FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (27th APRIL - 3rd MAY 1970)
This week's stories include strike breaking in the Pilkington dispute, the siege of Kirkland Street, a special reunion of priests at St. Anne's Monastery, claims of blood baths at the Greenbank British Legion and why Pat Phoenix was worried she might get a black eye in St Helens.
First the latest news on the Pilkington glassworkers' strike, which was now in its fourth week. Last week the glass giant had offered a £3 a week increase in basic pay as an interim award to get the strikers back at work. Then further negotiations would take place on a new wage structure. However the offer was rejected at two mass meetings, despite shop stewards recommending acceptance. Strike convenor Gerry Caughey called the award "chicken feed".
On the 27th the Daily Mirror reported a crisis in the car industry as it revealed that the glass workers at Pilkingtons had voted in a secret ballot to remain on strike. The paper described how a bottleneck in supplies of windscreens and car windows had led to Ford and Rootes losing £1 million a week. Another report stated that Jaguar had been forced to lay off 1,700 workers at its Coventry factory after the glass dispute had halted production.
On the 29th all strikers received a letter from Pilkingtons clarifying the details of its offer. They claimed that the average pay of workers covered by its Joint Industrial Council negotiating body would now average £33 per week. A mass meeting of 5,000 glassworkers took place on the same day at Saints ground in Knowsley Road. In a biting wind the strikers voted to stay out and they also gave a vote of confidence to their strike committee.
However there was less confidence with their union – the National Union of General and Municipal Workers – as it had yet to declare the strike official and give their members strike pay. Strike leader Gerry Caughey urged the men to march on their local offices in Kirkland Street and around 1,000 made the half-mile journey where they spent 45 minutes demanding the resignation of Bill Norton. He was the branch secretary and a crowd of men besieged him in an inner office, shouting: "Out, out, out". Glass partitions were also smashed and union correspondence was hurled out of windows. The Reporter wrote:
"For more than 30 minutes Mr. Norton was penned in the tiny office. Men stood on tables and chairs, shouting and stamping their feet. Books, paper and anything that came to hand were thrown at the office. As the crowd grew it spilled out into the street, blocking the road. A three-man police bodyguard forced their way through the mob and into the office. And it was only when one of the officers told the crowd Mr. Norton would talk to them from an upstairs window that they began to break up."
The Reporter then described how the besieged branch secretary had explained how he was in the same boat as them as a worker on strike but the men refused to listen: "More and more taunts were hurled at him by the crowd until his words were drowned in a wave of screaming." Mr Norton was asked by one of the men to make the strike official and his reply was that he had argued "till I am hoarse" with head office in London but they'd refused to agree. As a result of the incident the union had now closed down its St Helens office with GMWU business to be handled in Liverpool in future.
On the 30th Pilkingtons made the announcement that their £3 wage increase would be paid to all non-striking staff from May 2nd. The revelation caused fury amongst many of the 5,000 workers that had withdrawn their labour. Last week most of the Pilkington workforce in towns such as Birkenhead, Doncaster, Pontypool and St Asaph had decided to accept the £3 offer. Now the glass firm had decided to grant the award to their 3,000 hourly-paid workers in St Helens, as well as to their 7,900 office staff, making a total of 11,000 "stay-in" staff on the new money.
A small group of women had also returned to their jobs after crossing a picket line at the City Road works. The machinists were the first strike breakers and their actions infuriated the rebel leaders who took down their names. One told the St Helens Reporter: "We have no time for strike scabs. We will insist that they are dismissed before we return to work. They are undermining the dispute."
However on May 1st there were far more serious signs of disunity when a meeting of 1,000 strikers in the yard of the Grove Street Sheet Works led to angry scenes. Some wanted to return to work while others were in favour of staying out. Police formed themselves into human barricades to separate the two groups who shouted abuse at each other. A number of women went back to their jobs saying: "Our kids cannot live off you lot." Someone shouted at the strikers: "You are ruining the town and its economy" and the police had to move in to keep order.
