FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK 22 - 28 JUNE 1976
This week's many stories include the children dicing with death at Clock Face, a reprieve for the death list houses in Rainford and Haydock, two St Helens churches complain of vandalism, the campaign to return to Lancashire and the banning of cigarette sales in St Helens' hospitals.
We begin at the Theatre Royal on the 23rd when Vince Hill was in concert along with the Karl Denver Trio. The price of admission for adults was between £1 and £1.30.
In May 1974 the St Helens Reporter put the cat among the pigeons by revealing how 139 houses in Rainford and Crank were going to be demolished over the following ten years. On the housing "death list" were 39 properties in Ormskirk Road, 29 in Church Road and 28 in Bushey Lane, as well as 23 in Crank. Although the homes were over 100 years old, two-thirds had received improvement grants from the old Rainford Urban District Council with many still undergoing building work.
But since local government reorganisation in April 1974, St Helens Council's Housing and Building Committee had taken over responsibility for properties in Rainford and they had made the decision in principle to demolish the 139 houses at a meeting in which reporters had been excluded. The list of "potentially unfit" homes had been created by surveyors conducting only an external examination while driving through the village, with no internal inspections having been made.
The casual nature of the decision-making resulted in 150 protesters demonstrating outside St Helens Town Hall a few weeks later when a meeting of St Helens Council was taking place inside. The demonstrators blocked the Town Hall steps, waving banners and placards and chanting slogans, with their local parish councillors supporting them. Then it was learnt that about 600 homes in Haydock were also potentially doomed.
As a result of the uproar, the plans were put on the back burner and delaying tactics were implemented while further reports were made. The uncertainty made things worse for the residents but on the 23rd of this week, the vast majority could breathe a sigh of relief. On that day St Helens Council's Housing and Building Committee decided that only six properties in Ormskirk Road in Rainford would be demolished and out of the 600 in Haydock that were deemed potentially unfit, only about 67 would be included in three phases of demolition.
The Reporter described how children in Clock Face were "dicing with death every time they go out to play", as they were using a railway line as a play area. Residents of Farm Road in Clock Face had signed a petition demanding fencing be installed. Moira Jones who instigated the petition told the paper:
"We aim to get something done before it is too late. All the kids around here play on the track, it is impossible to keep them off. There is a gap between the fence where I believe there should be a gate, but there has not been one there all the three years I have been here."
And Josie O’Donoghue said: "Recently my two children were playing on the line when a train came. The driver had to stop, get down and actually move them off the line. If he had been going any faster and had not noticed them, they would have been killed." A spokesman for St Helens Council said they were unsure who was responsible for railway fencing but they would send an official out to look at the problem.
The National Coal Board announced this week that they had 30 job vacancies at Bold Colliery. The second most productive mine in the North West was offering pay ranging from £53 to £67 for a basic 38-hour week. Fringe benefits included concessionary coal and transport subsidies.
In April the Reporter described how Pilkingtons were planning to build a new £650,000 transport depot at a site in Washway Lane in St Helens. It would replace their existing depot in Burtonhead Road, which was to be turned over to the United Glass company as part of their expansion plans. In return, Pilkingtons would receive land at the Greengate site in the Ravenhead area for their proposed new float glass plant.
But this week the Reporter described how the land swaps were coming under fire – particularly from residents alarmed at the proposed transport depot in Washway Lane that was set to host 200 lorries. It was being described as a "death trap for children" that would also shatter their peace and cause chaos through huge amounts of traffic being in the area.
A planning sub-committee had already granted permission for Pilkingtons to build the depot but a campaign against the scheme was now underway with over 700 residents calling for the council to rescind their decision.
There were two stories in the Reporter concerning vandalism in churchyards. Grave wreckers at Christ Church in Eccleston (pictured above) were said to have been on an "orgy of desecration" in which headstones had been pushed over and broken and the graveyard littered with rubbish.
Councillor Ray Crosby told a meeting of Eccleston Parish Council of his concern and explained how he was keeping his own vigil over the village church. "It's appalling," he said, "the wrecking has been going on for the past few months. At least 12 to 15 tombstones have been vandalised. These people have absolutely no regard for the dead."
And the Rev John Roberts of St Peter's in Parr broke his arm and shoulder this week after falling while chasing three boys in his churchyard. The youngsters were aged between eight and 11 and were among a group playing cowboys and indians among the graves. Rev Roberts said in the past children had shattered gravestones, smashed pots and scattered gravel and chippings.
"The answer to the problem lies with the parents, but they just shrug their shoulders when asked to keep their children out of the graveyard. People don't take a blind bit of notice what their kids get up to, and if it was left to me the children would work to clear up the mess to make up for the damage they have caused."
