FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (23rd - 29th JANUARY 1973)
This week's many stories include the window smashing at St Cuthie's School, the dog in Laffak that grew and grew, a profile of the doomed St Helens Transport Department, the hollow victory for King Street residents who protested against the demolition of their homes, the end of the road for a quaint Pocket Nook bridge and the Bold Colliery mineworker who retired after 51 years service – but had never been underground.
Harold Stott had been the service manager at Rothery Radio before starting his own TV and radio firm in Westfield Street in 1963. On the 25th Mr Stott agreed to sell all the shares in his business to a Liverpool firm called George Sturia and Son for £150,000. That's over £2 million in today's money, although Mr Stott said he would remain as managing director of the firm.
Writing about vandalism at local railway stations on the 25th, the Liverpool Echo said: "Rainford Junction on the Wigan to Liverpool line used to be a quaint little country station. Now it has been stripped of its character and British Rail have provided two corrugated iron huts for shelter."
Ted Ashton, the head of the lamproom at Bold Colliery (pictured above), retired on the 26th after 51 years service after having started work at the colliery as a 14-year-old boy. What was remarkable about Ted was that during his employment he never once went underground, with all his work having been on the surface. Bold Colliery's personnel manager, Ken Harris, presented Ted with a clock to commemorate his retirement and invited him to make his first trip underground. However, Ted declined the offer, saying: "After all this time, I don't see any reason for breaking my record".
Also on that day the Echo looked at the state of bus services in the region, some 15 months away from the creation of the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive. The MPTE's introduction would see off the St Helens Transport Department, which the Echo said had always been a profitable concern. That was partly attributed to staggered shift hours in the mining and glassmaking industries, which meant that peak periods were not as busy as in other towns and cities.
Another proud claim by the undertaking was that it was one of the first departments in the country to install a really efficient heating system on its vehicles. Currently the St Helens Transport Department owned 127 buses and, of those, 68 were single-decker vehicles, with the fleet manned by 216 drivers and 107 conductors.
Every few months for the past few years, the Corporation had issued compulsory purchase orders on houses they deemed unfit to live in and wanted to demolish as part of their improvement schemes. However, some of the residents with a long attachment to their homes would appeal against the orders to the Government.
A public inquiry was then held at St Helens Town Hall and an inspector would hear the evidence, inspect some houses himself and then later report back with his decision. These almost always went in favour of the Corporation, as was the case this week. In fact it seemed pretty pointless protesting as even if you won your argument, you still lost your home.
Last August a public inquiry had been held over plans to demolish over 200 houses in the King Street area of St Helens. A Department of the Environment inspector heard claims from the council that the homes had fractured walls, damp, poor sanitation, bad ventilation and were in a general state of serious disrepair. The inspector had finally released his report and had come down on the side of seven of the applicants, who had argued their homes were perfectly habitable.
But it was a hollow victory for them as the inspector added that he thought the acquisition of those homes was "reasonably necessary for satisfactory development". In other words you couldn't very well knock down 200 houses but leave seven standing and then build a new development – including roads and homes – around them. There was the smallest crumb of comfort for the seven, as they were given the right to appeal against the inspector's decision.
The new Town Centre was slowly taking shape with many new schemes at different levels of completion. The Pocket Nook development would be ready in the Spring and it was announced this week that what the Reporter called one of the town's "quaintest landmarks" would, as a result, soon disappear. That was the timber and girder canal bridge at Pocket Nook, which was going to be dismantled. The bridge had only been built 20 years ago but had been considered a nuisance to traffic. A new road was currently being built at Pocket Nook and, when completed, another bridge would replace the older structure.
Sometimes the advent of new technology that would change the future was given much publicity in newspapers. But at other times they were only mentioned in passing, as their importance was not yet realised. On the front page of the Reporter on the 26th were these 27 words: "Bleep calls are being tested by the Post Office. Pocket radio receivers will pick up a signal to tell the carrier he is wanted on the phone." It would not be until the 1980s that pagers would take off and be the forerunner of the SMS text message.
St Cuthbert's School in Berrys Lane was the latest venue in St Helens to face the wrath of youth. The Reporter revealed that 43 windows had been smashed over the two previous weekends, with headmaster Joseph Grundy telling the paper: "It's sheer vandalism and it's sickening us all at the school. All these repairs have to be paid for and it's getting out of hand. We had similar trouble six months ago, then it stopped. Now it looks like it's started again." Extensions were being undertaken at "St Cuthies" and Mr Grundy said the vandals had even used some of the pipes from scaffolding to smash windows.
