FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK (28th SEPT. - 4th OCT. 1970)
This week's stories include the sinking feeling at Garswood station, a trade union conference to support sacked Pilkington workers, Calamity Jane and the Deadwood Stage arrive in St Helens, the reluctant postcode users on Merseyside and the new housing estates in St Helens.
We begin on the 28th when Gordon Edwards of Legh Street in Newton-le-Willows was one of two railway workers killed by a Manchester passenger train outside Warrington. Two other members of the maintenance crew were taken to hospital with severe shock. The four men had seemingly failed to hear the train as they had stepped back to allow another train to pass.
For two weeks from the 28th a mobile office was stationed on the Birchley Street car park in St Helens to promote Government Training Centres. They were offering six-month-long paid courses to teach the unemployed a trade, with help to find work at the end of the course.
The Liverpool Echo reported on that day that St Helens police were searching for thieves who over the weekend had entered the premises of Weald Park Engineering in Reginald Road and stolen brass swarf (chippings) and brass machine parts. These were worth a total of £200. Thieves had also broke into Clare's leather stall in St Helens Covered Market and got away with three anoraks, four leather belts and two boxes of belt studs. The Echo also reported that a blaze that had started in the kitchen had severely damaged St Columba's Hall in St Helens Road in Prescot.
A new series of Floodlit Rugby League matches began on the 29th on BBC2 with Saints taking on Castleford at Knowsley Road and beating them 14 - 7. John Walsh and Albert Halsall scored a try each for the home side.
'Carry On Up The Jungle' was shown at the ABC Savoy throughout this week with 'Sex Is A Pleasure' screened at the Capitol. That was apart from the 30th when 'Jane Eyre' starring Orson Welles was shown for one day.
On the 29th the St. Helens Society for Music and the Arts began their new season with a recital of chamber music by the Lancaster Ensemble String Quartet. As well as concerts and recitals, the society also hosted lectures and literary events and had as its secretary the St Helens chief librarian, Herbert Caistor.
On the 30th the Newton-le-Willows Wildfowlers and Clay Pigeon Association presented a tape recorder and a £20 cheque to the Mill House Centre for Mentally Handicapped Children in Newton.
1970 was (wrongly) being celebrated as the centenary year of Providence Hospital. On October 1st the Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr George Beck, celebrated a Mass at Holy Cross Church and an open day was held at the Tolver Street hospital. In reality Hardshaw Hall had not become a hospital until 1884 but the Sisters that ran Providence had been founded in 1870.
Also on the 1st a number of new housing estates were being advertised in the Liverpool Echo. The developers had been selling homes on the estate opposite Sherdley Park gates for two years. However more houses were being built and available to buy from £3,995. The minimum deposit was £195 and the weekly payments were £5 10 shillings.
Similarly priced homes on the so-called Mill Farm estate off Leach Lane in Sutton and in Old Whint Road in Haydock (opposite the Labour Club) were also advertised. A special saving scheme for newly-weds and "courting couples" allowed buyers to save their deposit over a 3 to 9 month period while their chosen home was being built. Presumably the courting couples were expected to tie the knot before moving in. It was, of course, still the era for those unmarried of being accused of "living in sin" or living "over the brush"!
On the 2nd the Echo gave this excellent review to a show being performed this week at the Theatre Royal: "What a difference it makes to a musical when you see a cast so obviously enjoying themselves as was the case in “Calamity Jane” presented by Pilkington's Musical Section at the Theatre Royal, St. Helens. The atmosphere of the wild and woolly West was immediately captured in the opening scene, the saloon bar of the Golden Garter in Deadwood City, Dakota. Here were the groups of cowboys, the card players, dancing girls and even an Indian or two, all in colourful costumes, milling around in the style familiar to us from the old Western films.
"The arrival of Calamity Jane with the Deadwood Stage brought the action to an uproarious climax. Maureen Smith, as the gal who could out-shoot, out-ride and out-drive any man, immediately stamped her personality on the proceedings. Although tiny of stature her energy and verve was infectious, and although in the general hullabaloo her tiny voice was lost in the early vocal numbers she made her mark in the lovely “Secret Love” number when she became more feminine.