It had only been two years since St Helens was placed for administrative purposes in the county of Merseyside. Residents had been told that they could still continue to use Lancashire as part of their address but the resentment against the move to Merseyside was building.
The Reporter described how delegates from the General and Municipal Workers Union at Pilkingtons Sheet Works had held a meeting with Merseyside County Council leader Bill Sefton to discuss the issue. However, they had been unconvinced by his arguments of the benefits for St Helens of remaining in the county. And next week they planned to call for a referendum in the town to find out whether people wanted to revert back to Lancashire.
The Reporter also described how patients in St Helens' hospitals would soon have to rely on visitors bringing them their supplies of cigarettes and tobacco. That was because from April 1977 a ban on the sale of cigarettes would be introduced in hospitals throughout the Liverpool Area Health Authority. However, patients would still be able to smoke as long as the cigarettes were bought outside the hospital and psychiatric and long stay hospitals would be exempt.
It was also reported that over 1,000 young people in St Helens had joined the dole queue in May leading to 9.9% of the town's working population now being out of a job, compared with 8.6% in May. As a result, St Helens was said to have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the 11 CAMRA pubs in St Helens, the new school for Sutton, the Cowley Gala takes place, Terence Lennon quits his supermarket group and the Grange Park row when an angry councillor turned up at a letterwriter's door.
We begin at the Theatre Royal on the 23rd when Vince Hill was in concert along with the Karl Denver Trio. The price of admission for adults was between £1 and £1.30.
In May 1974 the St Helens Reporter put the cat among the pigeons by revealing how 139 houses in Rainford and Crank were going to be demolished over the following ten years. On the housing "death list" were 39 properties in Ormskirk Road, 29 in Church Road and 28 in Bushey Lane, as well as 23 in Crank. Although the homes were over 100 years old, two-thirds had received improvement grants from the old Rainford Urban District Council with many still undergoing building work.
But since local government reorganisation in April 1974, St Helens Council's Housing and Building Committee had taken over responsibility for properties in Rainford and they had made the decision in principle to demolish the 139 houses at a meeting in which reporters had been excluded. The list of "potentially unfit" homes had been created by surveyors conducting only an external examination while driving through the village, with no internal inspections having been made.
The casual nature of the decision-making resulted in 150 protesters demonstrating outside St Helens Town Hall a few weeks later when a meeting of St Helens Council was taking place inside. The demonstrators blocked the Town Hall steps, waving banners and placards and chanting slogans, with their local parish councillors supporting them. Then it was learnt that about 600 homes in Haydock were also potentially doomed.
As a result of the uproar, the plans were put on the back burner and delaying tactics were implemented while further reports were made. The uncertainty made things worse for the residents but on the 23rd of this week, the vast majority could breathe a sigh of relief. On that day St Helens Council's Housing and Building Committee decided that only six properties in Ormskirk Road in Rainford would be demolished and out of the 600 in Haydock that were deemed potentially unfit, only about 67 would be included in three phases of demolition.
The Reporter described how children in Clock Face were "dicing with death every time they go out to play", as they were using a railway line as a play area. Residents of Farm Road in Clock Face had signed a petition demanding fencing be installed. Moira Jones who instigated the petition told the paper:
"We aim to get something done before it is too late. All the kids around here play on the track, it is impossible to keep them off. There is a gap between the fence where I believe there should be a gate, but there has not been one there all the three years I have been here."
And Josie O’Donoghue said: "Recently my two children were playing on the line when a train came. The driver had to stop, get down and actually move them off the line. If he had been going any faster and had not noticed them, they would have been killed." A spokesman for St Helens Council said they were unsure who was responsible for railway fencing but they would send an official out to look at the problem.
The National Coal Board announced this week that they had 30 job vacancies at Bold Colliery. The second most productive mine in the North West was offering pay ranging from £53 to £67 for a basic 38-hour week. Fringe benefits included concessionary coal and transport subsidies.
In April the Reporter described how Pilkingtons were planning to build a new £650,000 transport depot at a site in Washway Lane in St Helens. It would replace their existing depot in Burtonhead Road, which was to be turned over to the United Glass company as part of their expansion plans. In return, Pilkingtons would receive land at the Greengate site in the Ravenhead area for their proposed new float glass plant.
But this week the Reporter described how the land swaps were coming under fire – particularly from residents alarmed at the proposed transport depot in Washway Lane that was set to host 200 lorries. It was being described as a "death trap for children" that would also shatter their peace and cause chaos through huge amounts of traffic being in the area.