And finally in this strike section of the article, this letter was published in the Reporter from someone who believed that the reduced industrial activity because of the Pilkington strike was improving air quality: "It is remarkable how clean and clear St. Helens air has become during the last two weeks. One can breathe deeply without too great a risk. Is it too much to hope that this clarity of the atmosphere will stay?" P. Blood, Liverpool. And now other news stories…
'Sooty's '70 Spectacular' was entertaining the kids at the Theatre Royal for a full week from the 27th. Harry Corbett used to travel by caravan and when performing in the district with his glove puppets would park outside the Wheatsheaf in Rainford. Before beginning his run in Corporation Street, Sooty opened the 'Nearly New Boutique' on the corner of Duke Street and Baldwin Street. This was a charity shop, which would only open for a week with proceeds going to the St Helens Blind Society. A raffle would also be held in the shop, with prizes of a rugby ball that had been signed by Saints' players and a signed photo of George Best.
'Easy Rider' starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper was screened at the ABC Savoy from the 27th, with the musical 'West Side Story' shown at the Capitol. The Geraldo Club had Brian Poole – minus the Tremeloes – performing at the Lord Street venue on the same day.
There was a free film show on the 28th in the Assembly Room of the Town Hall for those interested in emigrating to Australia. Experts on housing, banking, employment and emigration were on hand to answer questions.
There was quite a reunion at St. Anne's Monastery on that day too. Twenty-five years earlier a dozen priests had been ordained in Sutton and before going their separate ways they vowed to meet up again in 1970. Three members of the Passionist Order were unable to travel to Sutton to celebrate their collective silver jubilees.
However nine did show up to the event organised by the Rector of St. Anne's, Fr. Christopher Kelly, who told the Reporter: "For months I have been writing to them all over Britain, in Sweden and in America. It's quite a party." Fr. Gerard Mulveal arrived from Sweden and said: "This was a special vow we had to keep. I suppose we will never all be together again."
The St Helens Reporter wrote on May 1st: "Coronation Street glamour girl Pat Phoenix is worried about a St. Helens souvenir she doesn't want – a black eye." In ten days time, TV's Elsie Tanner would be appearing at the Theatre Royal in a production called 'The Miracle Worker' in which she had to tussle with another actress. Pat was still recording episodes of Coronation Street while on tour and said she'd hate to cause panic script rewrites to explain how Elsie had received a shiner.
A huge march took place in St Helens on the 1st as part of a campaign to get May Day recognised as an annual paid holiday. Factories and building sites throughout the town were affected as thousands of men and women downed tools and took to the streets.
The Reporter also revealed that gipsies had been banned from Greenbank British Legion after a pitched battle in which staves had been ripped off a garden fence and used to beat a man to the ground. Gladys Clitheroe's home in Liverpool Street faced the club and she said the fight had started last Saturday at 5pm. "We were just going to have our tea but no-one ate a thing. It turned us all sick. There was blood all over the place."
Neighbour Eileen Harrison was raising a petition, claiming such events at the club were common: "I don't want kiddies seeing blood baths every weekend." Club secretary Jim Buckley told the Reporter that he had now banned gipsies from the club but said claims that members were involved in regular fights were "ridiculous".
And finally there was an account in the Reporter of how Grange Valley Youth Club's football team had transferred to Haydock Conservative Club. The players had been having regular rows with officials at the youth club. So two weeks after winning a cup competition they had moved lock, stock and barrel to the Conservatives across the road. Apart from their shirts that is, as, playing for the Tories, they had changed its colour to blue!
Next week's stories will include violence outside Pilkingtons Sheet Works, a surprise intervention in the dispute by Barbara Castle, a surprise revelation concerning the council bye-law banning Sunday sport and a Sutton vicar considers setting up vigilantes to stop church vandalism.
First the latest news on the Pilkington glassworkers' strike, which was now in its fourth week. Last week the glass giant had offered a £3 a week increase in basic pay as an interim award to get the strikers back at work. Then further negotiations would take place on a new wage structure. However the offer was rejected at two mass meetings, despite shop stewards recommending acceptance. Strike convenor Gerry Caughey called the award "chicken feed".
On the 27th the Daily Mirror reported a crisis in the car industry as it revealed that the glass workers at Pilkingtons had voted in a secret ballot to remain on strike. The paper described how a bottleneck in supplies of windscreens and car windows had led to Ford and Rootes losing £1 million a week. Another report stated that Jaguar had been forced to lay off 1,700 workers at its Coventry factory after the glass dispute had halted production.