"Ron Critchley made a commanding Wild Bill Hickok and John Draper was a more romantic figure as Lieut. Danny with Shirley McNamara and Judith Seddon by no means overshadowed by the rumbustious Calamity. Neil Makin as the worried proprietor of the saloon and Gordon Bowden as a variety artist forced to do a Danny La Rue act made the most of their comedy opportunities, and some good supporting character studies were contributed by Maureen Kinsey, Jim Walker, and Harry Mullaney."
Under the headline "The Platform Now Leaving Garswood Station", the Daily Mirror published this article on the 3rd: "It isn't just the trains that are leaving Garswood station. The two platforms are on the move, too. They've been sinking slowly into the ground for almost twenty years, while the trains have stayed strictly on the level. For passengers using the tiny station, near St. Helens. Lancs, it's meant a lot of trouble in the past. They have had to negotiate a tricky, two-foot-high space that has gradually opened up between the sinking platforms and the trains.
"But British Rail have found a way of bridging that gap – with two sets of wooden steps. As each of the forty trains a day pulls into the station, staff put the steps in position – and the grateful passengers can climb up and down safely. A British Rail spokesman said: “The platforms have sunk considerably because of mining subsidence. We make them safe from time to time, and now we provide steps for the passengers.” In fact, a pair of steps for each side of the track are listed among the station's official equipment. And a reserve pair is kept at area headquarters. As one passenger said yesterday: “At least it's a step up from other stations in the country.”"
Also on the 3rd Rushworth and Dreaper of Liverpool hired the Holy Cross Hall in Corporation Street to stage 'Rushworths Piano & Organ Show', which they described as a "one-day mini exhibition of the latest in pianos and organs". On the same day there were a record number of entries at the Rainford and District Cage Bird Society's Show, which was held in the village hall.
In October 1965 Tony Benn, the Postmaster General, had announced that the post-coding of letters would be rolled out nationally over a ten year-period after the piloting of the scheme in Norwich. However persuading people to write postcodes on their letters – especially when many sorting offices had yet to be converted to the new system – was proving tough.
On the 3rd it was reported that only one-third of the one million outgoing letters handled daily within the Merseyside district (including St Helens) bore the required postcode. The numbers of incoming mail that were correctly post-coded was 5 - 6 per cent higher.
"Getting through to the private individual is going to be our biggest headache", admitted a GPO spokesman, with most firms and businesses being compliant. However the coding of streets within the Merseyside district had only been recently undertaken, with Ormskirk the last town to be completed in June. Then the GPO began a promotional campaign in the Liverpool Echo appealing to local people to use their postcodes. You have to give the Post Office credit for a good sense of humour, as their adverts bore the headline: "Now You Can Tell Us Exactly Where To Go"!
About 800 delegates from many parts of the country attended a conference on the 3rd to discuss the "Pilkington struggle and the right to strike". The rebel Glass and General Workers Union had convened the meeting in Liverpool to support the men sacked by the glass giant and fight proposed anti-union laws that the Conservative government was planning to introduce. The union's secretary, Councillor John Potter, told the meeting that of 600 employees that had lost their jobs, only 350 had been re-engaged. And they had been forced to re-join the official General and Municipal Workers Union. The conference passed a resolution that demanded a campaign to implement the nationwide "blacking" of all Pilkington products.
On the 4th between 600 and 700 men and boys celebrated the 10th annual Rosary Sunday in St Helens with their traditional march to Holy Cross Church (pictured above). And during that evening, a gang broke into the garage of Tom Collins in Boundary Road by removing slates from the roof and they got away with 38 exhaust pipes and a couple of motor-cycle seats.
Next week's stories will include claims that St Helens had been conned over pollution in Sutton, the strange case of the Church Street safe at Eccleston Mere, the proposed sale of council homes and a campaign for the creation of ladies only rooms in town pubs.
We begin on the 28th when Gordon Edwards of Legh Street in Newton-le-Willows was one of two railway workers killed by a Manchester passenger train outside Warrington. Two other members of the maintenance crew were taken to hospital with severe shock. The four men had seemingly failed to hear the train as they had stepped back to allow another train to pass.