There was an appeal in the Reporter for someone to adopt Tim, who had being taken in by the Molyneux family three years ago. They had found the tiny puppy wandering outside a school in Knowsley and had brought him to their Woodlands Road home in Laffak. But Tim had grown and grown since then and was now huge, as Helen Molyneux explained:
"We didn't expect him to be such a size. He's grown into the biggest Alsatian I’ve ever seen!" Mrs Molyneux said her place was not suitable for such a large dog, adding that ideally Tim needed an owner with a big house and plenty of land: "He's a beautiful dog and it would be sacrilege to put him down but unless someone will take him, I'm afraid we will have to."
The first strike at Stoves of Rainhill in the factory's 50-year history had not taken place until 1970. But since then the unions had been making up for lost time. The latest dispute had been over 120 redundancies that Stoves' management had announced. After being on strike for a week over the issue, the 1,000 workers had now decided to accept the shedding of jobs – but on two conditions. First of all the redundancies initially had to be on a voluntary basis, and then on a "last in, first out" principle. The unions said they would be meeting the management to see whether they would accept their demands.
I wonder when the term "surgery" was extended from doctors to MPs' meetings with their constituents? And when the term "the borough member" was finally dropped? The latter was how our member of parliament was routinely called during the 20th century – at least by newspapers.
That individual in 1973 was Leslie Spriggs, who was the town's eighth borough member of parliament and its last sole representative. In 1983 John Evans and Gerry Bermingham would represent the split constituencies of St Helens North and South, respectively. On the 27th Leslie Spriggs was "available to constituents" at St Helens Town Hall with a flexible approach on offer. You could write to the House of Commons for an appointment – or just turn up.
It was announced this week that Saints star John Mantle was to have a finger that had been "fractured beyond repair" amputated during the close season.
And finally a film guide. 'The Godfather's' long run at the ABC Savoy ended on the 28th when Kubrick’s controversial 'Clockwork Orange' replaced it. And at the Capitol, what they called "one of the best horror films ever" was shown. That was 'Tales From The Crypt' starring Peter Cushing and Joan Collins. "Make sure you bring someone with you!", advised their ad.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the row over the alleged lead poisoning of children, John Molyneux's VC is auctioned at Sotheby's, the extension of the Victoria Square war memorial and St Helens is revealed as one of the country's dirtiest towns.
Harold Stott had been the service manager at Rothery Radio before starting his own TV and radio firm in Westfield Street in 1963. On the 25th Mr Stott agreed to sell all the shares in his business to a Liverpool firm called George Sturia and Son for £150,000. That's over £2 million in today's money, although Mr Stott said he would remain as managing director of the firm.
Writing about vandalism at local railway stations on the 25th, the Liverpool Echo said: "Rainford Junction on the Wigan to Liverpool line used to be a quaint little country station. Now it has been stripped of its character and British Rail have provided two corrugated iron huts for shelter."
Also on that day the Echo looked at the state of bus services in the region, some 15 months away from the creation of the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive. The MPTE's introduction would see off the St Helens Transport Department, which the Echo said had always been a profitable concern. That was partly attributed to staggered shift hours in the mining and glassmaking industries, which meant that peak periods were not as busy as in other towns and cities.
Another proud claim by the undertaking was that it was one of the first departments in the country to install a really efficient heating system on its vehicles. Currently the St Helens Transport Department owned 127 buses and, of those, 68 were single-decker vehicles, with the fleet manned by 216 drivers and 107 conductors.
Every few months for the past few years, the Corporation had issued compulsory purchase orders on houses they deemed unfit to live in and wanted to demolish as part of their improvement schemes. However, some of the residents with a long attachment to their homes would appeal against the orders to the Government.
A public inquiry was then held at St Helens Town Hall and an inspector would hear the evidence, inspect some houses himself and then later report back with his decision. These almost always went in favour of the Corporation, as was the case this week. In fact it seemed pretty pointless protesting as even if you won your argument, you still lost your home.
Last August a public inquiry had been held over plans to demolish over 200 houses in the King Street area of St Helens. A Department of the Environment inspector heard claims from the council that the homes had fractured walls, damp, poor sanitation, bad ventilation and were in a general state of serious disrepair. The inspector had finally released his report and had come down on the side of seven of the applicants, who had argued their homes were perfectly habitable.