However there was less confidence with their union – the National Union of General and Municipal Workers – as it had yet to declare the strike official and give their members strike pay. Strike leader Gerry Caughey urged the men to march on their local offices in Kirkland Street and around 1,000 made the half-mile journey where they spent 45 minutes demanding the resignation of Bill Norton. He was the branch secretary and a crowd of men besieged him in an inner office, shouting: "Out, out, out". Glass partitions were also smashed and union correspondence was hurled out of windows. The Reporter wrote:
"For more than 30 minutes Mr. Norton was penned in the tiny office. Men stood on tables and chairs, shouting and stamping their feet. Books, paper and anything that came to hand were thrown at the office. As the crowd grew it spilled out into the street, blocking the road. A three-man police bodyguard forced their way through the mob and into the office. And it was only when one of the officers told the crowd Mr. Norton would talk to them from an upstairs window that they began to break up."
The Reporter then described how the besieged branch secretary had explained how he was in the same boat as them as a worker on strike but the men refused to listen: "More and more taunts were hurled at him by the crowd until his words were drowned in a wave of screaming." Mr Norton was asked by one of the men to make the strike official and his reply was that he had argued "till I am hoarse" with head office in London but they'd refused to agree. As a result of the incident the union had now closed down its St Helens office with GMWU business to be handled in Liverpool in future.
On the 30th Pilkingtons made the announcement that their £3 wage increase would be paid to all non-striking staff from May 2nd. The revelation caused fury amongst many of the 5,000 workers that had withdrawn their labour. Last week most of the Pilkington workforce in towns such as Birkenhead, Doncaster, Pontypool and St Asaph had decided to accept the £3 offer. Now the glass firm had decided to grant the award to their 3,000 hourly-paid workers in St Helens, as well as to their 7,900 office staff, making a total of 11,000 "stay-in" staff on the new money.
A small group of women had also returned to their jobs after crossing a picket line at the City Road works. The machinists were the first strike breakers and their actions infuriated the rebel leaders who took down their names. One told the St Helens Reporter: "We have no time for strike scabs. We will insist that they are dismissed before we return to work. They are undermining the dispute."
However on May 1st there were far more serious signs of disunity when a meeting of 1,000 strikers in the yard of the Grove Street Sheet Works led to angry scenes. Some wanted to return to work while others were in favour of staying out. Police formed themselves into human barricades to separate the two groups who shouted abuse at each other. A number of women went back to their jobs saying: "Our kids cannot live off you lot." Someone shouted at the strikers: "You are ruining the town and its economy" and the police had to move in to keep order.
And finally in this strike section of the article, this letter was published in the Reporter from someone who believed that the reduced industrial activity because of the Pilkington strike was improving air quality: "It is remarkable how clean and clear St. Helens air has become during the last two weeks. One can breathe deeply without too great a risk. Is it too much to hope that this clarity of the atmosphere will stay?" P. Blood, Liverpool. And now other news stories…
'Easy Rider' starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper was screened at the ABC Savoy from the 27th, with the musical 'West Side Story' shown at the Capitol. The Geraldo Club had Brian Poole – minus the Tremeloes – performing at the Lord Street venue on the same day.
There was a free film show on the 28th in the Assembly Room of the Town Hall for those interested in emigrating to Australia. Experts on housing, banking, employment and emigration were on hand to answer questions.
There was quite a reunion at St. Anne's Monastery on that day too. Twenty-five years earlier a dozen priests had been ordained in Sutton and before going their separate ways they vowed to meet up again in 1970. Three members of the Passionist Order were unable to travel to Sutton to celebrate their collective silver jubilees.
However nine did show up to the event organised by the Rector of St. Anne's, Fr. Christopher Kelly, who told the Reporter: "For months I have been writing to them all over Britain, in Sweden and in America. It's quite a party." Fr. Gerard Mulveal arrived from Sweden and said: "This was a special vow we had to keep. I suppose we will never all be together again."