For two weeks from the 28th a mobile office was stationed on the Birchley Street car park in St Helens to promote Government Training Centres. They were offering six-month-long paid courses to teach the unemployed a trade, with help to find work at the end of the course.
The Liverpool Echo reported on that day that St Helens police were searching for thieves who over the weekend had entered the premises of Weald Park Engineering in Reginald Road and stolen brass swarf (chippings) and brass machine parts. These were worth a total of £200. Thieves had also broke into Clare's leather stall in St Helens Covered Market and got away with three anoraks, four leather belts and two boxes of belt studs. The Echo also reported that a blaze that had started in the kitchen had severely damaged St Columba's Hall in St Helens Road in Prescot.
A new series of Floodlit Rugby League matches began on the 29th on BBC2 with Saints taking on Castleford at Knowsley Road and beating them 14 - 7. John Walsh and Albert Halsall scored a try each for the home side.
'Carry On Up The Jungle' was shown at the ABC Savoy throughout this week with 'Sex Is A Pleasure' screened at the Capitol. That was apart from the 30th when 'Jane Eyre' starring Orson Welles was shown for one day.
On the 29th the St. Helens Society for Music and the Arts began their new season with a recital of chamber music by the Lancaster Ensemble String Quartet. As well as concerts and recitals, the society also hosted lectures and literary events and had as its secretary the St Helens chief librarian, Herbert Caistor.
On the 30th the Newton-le-Willows Wildfowlers and Clay Pigeon Association presented a tape recorder and a £20 cheque to the Mill House Centre for Mentally Handicapped Children in Newton.
1970 was (wrongly) being celebrated as the centenary year of Providence Hospital. On October 1st the Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr George Beck, celebrated a Mass at Holy Cross Church and an open day was held at the Tolver Street hospital. In reality Hardshaw Hall had not become a hospital until 1884 but the Sisters that ran Providence had been founded in 1870.
Also on the 1st a number of new housing estates were being advertised in the Liverpool Echo. The developers had been selling homes on the estate opposite Sherdley Park gates for two years. However more houses were being built and available to buy from £3,995. The minimum deposit was £195 and the weekly payments were £5 10 shillings.
Similarly priced homes on the so-called Mill Farm estate off Leach Lane in Sutton and in Old Whint Road in Haydock (opposite the Labour Club) were also advertised. A special saving scheme for newly-weds and "courting couples" allowed buyers to save their deposit over a 3 to 9 month period while their chosen home was being built. Presumably the courting couples were expected to tie the knot before moving in. It was, of course, still the era for those unmarried of being accused of "living in sin" or living "over the brush"!
On the 2nd the Echo gave this excellent review to a show being performed this week at the Theatre Royal: "What a difference it makes to a musical when you see a cast so obviously enjoying themselves as was the case in “Calamity Jane” presented by Pilkington's Musical Section at the Theatre Royal, St. Helens. The atmosphere of the wild and woolly West was immediately captured in the opening scene, the saloon bar of the Golden Garter in Deadwood City, Dakota. Here were the groups of cowboys, the card players, dancing girls and even an Indian or two, all in colourful costumes, milling around in the style familiar to us from the old Western films.
"The arrival of Calamity Jane with the Deadwood Stage brought the action to an uproarious climax. Maureen Smith, as the gal who could out-shoot, out-ride and out-drive any man, immediately stamped her personality on the proceedings. Although tiny of stature her energy and verve was infectious, and although in the general hullabaloo her tiny voice was lost in the early vocal numbers she made her mark in the lovely “Secret Love” number when she became more feminine.
"Ron Critchley made a commanding Wild Bill Hickok and John Draper was a more romantic figure as Lieut. Danny with Shirley McNamara and Judith Seddon by no means overshadowed by the rumbustious Calamity. Neil Makin as the worried proprietor of the saloon and Gordon Bowden as a variety artist forced to do a Danny La Rue act made the most of their comedy opportunities, and some good supporting character studies were contributed by Maureen Kinsey, Jim Walker, and Harry Mullaney."