But it was a hollow victory for them as the inspector added that he thought the acquisition of those homes was "reasonably necessary for satisfactory development". In other words you couldn't very well knock down 200 houses but leave seven standing and then build a new development – including roads and homes – around them. There was the smallest crumb of comfort for the seven, as they were given the right to appeal against the inspector's decision.
The new Town Centre was slowly taking shape with many new schemes at different levels of completion. The Pocket Nook development would be ready in the Spring and it was announced this week that what the Reporter called one of the town's "quaintest landmarks" would, as a result, soon disappear. That was the timber and girder canal bridge at Pocket Nook, which was going to be dismantled. The bridge had only been built 20 years ago but had been considered a nuisance to traffic. A new road was currently being built at Pocket Nook and, when completed, another bridge would replace the older structure.
Sometimes the advent of new technology that would change the future was given much publicity in newspapers. But at other times they were only mentioned in passing, as their importance was not yet realised. On the front page of the Reporter on the 26th were these 27 words: "Bleep calls are being tested by the Post Office. Pocket radio receivers will pick up a signal to tell the carrier he is wanted on the phone." It would not be until the 1980s that pagers would take off and be the forerunner of the SMS text message.
St Cuthbert's School in Berrys Lane was the latest venue in St Helens to face the wrath of youth. The Reporter revealed that 43 windows had been smashed over the two previous weekends, with headmaster Joseph Grundy telling the paper: "It's sheer vandalism and it's sickening us all at the school. All these repairs have to be paid for and it's getting out of hand. We had similar trouble six months ago, then it stopped. Now it looks like it's started again." Extensions were being undertaken at "St Cuthies" and Mr Grundy said the vandals had even used some of the pipes from scaffolding to smash windows.
There was an appeal in the Reporter for someone to adopt Tim, who had being taken in by the Molyneux family three years ago. They had found the tiny puppy wandering outside a school in Knowsley and had brought him to their Woodlands Road home in Laffak. But Tim had grown and grown since then and was now huge, as Helen Molyneux explained:
"We didn't expect him to be such a size. He's grown into the biggest Alsatian I’ve ever seen!" Mrs Molyneux said her place was not suitable for such a large dog, adding that ideally Tim needed an owner with a big house and plenty of land: "He's a beautiful dog and it would be sacrilege to put him down but unless someone will take him, I'm afraid we will have to."
The first strike at Stoves of Rainhill in the factory's 50-year history had not taken place until 1970. But since then the unions had been making up for lost time. The latest dispute had been over 120 redundancies that Stoves' management had announced. After being on strike for a week over the issue, the 1,000 workers had now decided to accept the shedding of jobs – but on two conditions. First of all the redundancies initially had to be on a voluntary basis, and then on a "last in, first out" principle. The unions said they would be meeting the management to see whether they would accept their demands.
I wonder when the term "surgery" was extended from doctors to MPs' meetings with their constituents? And when the term "the borough member" was finally dropped? The latter was how our member of parliament was routinely called during the 20th century – at least by newspapers.
That individual in 1973 was Leslie Spriggs, who was the town's eighth borough member of parliament and its last sole representative. In 1983 John Evans and Gerry Bermingham would represent the split constituencies of St Helens North and South, respectively. On the 27th Leslie Spriggs was "available to constituents" at St Helens Town Hall with a flexible approach on offer. You could write to the House of Commons for an appointment – or just turn up.
It was announced this week that Saints star John Mantle was to have a finger that had been "fractured beyond repair" amputated during the close season.
And finally a film guide. 'The Godfather's' long run at the ABC Savoy ended on the 28th when Kubrick’s controversial 'Clockwork Orange' replaced it. And at the Capitol, what they called "one of the best horror films ever" was shown. That was 'Tales From The Crypt' starring Peter Cushing and Joan Collins. "Make sure you bring someone with you!", advised their ad.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the row over the alleged lead poisoning of children, John Molyneux's VC is auctioned at Sotheby's, the extension of the Victoria Square war memorial and St Helens is revealed as one of the country's dirtiest towns.
This week's many stories include the window smashing at St Cuthie's School, the dog in Laffak that grew and grew, a profile of the doomed St Helens Transport Department, the hollow victory for King Street residents who protested against the demolition of their homes, the end of the road for a quaint Pocket Nook bridge and the Bold Colliery mineworker who retired after 51 years service – but had never been underground.