The St Helens Reporter wrote on May 1st: "Coronation Street glamour girl Pat Phoenix is worried about a St. Helens souvenir she doesn't want – a black eye." In ten days time, TV's Elsie Tanner would be appearing at the Theatre Royal in a production called 'The Miracle Worker' in which she had to tussle with another actress. Pat was still recording episodes of Coronation Street while on tour and said she'd hate to cause panic script rewrites to explain how Elsie had received a shiner.
A huge march took place in St Helens on the 1st as part of a campaign to get May Day recognised as an annual paid holiday. Factories and building sites throughout the town were affected as thousands of men and women downed tools and took to the streets.
The Reporter also revealed that gipsies had been banned from Greenbank British Legion after a pitched battle in which staves had been ripped off a garden fence and used to beat a man to the ground. Gladys Clitheroe's home in Liverpool Street faced the club and she said the fight had started last Saturday at 5pm. "We were just going to have our tea but no-one ate a thing. It turned us all sick. There was blood all over the place."
Neighbour Eileen Harrison was raising a petition, claiming such events at the club were common: "I don't want kiddies seeing blood baths every weekend." Club secretary Jim Buckley told the Reporter that he had now banned gipsies from the club but said claims that members were involved in regular fights were "ridiculous".
And finally there was an account in the Reporter of how Grange Valley Youth Club's football team had transferred to Haydock Conservative Club. The players had been having regular rows with officials at the youth club. So two weeks after winning a cup competition they had moved lock, stock and barrel to the Conservatives across the road. Apart from their shirts that is, as, playing for the Tories, they had changed its colour to blue!
Next week's stories will include violence outside Pilkingtons Sheet Works, a surprise intervention in the dispute by Barbara Castle, a surprise revelation concerning the council bye-law banning Sunday sport and a Sutton vicar considers setting up vigilantes to stop church vandalism.
This week's stories include strike breaking in the Pilkington dispute, the siege of Kirkland Street, a special reunion of priests at St. Anne's Monastery, claims of blood baths at the Greenbank British Legion and why Pat Phoenix was worried she might get a black eye in St Helens.
First the latest news on the Pilkington glassworkers' strike, which was now in its fourth week.
Last week the glass giant had offered a £3 a week increase in basic pay as an interim award to get the strikers back at work.
Then further negotiations would take place on a new wage structure.
However the offer was rejected at two mass meetings, despite shop stewards recommending acceptance. Strike convenor Gerry Caughey called the award "chicken feed".
On the 27th the Daily Mirror reported a crisis in the car industry as it revealed that the glass workers at Pilkingtons had voted in a secret ballot to remain on strike.
The paper described how a bottleneck in supplies of windscreens and car windows had led to Ford and Rootes losing £1 million a week.
Another report stated that Jaguar had been forced to lay off 1,700 workers at its Coventry factory after the glass dispute had halted production.
On the 29th all strikers received a letter from Pilkingtons clarifying the details of its offer.
They claimed that the average pay of workers covered by its Joint Industrial Council negotiating body would now average £33 per week.
A mass meeting of 5,000 glassworkers took place on the same day at Saints ground in Knowsley Road.
In a biting wind the strikers voted to stay out and they also gave a vote of confidence to their strike committee.
However there was less confidence with their union – the National Union of General and Municipal Workers – as it had yet to declare the strike official and give their members strike pay.
Strike leader Gerry Caughey urged the men to march on their local offices in Kirkland Street and around 1,000 made the half-mile journey where they spent 45 minutes demanding the resignation of Bill Norton.
He was the branch secretary and a crowd of men besieged him in an inner office, shouting: "Out, out, out".
Glass partitions were also smashed and union correspondence was hurled out of windows. The Reporter wrote:
"For more than 30 minutes Mr. Norton was penned in the tiny office. Men stood on tables and chairs, shouting and stamping their feet. Books, paper and anything that came to hand were thrown at the office. As the crowd grew it spilled out into the street, blocking the road.
"A three-man police bodyguard forced their way through the mob and into the office. And it was only when one of the officers told the crowd Mr. Norton would talk to them from an upstairs window that they began to break up."
The Reporter then described how the besieged branch secretary had explained how he was in the same boat as them as a worker on strike but the men refused to listen:
"More and more taunts were hurled at him by the crowd until his words were drowned in a wave of screaming."