"But British Rail have found a way of bridging that gap – with two sets of wooden steps. As each of the forty trains a day pulls into the station, staff put the steps in position – and the grateful passengers can climb up and down safely. A British Rail spokesman said: “The platforms have sunk considerably because of mining subsidence. We make them safe from time to time, and now we provide steps for the passengers.” In fact, a pair of steps for each side of the track are listed among the station's official equipment. And a reserve pair is kept at area headquarters. As one passenger said yesterday: “At least it's a step up from other stations in the country.”"
Also on the 3rd Rushworth and Dreaper of Liverpool hired the Holy Cross Hall in Corporation Street to stage 'Rushworths Piano & Organ Show', which they described as a "one-day mini exhibition of the latest in pianos and organs". On the same day there were a record number of entries at the Rainford and District Cage Bird Society's Show, which was held in the village hall.
In October 1965 Tony Benn, the Postmaster General, had announced that the post-coding of letters would be rolled out nationally over a ten year-period after the piloting of the scheme in Norwich. However persuading people to write postcodes on their letters – especially when many sorting offices had yet to be converted to the new system – was proving tough.
On the 3rd it was reported that only one-third of the one million outgoing letters handled daily within the Merseyside district (including St Helens) bore the required postcode. The numbers of incoming mail that were correctly post-coded was 5 - 6 per cent higher.
"Getting through to the private individual is going to be our biggest headache", admitted a GPO spokesman, with most firms and businesses being compliant. However the coding of streets within the Merseyside district had only been recently undertaken, with Ormskirk the last town to be completed in June. Then the GPO began a promotional campaign in the Liverpool Echo appealing to local people to use their postcodes. You have to give the Post Office credit for a good sense of humour, as their adverts bore the headline: "Now You Can Tell Us Exactly Where To Go"!
About 800 delegates from many parts of the country attended a conference on the 3rd to discuss the "Pilkington struggle and the right to strike". The rebel Glass and General Workers Union had convened the meeting in Liverpool to support the men sacked by the glass giant and fight proposed anti-union laws that the Conservative government was planning to introduce. The union's secretary, Councillor John Potter, told the meeting that of 600 employees that had lost their jobs, only 350 had been re-engaged. And they had been forced to re-join the official General and Municipal Workers Union. The conference passed a resolution that demanded a campaign to implement the nationwide "blacking" of all Pilkington products.
Next week's stories will include claims that St Helens had been conned over pollution in Sutton, the strange case of the Church Street safe at Eccleston Mere, the proposed sale of council homes and a campaign for the creation of ladies only rooms in town pubs.
This week's stories include the sinking feeling at Garswood station, a trade union conference to support sacked Pilkington workers, Calamity Jane and the Deadwood Stage arrive in St Helens, the reluctant postcode users on Merseyside and the new housing estates in St Helens.
We begin on the 28th when Gordon Edwards of Legh Street in Newton-le-Willows was one of two railway workers killed by a Manchester passenger train outside Warrington.
Two other members of the maintenance crew were taken to hospital with severe shock.
The four men had seemingly failed to hear the train as they had stepped back to allow another train to pass.
For two weeks from the 28th a mobile office was stationed on the Birchley Street car park in St Helens to promote Government Training Centres.
They were offering six-month-long paid courses to teach the unemployed a trade, with help to find work at the end of the course.
The Liverpool Echo reported on that day that St Helens police were searching for thieves who over the weekend had entered the premises of Weald Park Engineering in Reginald Road and stolen brass swarf (chippings) and brass machine parts. These were worth a total of £200.
Thieves had also broke into Clare's leather stall in St Helens Covered Market and got away with three anoraks, four leather belts and two boxes of belt studs.
The Echo also reported that a blaze that had started in the kitchen had severely damaged St Columba's Hall in St Helens Road in Prescot.
A new series of Floodlit Rugby League matches began on the 29th on BBC2 with Saints taking on Castleford at Knowsley Road and beating them 14 - 7.
John Walsh and Albert Halsall scored a try each for the home side.
'Carry On Up The Jungle' was shown at the ABC Savoy throughout this week with 'Sex Is A Pleasure' screened at the Capitol.
That was apart from the 30th when 'Jane Eyre' starring Orson Welles was shown for one day.
On the 29th the St. Helens Society for Music and the Arts began their new season with a recital of chamber music by the Lancaster Ensemble String Quartet.