A planning sub-committee had already granted permission for Pilkingtons to build the depot but a campaign against the scheme was now underway with over 700 residents calling for the council to rescind their decision.
Councillor Ray Crosby told a meeting of Eccleston Parish Council of his concern and explained how he was keeping his own vigil over the village church. "It's appalling," he said, "the wrecking has been going on for the past few months. At least 12 to 15 tombstones have been vandalised. These people have absolutely no regard for the dead."
And the Rev John Roberts of St Peter's in Parr broke his arm and shoulder this week after falling while chasing three boys in his churchyard. The youngsters were aged between eight and 11 and were among a group playing cowboys and indians among the graves. Rev Roberts said in the past children had shattered gravestones, smashed pots and scattered gravel and chippings.
"The answer to the problem lies with the parents, but they just shrug their shoulders when asked to keep their children out of the graveyard. People don't take a blind bit of notice what their kids get up to, and if it was left to me the children would work to clear up the mess to make up for the damage they have caused."
It had only been two years since St Helens was placed for administrative purposes in the county of Merseyside. Residents had been told that they could still continue to use Lancashire as part of their address but the resentment against the move to Merseyside was building.
The Reporter described how delegates from the General and Municipal Workers Union at Pilkingtons Sheet Works had held a meeting with Merseyside County Council leader Bill Sefton to discuss the issue. However, they had been unconvinced by his arguments of the benefits for St Helens of remaining in the county. And next week they planned to call for a referendum in the town to find out whether people wanted to revert back to Lancashire.
The Reporter also described how patients in St Helens' hospitals would soon have to rely on visitors bringing them their supplies of cigarettes and tobacco. That was because from April 1977 a ban on the sale of cigarettes would be introduced in hospitals throughout the Liverpool Area Health Authority. However, patients would still be able to smoke as long as the cigarettes were bought outside the hospital and psychiatric and long stay hospitals would be exempt.
It was also reported that over 1,000 young people in St Helens had joined the dole queue in May leading to 9.9% of the town's working population now being out of a job, compared with 8.6% in May. As a result, St Helens was said to have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the 11 CAMRA pubs in St Helens, the new school for Sutton, the Cowley Gala takes place, Terence Lennon quits his supermarket group and the Grange Park row when an angry councillor turned up at a letterwriter's door.
This week's many stories include the children dicing with death at Clock Face, a reprieve for the death list houses in Rainford and Haydock, two St Helens churches complain of vandalism, the campaign to return to Lancashire and the banning of cigarette sales in St Helens' hospitals.
We begin at the Theatre Royal on the 23rd when Vince Hill was in concert along with the Karl Denver Trio. The price of admission for adults was between £1 and £1.30.
In May 1974 the St Helens Reporter put the cat among the pigeons by revealing how 139 houses in Rainford and Crank were going to be demolished over the following ten years.
On the housing "death list" were 39 properties in Ormskirk Road, 29 in Church Road and 28 in Bushey Lane, as well as 23 in Crank.
Although the homes were over one hundred years old, two-thirds had received improvement grants from the old Rainford Urban District Council with many still undergoing building work.
But since local government reorganisation in April 1974, St Helens Council's Housing and Building Committee had taken over responsibility for properties in Rainford and they had made the decision in principle to demolish the 139 houses at a meeting in which reporters had been excluded.
The list of "potentially unfit" homes had been created by surveyors conducting only an external examination while driving through the village, with no internal inspections having been made.
The casual nature of the decision-making resulted in 150 protesters demonstrating outside St Helens Town Hall a few weeks later when a meeting of St Helens Council was taking place inside.
The demonstrators blocked the Town Hall steps, waving banners and placards and chanting slogans, with their local parish councillors supporting them.
Then it was learnt that about 600 homes in Haydock were also potentially doomed.
As a result of the uproar, the plans were put on the back burner and delaying tactics were implemented while further reports were made.
The uncertainty made things worse for the residents but on the 23rd of this week, the vast majority could breathe a sigh of relief.
On that day St Helens Council's Housing and Building Committee decided that only six properties in Ormskirk Road in Rainford would be demolished and out of the 600 in Haydock that were deemed potentially unfit, only about 67 would be included in three phases of demolition.
The Reporter described how children in Clock Face were "dicing with death every time they go out to play", as they were using a railway line as a play area.
Residents of Farm Road in Clock Face had signed a petition demanding fencing be installed. Moira Jones who instigated the petition told the paper:
"We aim to get something done before it is too late. All the kids around here play on the track, it is impossible to keep them off. There is a gap between the fence where I believe there should be a gate, but there has not been one there all the three years I have been here."