Harold Stott had been the service manager at Rothery Radio before starting his own TV and radio firm in Westfield Street in 1963.
On the 25th Mr Stott agreed to sell all the shares in his business to a Liverpool firm called George Sturia and Son for £150,000.
That's over £2 million in today's money, although Mr Stott said he would remain as managing director of the firm.
Writing about vandalism at local railway stations on the 25th, the Liverpool Echo said:
"Rainford Junction on the Wigan to Liverpool line used to be a quaint little country station. Now it has been stripped of its character and British Rail have provided two corrugated iron huts for shelter."
Ted Ashton, the head of the lamproom at Bold Colliery (pictured above), retired on the 26th after 51 years service after having started work at the colliery as a 14-year-old boy.
What was remarkable about Ted was that during his employment he never once went underground, with all his work having been on the surface.
Bold Colliery's personnel manager, Ken Harris, presented Ted with a clock to commemorate his retirement and invited him to make his first trip underground.
However, Ted declined the offer, saying: "After all this time, I don't see any reason for breaking my record".
Also on that day the Echo looked at the state of bus services in the region, some 15 months away from the creation of the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive.
The MPTE's introduction would see off the St Helens Transport Department, which the Echo said had always been a profitable concern.
That was partly attributed to staggered shift hours in the mining and glassmaking industries, which meant that peak periods were not as busy as in other towns and cities.
Another proud claim by the undertaking was that it was one of the first departments in the country to install a really efficient heating system on its vehicles.
Currently the St Helens Transport Department owned 127 buses and, of those, 68 were single-decker vehicles, with the fleet manned by 216 drivers and 107 conductors.
Every few months for the past few years, the Corporation had issued compulsory purchase orders on houses they deemed unfit to live in and wanted to demolish as part of their improvement schemes.
However, some of the residents with a long attachment to their homes would appeal against the orders to the Government.
A public inquiry was then held at St Helens Town Hall and an inspector would hear the evidence, inspect some houses himself and then later report back with his decision.
These almost always went in favour of the Corporation, as was the case this week. In fact it seemed pretty pointless protesting as even if you won your argument, you still lost your home.
Last August a public inquiry had been held over plans to demolish over 200 houses in the King Street area of St Helens.
A Department of the Environment inspector heard claims from the council that the homes had fractured walls, damp, poor sanitation, bad ventilation and were in a general state of serious disrepair.
The inspector had finally released his report and had come down on the side of seven of the applicants, who had argued their homes were perfectly habitable.
But it was a hollow victory for them as the inspector added that he thought the acquisition of those homes was "reasonably necessary for satisfactory development".
In other words you couldn't very well knock down 200 houses but leave seven standing and then build a new development – including roads and homes – around them.
There was the smallest crumb of comfort for the seven, as they were given the right to appeal against the inspector's decision.
The new Town Centre was slowly taking shape with many new schemes at different levels of completion.
The Pocket Nook development would be ready in the Spring and it was announced this week that what the Reporter called one of the town's "quaintest landmarks" would, as a result, soon disappear.
That was the timber and girder canal bridge at Pocket Nook, which was going to be dismantled.
The bridge had only been built 20 years ago but had been considered a nuisance to traffic.
A new road was currently being built at Pocket Nook and, when completed, another bridge would replace the older structure.
Sometimes the advent of new technology that would change the future was given much publicity in newspapers.
But at other times they were only mentioned in passing, as their importance was not yet realised.
On the front page of the Reporter on the 26th were these 27 words:
"Bleep calls are being tested by the Post Office. Pocket radio receivers will pick up a signal to tell the carrier he is wanted on the phone."
It would not be until the 1980s that pagers would take off and be the forerunner of the SMS text message.
St Cuthbert's School in Berrys Lane was the latest venue in St Helens to face the wrath of youth.
The Reporter revealed that 43 windows had been smashed over the two previous weekends, with headmaster Joseph Grundy telling the paper:
"It's sheer vandalism and it's sickening us all at the school. All these repairs have to be paid for and it's getting out of hand.
"We had similar trouble six months ago, then it stopped. Now it looks like it's started again."
Extensions were being undertaken at "St Cuthies" and Mr Grundy said the vandals had even used some of the pipes from scaffolding to smash windows.
There was an appeal in the Reporter for someone to adopt Tim, who had being taken in by the Molyneux family three years ago.