Mr Norton was asked by one of the men to make the strike official and his reply was that he had argued "till I am hoarse" with head office in London but they'd refused to agree.
As a result of the incident the union had now closed down its St Helens office with GMWU business to be handled in Liverpool in future.
On the 30th Pilkingtons made the announcement that their £3 wage increase would be paid to all non-striking staff from May 2nd.
The revelation caused fury amongst many of the 5,000 workers that had withdrawn their labour.
Last week most of the Pilkington workforce in towns such as Birkenhead, Doncaster, Pontypool and St Asaph had decided to accept the £3 offer.
Now the glass firm had decided to grant the award to their 3,000 hourly-paid workers in St Helens, as well as to their 7,900 office staff, making a total of 11,000 "stay-in" staff on the new money.
A small group of women had also returned to their jobs after crossing a picket line at the City Road works.
The machinists were the first strike breakers and their actions infuriated the rebel leaders who took down their names.
One told the St Helens Reporter: "We have no time for strike scabs. We will insist that they are dismissed before we return to work. They are undermining the dispute."
However on May 1st there were far more serious signs of disunity when a meeting of 1,000 strikers in the yard of the Grove Street Sheet Works led to angry scenes.
Some wanted to return to work while others were in favour of staying out. Police formed themselves into human barricades to separate the two groups who shouted abuse at each other.
A number of women went back to their jobs saying: "Our kids cannot live off you lot."
Someone shouted at the strikers: "You are ruining the town and its economy" and the police had to move in to keep order.
And finally in this strike section of the article, this letter was published in the Reporter from someone who believed that the reduced industrial activity because of the Pilkington strike was improving air quality:
"It is remarkable how clean and clear St. Helens air has become during the last two weeks. One can breathe deeply without too great a risk. Is it too much to hope that this clarity of the atmosphere will stay?" – P. Blood, Liverpool. And now other news stories…
'Sooty's '70 Spectacular' was entertaining the kids at the Theatre Royal in Corporation Street in St Helens for a full week from the 27th.
Harry Corbett used to travel by caravan and when performing in the district with his glove puppets would park outside the Wheatsheaf in Rainford.
Before beginning his run at the theatre, Sooty opened the 'Nearly New Boutique' on the corner of Duke Street and Baldwin Street.
This was a charity shop, which would only open for a week with proceeds going to the St Helens Blind Society.
A raffle would also be held in the shop, with prizes of a rugby ball that had been signed by Saints' players and a signed photo of George Best.
'Easy Rider' starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper was screened at the ABC Savoy from the 27th, with the musical 'West Side Story' shown at the Capitol.
The Geraldo Club had Brian Poole – minus the Tremeloes – performing at the Lord Street venue on the same day.
There was a free film show on the 28th in the Assembly Room of the Town Hall for those interested in emigrating to Australia.
Experts on housing, banking, employment and emigration were on hand to answer questions.
There was quite a reunion at St. Anne's Monastery on that day too.
Twenty-five years earlier a dozen priests had been ordained in Sutton and before going their separate ways they vowed to meet up again in 1970.
Three members of the Passionist Order were unable to travel to Sutton to celebrate their collective silver jubilees.
However nine did show up to the event organised by the Rector of St. Anne's, Fr. Christopher Kelly, who told the Reporter:
"For months I have been writing to them all over Britain, in Sweden and in America. It's quite a party."
Fr. Gerard Mulveal arrived from Sweden and said: "This was a special vow we had to keep. I suppose we will never all be together again."
The St Helens Reporter wrote on May 1st: "Coronation Street glamour girl Pat Phoenix is worried about a St. Helens souvenir she doesn't want – a black eye."
In ten days time, TV's Elsie Tanner would be appearing at the Theatre Royal in a production called 'The Miracle Worker' in which she had to tussle with another actress.
Pat was still recording episodes of Coronation Street while on tour and said she'd hate to cause panic script rewrites to explain how Elsie had received a shiner.
A huge march took place in St Helens on the 1st as part of a campaign to get May Day recognised as an annual paid holiday.
Factories and building sites throughout the town were affected as thousands of men and women downed tools and took to the streets.