As well as concerts and recitals, the society also hosted lectures and literary events and had as its secretary the St Helens chief librarian, Herbert Caistor.
On the 30th the Newton-le-Willows Wildfowlers and Clay Pigeon Association presented a tape recorder and a £20 cheque to the Mill House Centre for Mentally Handicapped Children in Newton.
1970 was (wrongly) being celebrated as the centenary year of Providence Hospital.
On October 1st the Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr George Beck, celebrated a Mass at Holy Cross Church and an open day was held at the Tolver Street hospital.
In reality Hardshaw Hall had not become a hospital until 1884 but the Sisters that ran Providence had been founded in 1870.
Also on the 1st a number of new housing estates were being advertised in the Liverpool Echo.
The developers had been selling homes on the estate opposite Sherdley Park gates for two years.
However more houses were being built and available to buy from £3,995. The minimum deposit was £195 and the weekly payments were £5 10 shillings.
Similarly priced homes on the so-called Mill Farm estate off Leach Lane in Sutton and in Old Whint Road in Haydock (opposite the Labour Club) were also advertised.
A special saving scheme for newly-weds and "courting couples" allowed buyers to save their deposit over a 3 to 9 month period while their chosen home was being built.
Presumably the courting couples were expected to tie the knot before moving in. It was, of course, still the era for those unmarried of being accused of "living in sin" or living "over the brush"!
On the 2nd the Echo gave this excellent review to a show being performed this week at the Theatre Royal:
"What a difference it makes to a musical when you see a cast so obviously enjoying themselves as was the case in “Calamity Jane” presented by Pilkington's Musical Section at the Theatre Royal, St. Helens.
"The atmosphere of the wild and woolly West was immediately captured in the opening scene, the saloon bar of the Golden Garter in Deadwood City, Dakota.
"Here were the groups of cowboys, the card players, dancing girls and even an Indian or two, all in colourful costumes, milling around in the style familiar to us from the old Western films.
"The arrival of Calamity Jane with the Deadwood Stage brought the action to an uproarious climax. Maureen Smith, as the gal who could out-shoot, out-ride and out-drive any man, immediately stamped her personality on the proceedings.
"Although tiny of stature her energy and verve was infectious, and although in the general hullabaloo her tiny voice was lost in the early vocal numbers she made her mark in the lovely “Secret Love” number when she became more feminine.
"Ron Critchley made a commanding Wild Bill Hickok and John Draper was a more romantic figure as Lieut. Danny with Shirley McNamara and Judith Seddon by no means overshadowed by the rumbustious Calamity.
"Neil Makin as the worried proprietor of the saloon and Gordon Bowden as a variety artist forced to do a Danny La Rue act made the most of their comedy opportunities, and some good supporting character studies were contributed by Maureen Kinsey, Jim Walker, and Harry Mullaney."
Under the headline "The Platform Now Leaving Garswood Station", the Daily Mirror published this article on the 3rd:
"It isn't just the trains that are leaving Garswood station. The two platforms are on the move, too. They've been sinking slowly into the ground for almost twenty years, while the trains have stayed strictly on the level.
"For passengers using the tiny station, near St. Helens. Lancs, it's meant a lot of trouble in the past. They have had to negotiate a tricky, two-foot-high space that has gradually opened up between the sinking platforms and the trains.
"But British Rail have found a way of bridging that gap – with two sets of wooden steps. As each of the forty trains a day pulls into the station, staff put the steps in position – and the grateful passengers can climb up and down safely.
"A British Rail spokesman said: “The platforms have sunk considerably because of mining subsidence. We make them safe from time to time, and now we provide steps for the passengers.” In fact, a pair of steps for each side of the track are listed among the station's official equipment. And a reserve pair is kept at area headquarters. As one passenger said yesterday: “At least it's a step up from other stations in the country.”"
Also on the 3rd Rushworth and Dreaper of Liverpool hired the Holy Cross Hall in Corporation Street to stage 'Rushworths Piano & Organ Show', which they described as a "one-day mini exhibition of the latest in pianos and organs".
On the same day there were a record number of entries at the Rainford and District Cage Bird Society's Show, which was held in the village hall.