And Josie O’Donoghue said: "Recently my two children were playing on the line when a train came. The driver had to stop, get down and actually move them off the line. If he had been going any faster and had not noticed them, they would have been killed."
A spokesman for St Helens Council said they were unsure who was responsible for railway fencing but they would send an official out to look at the problem.
The National Coal Board announced this week that they had 30 job vacancies at Bold Colliery.
The second most productive mine in the North West was offering pay ranging from £53 to £67 for a basic 38-hour week.
Fringe benefits included concessionary coal and transport subsidies.
In April the Reporter described how Pilkingtons were planning to build a new £650,000 transport depot at a site in Washway Lane in St Helens.
It would replace their existing depot in Burtonhead Road, which was to be turned over to the United Glass company as part of their expansion plans.
In return, Pilkingtons would receive land at the Greengate site in the Ravenhead area for their proposed new float glass plant.
But this week the Reporter described how the land swaps were coming under fire – particularly from residents alarmed at the proposed transport depot in Washway Lane that was set to host 200 lorries.
It was being described as a "death trap for children" that would also shatter their peace and cause chaos through huge amounts of traffic being in the area.
A planning sub-committee had already granted permission for Pilkingtons to build the depot but a campaign against the scheme was now underway with over 700 residents calling for the council to rescind their decision.
There were two stories in the Reporter concerning vandalism in churchyards.
Grave wreckers at Christ Church in Eccleston were said to have been on an "orgy of desecration" in which headstones had been pushed over and broken and the graveyard littered with rubbish.
Councillor Ray Crosby told a meeting of Eccleston Parish Council of his concern and explained how he was keeping his own vigil over the village church.
"It's appalling," he said, "the wrecking has been going on for the past few months. At least 12 to 15 tombstones have been vandalised. These people have absolutely no regard for the dead."
And the Rev John Roberts of St Peter's in Parr broke his arm and shoulder this week after falling while chasing three boys in his churchyard.
The youngsters were aged between eight and 11 and were among a group playing cowboys and indians among the graves.
Rev Roberts said in the past children had shattered gravestones, smashed pots and scattered gravel and chippings.
"The answer to the problem lies with the parents, but they just shrug their shoulders when asked to keep their children out of the graveyard.
"People don't take a blind bit of notice what their kids get up to, and if it was left to me the children would work to clear up the mess to make up for the damage they have caused."
It had only been two years since St Helens was placed for administrative purposes in the county of Merseyside.
Residents had been told that they could still continue to use Lancashire as part of their address but the resentment against the move to Merseyside was building.
The Reporter described how delegates from the General and Municipal Workers Union at Pilkingtons Sheet Works had held a meeting with Merseyside County Council leader Bill Sefton to discuss the issue.
However, they had been unconvinced by his arguments of the benefits for St Helens of remaining in the county.
And next week they planned to call for a referendum in the town to find out whether people wanted to revert back to Lancashire.
The Reporter also described how patients in St Helens' hospitals would soon have to rely on visitors bringing them their supplies of cigarettes and tobacco.
That was because from April 1977 a ban on the sale of cigarettes would be introduced in hospitals throughout the Liverpool Area Health Authority.
However, patients would still be able to smoke as long as the cigarettes were bought outside the hospital and psychiatric and long stay hospitals would be exempt.
It was also reported that over 1,000 young people in St Helens had joined the dole queue in May leading to 9.9% of the town's working population now being out of a job, compared with 8.6% in May.
As a result, St Helens was said to have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the 11 CAMRA pubs in St Helens, the new school for Sutton, the Cowley Gala takes place, Terence Lennon quits his supermarket group and the Grange Park row when an angry councillor turned up at a letterwriter's door.
We begin at the Theatre Royal on the 23rd when Vince Hill was in concert along with the Karl Denver Trio. The price of admission for adults was between £1 and £1.30.
In May 1974 the St Helens Reporter put the cat among the pigeons by revealing how 139 houses in Rainford and Crank were going to be demolished over the following ten years.
On the housing "death list" were 39 properties in Ormskirk Road, 29 in Church Road and 28 in Bushey Lane, as well as 23 in Crank.
Although the homes were over one hundred years old, two-thirds had received improvement grants from the old Rainford Urban District Council with many still undergoing building work.
But since local government reorganisation in April 1974, St Helens Council's Housing and Building Committee had taken over responsibility for properties in Rainford and they had made the decision in principle to demolish the 139 houses at a meeting in which reporters had been excluded.
The list of "potentially unfit" homes had been created by surveyors conducting only an external examination while driving through the village, with no internal inspections having been made.
The casual nature of the decision-making resulted in 150 protesters demonstrating outside St Helens Town Hall a few weeks later when a meeting of St Helens Council was taking place inside.