They had found the tiny puppy wandering outside a school in Knowsley and had brought him to their Woodlands Road home in Laffak.
But Tim had grown and grown since then and was now huge, as Helen Molyneux explained:
"We didn't expect him to be such a size. He's grown into the biggest Alsatian I’ve ever seen!"
Mrs Molyneux said her place was not suitable for such a large dog, adding that ideally Tim needed an owner with a big house and plenty of land:
"He's a beautiful dog and it would be sacrilege to put him down but unless someone will take him, I'm afraid we will have to."
The first strike at Stoves of Rainhill in the factory's 50-year history had not taken place until 1970. But since then the unions had been making up for lost time.
The latest dispute had been over 120 redundancies that Stoves' management had announced.
After being on strike for a week over the issue, the 1,000 workers had now decided to accept the shedding of jobs – but on two conditions.
First of all the redundancies initially had to be on a voluntary basis, and then on a "last in, first out" principle.
The unions said they would be meeting the management to see whether they would accept their demands.
I wonder when the term "surgery" was extended from doctors to MPs' meetings with their constituents? And when the term "the borough member" was finally dropped?
The latter was how our member of parliament was routinely called during the 20th century – at least by newspapers.
That individual in 1973 was Leslie Spriggs, who was the town's eighth borough member of parliament and its last sole representative.
In 1983 John Evans and Gerry Bermingham would represent the split constituencies of St Helens North and South, respectively.
On the 27th Leslie Spriggs was "available to constituents" at St Helens Town Hall with a flexible approach on offer.
You could write to the House of Commons for an appointment – or just turn up.
It was announced this week that Saints star John Mantle was to have a finger that had been "fractured beyond repair" amputated during the close season.
And finally a film guide. 'The Godfather's' long run at the ABC Savoy ended on the 28th when Kubrick’s controversial 'Clockwork Orange' replaced it.
And at the Capitol, what they called "one of the best horror films ever" was shown.
That was 'Tales From The Crypt' starring Peter Cushing and Joan Collins. "Make sure you bring someone with you!", advised their ad.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the row over the alleged lead poisoning of children, John Molyneux's VC is auctioned at Sotheby's, the extension of the Victoria Square war memorial and St Helens is revealed as one of the country's dirtiest towns.
Harold Stott had been the service manager at Rothery Radio before starting his own TV and radio firm in Westfield Street in 1963.
On the 25th Mr Stott agreed to sell all the shares in his business to a Liverpool firm called George Sturia and Son for £150,000.
That's over £2 million in today's money, although Mr Stott said he would remain as managing director of the firm.
Writing about vandalism at local railway stations on the 25th, the Liverpool Echo said:
"Rainford Junction on the Wigan to Liverpool line used to be a quaint little country station. Now it has been stripped of its character and British Rail have provided two corrugated iron huts for shelter."
What was remarkable about Ted was that during his employment he never once went underground, with all his work having been on the surface.
Bold Colliery's personnel manager, Ken Harris, presented Ted with a clock to commemorate his retirement and invited him to make his first trip underground.
However, Ted declined the offer, saying: "After all this time, I don't see any reason for breaking my record".
Also on that day the Echo looked at the state of bus services in the region, some 15 months away from the creation of the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive.
The MPTE's introduction would see off the St Helens Transport Department, which the Echo said had always been a profitable concern.
That was partly attributed to staggered shift hours in the mining and glassmaking industries, which meant that peak periods were not as busy as in other towns and cities.
Another proud claim by the undertaking was that it was one of the first departments in the country to install a really efficient heating system on its vehicles.
Currently the St Helens Transport Department owned 127 buses and, of those, 68 were single-decker vehicles, with the fleet manned by 216 drivers and 107 conductors.
Every few months for the past few years, the Corporation had issued compulsory purchase orders on houses they deemed unfit to live in and wanted to demolish as part of their improvement schemes.
However, some of the residents with a long attachment to their homes would appeal against the orders to the Government.
A public inquiry was then held at St Helens Town Hall and an inspector would hear the evidence, inspect some houses himself and then later report back with his decision.
These almost always went in favour of the Corporation, as was the case this week. In fact it seemed pretty pointless protesting as even if you won your argument, you still lost your home.
Last August a public inquiry had been held over plans to demolish over 200 houses in the King Street area of St Helens.
A Department of the Environment inspector heard claims from the council that the homes had fractured walls, damp, poor sanitation, bad ventilation and were in a general state of serious disrepair.