The Reporter also revealed that gipsies had been banned from Greenbank British Legion after a pitched battle in which staves had been ripped off a garden fence and used to beat a man to the ground.
Gladys Clitheroe's home in Liverpool Street faced the club and she said the fight had started last Saturday at 5pm.
"We were just going to have our tea but no-one ate a thing. It turned us all sick. There was blood all over the place."
Neighbour Eileen Harrison was raising a petition, claiming such events at the club were common: "I don't want kiddies seeing blood baths every weekend."
Club secretary Jim Buckley told the Reporter that he had now banned gipsies from the club but said claims that members were involved in regular fights were "ridiculous".
And finally there was an account in the Reporter of how Grange Valley Youth Club's football team had transferred to Haydock Conservative Club.
The players had been having regular rows with officials at the youth club.
So two weeks after winning a cup competition they had moved lock, stock and barrel to the Conservatives across the road.
Apart from their shirts that is, as, playing for the Tories, they had changed its colour to blue!
Next week's stories will include violence outside Pilkingtons Sheet Works, a surprise intervention in the dispute by Barbara Castle, a surprise revelation concerning the council bye-law banning Sunday sport and a Sutton vicar considers setting up vigilantes to stop church vandalism.
First the latest news on the Pilkington glassworkers' strike, which was now in its fourth week.
Last week the glass giant had offered a £3 a week increase in basic pay as an interim award to get the strikers back at work.
Then further negotiations would take place on a new wage structure.
However the offer was rejected at two mass meetings, despite shop stewards recommending acceptance. Strike convenor Gerry Caughey called the award "chicken feed".
On the 27th the Daily Mirror reported a crisis in the car industry as it revealed that the glass workers at Pilkingtons had voted in a secret ballot to remain on strike.
The paper described how a bottleneck in supplies of windscreens and car windows had led to Ford and Rootes losing £1 million a week.
Another report stated that Jaguar had been forced to lay off 1,700 workers at its Coventry factory after the glass dispute had halted production.
They claimed that the average pay of workers covered by its Joint Industrial Council negotiating body would now average £33 per week.
A mass meeting of 5,000 glassworkers took place on the same day at Saints ground in Knowsley Road.
In a biting wind the strikers voted to stay out and they also gave a vote of confidence to their strike committee.
However there was less confidence with their union – the National Union of General and Municipal Workers – as it had yet to declare the strike official and give their members strike pay.
Strike leader Gerry Caughey urged the men to march on their local offices in Kirkland Street and around 1,000 made the half-mile journey where they spent 45 minutes demanding the resignation of Bill Norton.
He was the branch secretary and a crowd of men besieged him in an inner office, shouting: "Out, out, out".
Glass partitions were also smashed and union correspondence was hurled out of windows. The Reporter wrote:
"For more than 30 minutes Mr. Norton was penned in the tiny office. Men stood on tables and chairs, shouting and stamping their feet. Books, paper and anything that came to hand were thrown at the office. As the crowd grew it spilled out into the street, blocking the road.
"A three-man police bodyguard forced their way through the mob and into the office. And it was only when one of the officers told the crowd Mr. Norton would talk to them from an upstairs window that they began to break up."
The Reporter then described how the besieged branch secretary had explained how he was in the same boat as them as a worker on strike but the men refused to listen:
"More and more taunts were hurled at him by the crowd until his words were drowned in a wave of screaming."
Mr Norton was asked by one of the men to make the strike official and his reply was that he had argued "till I am hoarse" with head office in London but they'd refused to agree.
As a result of the incident the union had now closed down its St Helens office with GMWU business to be handled in Liverpool in future.
On the 30th Pilkingtons made the announcement that their £3 wage increase would be paid to all non-striking staff from May 2nd.
The revelation caused fury amongst many of the 5,000 workers that had withdrawn their labour.
Last week most of the Pilkington workforce in towns such as Birkenhead, Doncaster, Pontypool and St Asaph had decided to accept the £3 offer.
Now the glass firm had decided to grant the award to their 3,000 hourly-paid workers in St Helens, as well as to their 7,900 office staff, making a total of 11,000 "stay-in" staff on the new money.
A small group of women had also returned to their jobs after crossing a picket line at the City Road works.
The machinists were the first strike breakers and their actions infuriated the rebel leaders who took down their names.