In October 1965 Tony Benn, the Postmaster General, had announced that the post-coding of letters would be rolled out nationally over a ten year-period after the piloting of the scheme in Norwich.
However persuading people to write postcodes on their letters – especially when many sorting offices had yet to be converted to the new system – was proving tough.
On the 3rd it was reported that only one-third of the one million outgoing letters handled daily within the Merseyside district (including St Helens) bore the required postcode.
The numbers of incoming mail that were correctly post-coded was 5 - 6 per cent higher.
"Getting through to the private individual is going to be our biggest headache", admitted a GPO spokesman, with most firms and businesses being compliant.
However the coding of streets within the Merseyside district had only been recently undertaken, with Ormskirk the last town to be completed in June.
Then the GPO began a promotional campaign in the Liverpool Echo appealing to local people to use their postcodes.
You have to give the Post Office credit for a good sense of humour, as their adverts bore the headline: "Now You Can Tell Us Exactly Where To Go"!
About 800 delegates from many parts of the country attended a conference on the 3rd to discuss the "Pilkington struggle and the right to strike".
The rebel Glass and General Workers Union had convened the meeting in Liverpool to support the men sacked by the glass giant and fight proposed anti-union laws that the Conservative government was planning to introduce.
The union's secretary, Councillor John Potter, told the meeting that of 600 employees that had lost their jobs, only 350 had been re-engaged.
And they had been forced to re-join the official General and Municipal Workers Union.
The conference passed a resolution that demanded a campaign to implement the nationwide "blacking" of all Pilkington products.
On the 4th between 600 and 700 men and boys celebrated the 10th annual Rosary Sunday in St Helens with their traditional march to Holy Cross Church (pictured above).
And during that evening, a gang broke into the garage of Tom Collins in Boundary Road by removing slates from the roof and they got away with 38 exhaust pipes and a couple of motor-cycle seats.
Next week's stories will include claims that St Helens had been conned over pollution in Sutton, the strange case of the Church Street safe at Eccleston Mere, the proposed sale of council homes and a campaign for the creation of ladies only rooms in town pubs.
We begin on the 28th when Gordon Edwards of Legh Street in Newton-le-Willows was one of two railway workers killed by a Manchester passenger train outside Warrington.
Two other members of the maintenance crew were taken to hospital with severe shock.
The four men had seemingly failed to hear the train as they had stepped back to allow another train to pass.
For two weeks from the 28th a mobile office was stationed on the Birchley Street car park in St Helens to promote Government Training Centres.
They were offering six-month-long paid courses to teach the unemployed a trade, with help to find work at the end of the course.
The Liverpool Echo reported on that day that St Helens police were searching for thieves who over the weekend had entered the premises of Weald Park Engineering in Reginald Road and stolen brass swarf (chippings) and brass machine parts. These were worth a total of £200.
Thieves had also broke into Clare's leather stall in St Helens Covered Market and got away with three anoraks, four leather belts and two boxes of belt studs.
The Echo also reported that a blaze that had started in the kitchen had severely damaged St Columba's Hall in St Helens Road in Prescot.
A new series of Floodlit Rugby League matches began on the 29th on BBC2 with Saints taking on Castleford at Knowsley Road and beating them 14 - 7.
John Walsh and Albert Halsall scored a try each for the home side.
'Carry On Up The Jungle' was shown at the ABC Savoy throughout this week with 'Sex Is A Pleasure' screened at the Capitol.
That was apart from the 30th when 'Jane Eyre' starring Orson Welles was shown for one day.
On the 29th the St. Helens Society for Music and the Arts began their new season with a recital of chamber music by the Lancaster Ensemble String Quartet.
As well as concerts and recitals, the society also hosted lectures and literary events and had as its secretary the St Helens chief librarian, Herbert Caistor.
On the 30th the Newton-le-Willows Wildfowlers and Clay Pigeon Association presented a tape recorder and a £20 cheque to the Mill House Centre for Mentally Handicapped Children in Newton.
1970 was (wrongly) being celebrated as the centenary year of Providence Hospital.
On October 1st the Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr George Beck, celebrated a Mass at Holy Cross Church and an open day was held at the Tolver Street hospital.