The inspector had finally released his report and had come down on the side of seven of the applicants, who had argued their homes were perfectly habitable.
But it was a hollow victory for them as the inspector added that he thought the acquisition of those homes was "reasonably necessary for satisfactory development".
In other words you couldn't very well knock down 200 houses but leave seven standing and then build a new development – including roads and homes – around them.
There was the smallest crumb of comfort for the seven, as they were given the right to appeal against the inspector's decision.
The new Town Centre was slowly taking shape with many new schemes at different levels of completion.
The Pocket Nook development would be ready in the Spring and it was announced this week that what the Reporter called one of the town's "quaintest landmarks" would, as a result, soon disappear.
That was the timber and girder canal bridge at Pocket Nook, which was going to be dismantled.
The bridge had only been built 20 years ago but had been considered a nuisance to traffic.
A new road was currently being built at Pocket Nook and, when completed, another bridge would replace the older structure.
Sometimes the advent of new technology that would change the future was given much publicity in newspapers.
But at other times they were only mentioned in passing, as their importance was not yet realised.
On the front page of the Reporter on the 26th were these 27 words:
"Bleep calls are being tested by the Post Office. Pocket radio receivers will pick up a signal to tell the carrier he is wanted on the phone."
It would not be until the 1980s that pagers would take off and be the forerunner of the SMS text message.
St Cuthbert's School in Berrys Lane was the latest venue in St Helens to face the wrath of youth.
The Reporter revealed that 43 windows had been smashed over the two previous weekends, with headmaster Joseph Grundy telling the paper:
"It's sheer vandalism and it's sickening us all at the school. All these repairs have to be paid for and it's getting out of hand.
"We had similar trouble six months ago, then it stopped. Now it looks like it's started again."
Extensions were being undertaken at "St Cuthies" and Mr Grundy said the vandals had even used some of the pipes from scaffolding to smash windows.
There was an appeal in the Reporter for someone to adopt Tim, who had being taken in by the Molyneux family three years ago.
They had found the tiny puppy wandering outside a school in Knowsley and had brought him to their Woodlands Road home in Laffak.
But Tim had grown and grown since then and was now huge, as Helen Molyneux explained:
"We didn't expect him to be such a size. He's grown into the biggest Alsatian I’ve ever seen!"
Mrs Molyneux said her place was not suitable for such a large dog, adding that ideally Tim needed an owner with a big house and plenty of land:
"He's a beautiful dog and it would be sacrilege to put him down but unless someone will take him, I'm afraid we will have to."
The first strike at Stoves of Rainhill in the factory's 50-year history had not taken place until 1970. But since then the unions had been making up for lost time.
The latest dispute had been over 120 redundancies that Stoves' management had announced.
After being on strike for a week over the issue, the 1,000 workers had now decided to accept the shedding of jobs – but on two conditions.
First of all the redundancies initially had to be on a voluntary basis, and then on a "last in, first out" principle.
The unions said they would be meeting the management to see whether they would accept their demands.
I wonder when the term "surgery" was extended from doctors to MPs' meetings with their constituents? And when the term "the borough member" was finally dropped?
The latter was how our member of parliament was routinely called during the 20th century – at least by newspapers.
That individual in 1973 was Leslie Spriggs, who was the town's eighth borough member of parliament and its last sole representative.
In 1983 John Evans and Gerry Bermingham would represent the split constituencies of St Helens North and South, respectively.
On the 27th Leslie Spriggs was "available to constituents" at St Helens Town Hall with a flexible approach on offer.
You could write to the House of Commons for an appointment – or just turn up.
It was announced this week that Saints star John Mantle was to have a finger that had been "fractured beyond repair" amputated during the close season.
And finally a film guide. 'The Godfather's' long run at the ABC Savoy ended on the 28th when Kubrick’s controversial 'Clockwork Orange' replaced it.
And at the Capitol, what they called "one of the best horror films ever" was shown.
That was 'Tales From The Crypt' starring Peter Cushing and Joan Collins. "Make sure you bring someone with you!", advised their ad.
St Helens Reporter courtesy St Helens Archive Service at Eccleston Library
Next week's stories will include the row over the alleged lead poisoning of children, John Molyneux's VC is auctioned at Sotheby's, the extension of the Victoria Square war memorial and St Helens is revealed as one of the country's dirtiest towns.