One told the St Helens Reporter: "We have no time for strike scabs. We will insist that they are dismissed before we return to work. They are undermining the dispute."
However on May 1st there were far more serious signs of disunity when a meeting of 1,000 strikers in the yard of the Grove Street Sheet Works led to angry scenes.
Some wanted to return to work while others were in favour of staying out. Police formed themselves into human barricades to separate the two groups who shouted abuse at each other.
A number of women went back to their jobs saying: "Our kids cannot live off you lot."
Someone shouted at the strikers: "You are ruining the town and its economy" and the police had to move in to keep order.
And finally in this strike section of the article, this letter was published in the Reporter from someone who believed that the reduced industrial activity because of the Pilkington strike was improving air quality:
"It is remarkable how clean and clear St. Helens air has become during the last two weeks. One can breathe deeply without too great a risk. Is it too much to hope that this clarity of the atmosphere will stay?" – P. Blood, Liverpool. And now other news stories…
Harry Corbett used to travel by caravan and when performing in the district with his glove puppets would park outside the Wheatsheaf in Rainford.
This was a charity shop, which would only open for a week with proceeds going to the St Helens Blind Society.
A raffle would also be held in the shop, with prizes of a rugby ball that had been signed by Saints' players and a signed photo of George Best.
'Easy Rider' starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper was screened at the ABC Savoy from the 27th, with the musical 'West Side Story' shown at the Capitol.
The Geraldo Club had Brian Poole – minus the Tremeloes – performing at the Lord Street venue on the same day.
There was a free film show on the 28th in the Assembly Room of the Town Hall for those interested in emigrating to Australia.
Experts on housing, banking, employment and emigration were on hand to answer questions.
There was quite a reunion at St. Anne's Monastery on that day too.
Twenty-five years earlier a dozen priests had been ordained in Sutton and before going their separate ways they vowed to meet up again in 1970.
Three members of the Passionist Order were unable to travel to Sutton to celebrate their collective silver jubilees.
However nine did show up to the event organised by the Rector of St. Anne's, Fr. Christopher Kelly, who told the Reporter:
"For months I have been writing to them all over Britain, in Sweden and in America. It's quite a party."
Fr. Gerard Mulveal arrived from Sweden and said: "This was a special vow we had to keep. I suppose we will never all be together again."
The St Helens Reporter wrote on May 1st: "Coronation Street glamour girl Pat Phoenix is worried about a St. Helens souvenir she doesn't want – a black eye."
In ten days time, TV's Elsie Tanner would be appearing at the Theatre Royal in a production called 'The Miracle Worker' in which she had to tussle with another actress.
Pat was still recording episodes of Coronation Street while on tour and said she'd hate to cause panic script rewrites to explain how Elsie had received a shiner.
A huge march took place in St Helens on the 1st as part of a campaign to get May Day recognised as an annual paid holiday.
Factories and building sites throughout the town were affected as thousands of men and women downed tools and took to the streets.
The Reporter also revealed that gipsies had been banned from Greenbank British Legion after a pitched battle in which staves had been ripped off a garden fence and used to beat a man to the ground.
Gladys Clitheroe's home in Liverpool Street faced the club and she said the fight had started last Saturday at 5pm.
"We were just going to have our tea but no-one ate a thing. It turned us all sick. There was blood all over the place."
Neighbour Eileen Harrison was raising a petition, claiming such events at the club were common: "I don't want kiddies seeing blood baths every weekend."
Club secretary Jim Buckley told the Reporter that he had now banned gipsies from the club but said claims that members were involved in regular fights were "ridiculous".
And finally there was an account in the Reporter of how Grange Valley Youth Club's football team had transferred to Haydock Conservative Club.
The players had been having regular rows with officials at the youth club.
So two weeks after winning a cup competition they had moved lock, stock and barrel to the Conservatives across the road.
Apart from their shirts that is, as, playing for the Tories, they had changed its colour to blue!
Next week's stories will include violence outside Pilkingtons Sheet Works, a surprise intervention in the dispute by Barbara Castle, a surprise revelation concerning the council bye-law banning Sunday sport and a Sutton vicar considers setting up vigilantes to stop church vandalism.