The demonstrators blocked the Town Hall steps, waving banners and placards and chanting slogans, with their local parish councillors supporting them.
Then it was learnt that about 600 homes in Haydock were also potentially doomed.
As a result of the uproar, the plans were put on the back burner and delaying tactics were implemented while further reports were made.
The uncertainty made things worse for the residents but on the 23rd of this week, the vast majority could breathe a sigh of relief.
On that day St Helens Council's Housing and Building Committee decided that only six properties in Ormskirk Road in Rainford would be demolished and out of the 600 in Haydock that were deemed potentially unfit, only about 67 would be included in three phases of demolition.
The Reporter described how children in Clock Face were "dicing with death every time they go out to play", as they were using a railway line as a play area.
Residents of Farm Road in Clock Face had signed a petition demanding fencing be installed. Moira Jones who instigated the petition told the paper:
"We aim to get something done before it is too late. All the kids around here play on the track, it is impossible to keep them off. There is a gap between the fence where I believe there should be a gate, but there has not been one there all the three years I have been here."
And Josie O’Donoghue said: "Recently my two children were playing on the line when a train came. The driver had to stop, get down and actually move them off the line. If he had been going any faster and had not noticed them, they would have been killed."
A spokesman for St Helens Council said they were unsure who was responsible for railway fencing but they would send an official out to look at the problem.
The National Coal Board announced this week that they had 30 job vacancies at Bold Colliery.
The second most productive mine in the North West was offering pay ranging from £53 to £67 for a basic 38-hour week.
Fringe benefits included concessionary coal and transport subsidies.
In April the Reporter described how Pilkingtons were planning to build a new £650,000 transport depot at a site in Washway Lane in St Helens.
It would replace their existing depot in Burtonhead Road, which was to be turned over to the United Glass company as part of their expansion plans.
In return, Pilkingtons would receive land at the Greengate site in the Ravenhead area for their proposed new float glass plant.
But this week the Reporter described how the land swaps were coming under fire – particularly from residents alarmed at the proposed transport depot in Washway Lane that was set to host 200 lorries.
It was being described as a "death trap for children" that would also shatter their peace and cause chaos through huge amounts of traffic being in the area.
A planning sub-committee had already granted permission for Pilkingtons to build the depot but a campaign against the scheme was now underway with over 700 residents calling for the council to rescind their decision.
There were two stories in the Reporter concerning vandalism in churchyards.
Councillor Ray Crosby told a meeting of Eccleston Parish Council of his concern and explained how he was keeping his own vigil over the village church.
"It's appalling," he said, "the wrecking has been going on for the past few months. At least 12 to 15 tombstones have been vandalised. These people have absolutely no regard for the dead."
And the Rev John Roberts of St Peter's in Parr broke his arm and shoulder this week after falling while chasing three boys in his churchyard.
The youngsters were aged between eight and 11 and were among a group playing cowboys and indians among the graves.
Rev Roberts said in the past children had shattered gravestones, smashed pots and scattered gravel and chippings.
"The answer to the problem lies with the parents, but they just shrug their shoulders when asked to keep their children out of the graveyard.
"People don't take a blind bit of notice what their kids get up to, and if it was left to me the children would work to clear up the mess to make up for the damage they have caused."
It had only been two years since St Helens was placed for administrative purposes in the county of Merseyside.
Residents had been told that they could still continue to use Lancashire as part of their address but the resentment against the move to Merseyside was building.
The Reporter described how delegates from the General and Municipal Workers Union at Pilkingtons Sheet Works had held a meeting with Merseyside County Council leader Bill Sefton to discuss the issue.
However, they had been unconvinced by his arguments of the benefits for St Helens of remaining in the county.
And next week they planned to call for a referendum in the town to find out whether people wanted to revert back to Lancashire.
The Reporter also described how patients in St Helens' hospitals would soon have to rely on visitors bringing them their supplies of cigarettes and tobacco.
That was because from April 1977 a ban on the sale of cigarettes would be introduced in hospitals throughout the Liverpool Area Health Authority.
However, patients would still be able to smoke as long as the cigarettes were bought outside the hospital and psychiatric and long stay hospitals would be exempt.
It was also reported that over 1,000 young people in St Helens had joined the dole queue in May leading to 9.9% of the town's working population now being out of a job, compared with 8.6% in May.
As a result, St Helens was said to have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next Week's stories will include the 11 CAMRA pubs in St Helens, the new school for Sutton, the Cowley Gala takes place, Terence Lennon quits his supermarket group and the Grange Park row when an angry councillor turned up at a letterwriter's door.