"
The statement that the Sherdley bottle and drinks container works was somewhat antiquated was underlined on the following day by a report in the Liverpool Echo.
The paper announced that 110 jobs were to go in July when UGB closed its no. 27 furnace.
That manufactured green bottles but was out of date and would be too expensive to modernise.
At their Sherdley plant, UGB then employed 1,850 workers, with another 1,500 working at the company's Ravenhead plant.
Although consultations with the public were taking place as "interesting experiments", other aspects of openness were not yet high on the agenda of many in authority.
The Guardian reported on the 23rd that Red Bank approved school at Newton-le-Willows had been taking blood samples from boys without their parents being told why.
Principal Stanley Woollock told the paper: "The only reason was not to cause anxiety for the parent and I think it would be quite wrong to worry them".
Although parents had been asked to give consent, they were not told that Liverpool University researchers would be studying the blood samples to see whether the chromosomes could be related to anti-social behaviour.
On the 24th the well-known St Helens football referee Jim Finney was seriously injured in a road crash at Donnington in Shopshire.
He was rushed to Royal Salop Infirmary and operated on for internal injuries and reported as being very ill.
Jim was brought up in Sutton Road and attended Robins Lane School, playing for their soccer team in 1937.
Three years after being appointed to the Football League referee's list, Finney took charge of the 1962 FA Cup Final between Burnley and Tottenham Hotspur and at the end of the game was presented with the match ball by Danny Blanchflower.
Jim also officiated at the 1966 World Cup Finals. However the injuries sustained in the road accident would prematurely bring his officiating career to an end.
Leslie Woodhead in the Echo wrote that Saints "who already have one of the smartest grounds in the Rugby League" were planning improvements to their Knowsley Road arena.
The club's proposed projects included a restaurant that would be open all week, a major extension to the lounge of their social club, a new medical room with all the latest equipment and new baths and shower facilities for the players.
In a separate article club secretary Basil Lowe called for the four-tackle rule – that had been introduced in 1967 – to be replaced by six tackles, blaming the new law for disjointed play and driving away spectators.
That change did take place in time for the start of the 1972-73 season.
The Sunday People did not adopt that name until January 1972 and so when the huge family of Agnes Sharples of Thatto Heath was pictured in the paper on the 25th it was known simply as 'The People'.
The accompanying article began: "You've heard people talk about being one great big happy family haven't you? But have you ever seen them prove it – since they invented the telly I mean!
"Well, then, let me introduce you to Mrs. Sharples. No, not Ena, although that is what a lot of folk call her these days, but Agnes."
The article explained how 22-year-old Agnes Rampling had married miner Dick Sharples at St John's Church at Ravenhead in 1917.
The couple had only three daughters, which for those times was below the offspring average for St Helens. But the girls compensated big time!
Doris had six children, Lily had seven and Renie had nine. The 22 kids had lots of kids of their own until the brood became so big that the family began to lose touch with each other.
Some of the youngsters were even in the same schools as their cousins but didn't know them. Agnes's daughter Doris Harrison put the blame firmly and squarely on television:
"Nowadays the telly has taken over. The get-togethers we used to have as a matter of course are a thing of the past. It's possible for children living next door to each other to grow up as strangers."
So Doris and her sisters decided to give their mother a surprise on her 76th birthday and booked the church hall at Thatto Heath for a reunion.
A total of sixty family members were able to attend and as The People put it, "to the delight and surprise of Great-Great-Grandma!"
There was a tea party and games for the children and during the evening the mums and dads enjoyed themselves in the Thatto Heath Labour Club, where Mrs Sharples worked part-time since the death of her husband Dick.
"Everything went a treat," said Agnes. "One of Lillian's girls even won £10 at Bingo. It went straight into the kitty and we all had a drink on it."
Although I suspect with an ever-rising population, that claim can be made every ten years.
The Echo added: "Anyone believing they can avoid the census by pitching a tent in the middle of a field is wrong. A Census Office spokesman said to-day that an enumerator will find you, wherever you are."
I expect that's true. The 1901 census lists the remarkable Yorkshire showman William Shufflebottom (aka 'Texas' Bill) as temporary resident on the "FairGround Fisher Street" in Sutton.
In the early days of moving pictures Shufflebottom combined short films with his Wild West show and his occupation in the census while inhabiting Sutton's Showfield in a tent is recorded as "Exhibitor of Cinematograph".
The Echo also reported that some were calling the 1971 census a "nosey parkers charter" and an "intrusion into individual privacy".
That was because the form contained more questions than ever and the data was being fed into computers for the very first time prompting fears of "Big Brother" surveillance.
This was the era of the radio comedy series 'The Men From The Ministry', which often satirised bureaucratic form filling in Whitehall.
As if to prove some aspects of the series were true to life, the 1971 census came in eight versions identified by a letter of the alphabet.
If you were making a personal return you had to fill in a P-form. If you wanted to make a return for a whole household then you submitted an H-form.
If you lived in Wales your P-form became a Pw-form and the household form was called a W-form.
If you were staying in a hotel, hospital or prison on census day you needed an L-form and an S-form if you were on a boat.
Unless the latter was a Royal Navy vessel then it was an F-form. If you could only speak Welsh, then you needed a C-form.
I wonder what form you got if you were living in a tent? A T-form presumably? And perhaps an FO-form if you wanted the census enumerator to go away!
I don't imagine that many people wrote their name on the form as a number – but the former David Shilling from London did.
Not that he had a problem with the census as such – but he was fed up with the mickey-taking over his surname, as the Echo explained:
"David Shilling got fed up with being called five new pence when decimal money was introduced. So he began referring to himself by number instead of name.
"He signs his cheques with the number 27-6, and he used it when he filled in his census form.
"David, aged 21, a Lloyd's underwriter, said: “The girl who brought the census form was a little surprised. But after all the abuse she had been given earlier from other people, she was quite pleasant about it.
"“I am deadly serious, I reckon that in five years' time we'll all be called by number and not by our present names. I see no harm in giving myself a number now.
"“All the names people suggested after I decided to stop calling myself Shilling were not much good. I am far happier with a number. I chose 27-6 because I was born on the 27th day of the sixth month in the year.”"
Next week's stories will include the opening of Sherdley Primary School in Sutton, the man accused of ruining 20,000 bottles at UGB, the silent army of kind St Helens schoolchildren and the campaigning mothers of Rainhill who blocked the motorists' "mad mile".