In reality Hardshaw Hall had not become a hospital until 1884 but the Sisters that ran Providence had been founded in 1870.
Also on the 1st a number of new housing estates were being advertised in the Liverpool Echo.
The developers had been selling homes on the estate opposite Sherdley Park gates for two years.
However more houses were being built and available to buy from £3,995. The minimum deposit was £195 and the weekly payments were £5 10 shillings.
Similarly priced homes on the so-called Mill Farm estate off Leach Lane in Sutton and in Old Whint Road in Haydock (opposite the Labour Club) were also advertised.
A special saving scheme for newly-weds and "courting couples" allowed buyers to save their deposit over a 3 to 9 month period while their chosen home was being built.
Presumably the courting couples were expected to tie the knot before moving in. It was, of course, still the era for those unmarried of being accused of "living in sin" or living "over the brush"!
On the 2nd the Echo gave this excellent review to a show being performed this week at the Theatre Royal:
"What a difference it makes to a musical when you see a cast so obviously enjoying themselves as was the case in “Calamity Jane” presented by Pilkington's Musical Section at the Theatre Royal, St. Helens.
"The atmosphere of the wild and woolly West was immediately captured in the opening scene, the saloon bar of the Golden Garter in Deadwood City, Dakota.
"Here were the groups of cowboys, the card players, dancing girls and even an Indian or two, all in colourful costumes, milling around in the style familiar to us from the old Western films.
"The arrival of Calamity Jane with the Deadwood Stage brought the action to an uproarious climax. Maureen Smith, as the gal who could out-shoot, out-ride and out-drive any man, immediately stamped her personality on the proceedings.
"Although tiny of stature her energy and verve was infectious, and although in the general hullabaloo her tiny voice was lost in the early vocal numbers she made her mark in the lovely “Secret Love” number when she became more feminine.
"Ron Critchley made a commanding Wild Bill Hickok and John Draper was a more romantic figure as Lieut. Danny with Shirley McNamara and Judith Seddon by no means overshadowed by the rumbustious Calamity.
"Neil Makin as the worried proprietor of the saloon and Gordon Bowden as a variety artist forced to do a Danny La Rue act made the most of their comedy opportunities, and some good supporting character studies were contributed by Maureen Kinsey, Jim Walker, and Harry Mullaney."
"It isn't just the trains that are leaving Garswood station. The two platforms are on the move, too. They've been sinking slowly into the ground for almost twenty years, while the trains have stayed strictly on the level.
"For passengers using the tiny station, near St. Helens. Lancs, it's meant a lot of trouble in the past. They have had to negotiate a tricky, two-foot-high space that has gradually opened up between the sinking platforms and the trains.
"But British Rail have found a way of bridging that gap – with two sets of wooden steps. As each of the forty trains a day pulls into the station, staff put the steps in position – and the grateful passengers can climb up and down safely.
"A British Rail spokesman said: “The platforms have sunk considerably because of mining subsidence. We make them safe from time to time, and now we provide steps for the passengers.” In fact, a pair of steps for each side of the track are listed among the station's official equipment. And a reserve pair is kept at area headquarters. As one passenger said yesterday: “At least it's a step up from other stations in the country.”"
Also on the 3rd Rushworth and Dreaper of Liverpool hired the Holy Cross Hall in Corporation Street to stage 'Rushworths Piano & Organ Show', which they described as a "one-day mini exhibition of the latest in pianos and organs".
On the same day there were a record number of entries at the Rainford and District Cage Bird Society's Show, which was held in the village hall.
In October 1965 Tony Benn, the Postmaster General, had announced that the post-coding of letters would be rolled out nationally over a ten year-period after the piloting of the scheme in Norwich.
However persuading people to write postcodes on their letters – especially when many sorting offices had yet to be converted to the new system – was proving tough.
On the 3rd it was reported that only one-third of the one million outgoing letters handled daily within the Merseyside district (including St Helens) bore the required postcode.
The numbers of incoming mail that were correctly post-coded was 5 - 6 per cent higher.
"Getting through to the private individual is going to be our biggest headache", admitted a GPO spokesman, with most firms and businesses being compliant.
However the coding of streets within the Merseyside district had only been recently undertaken, with Ormskirk the last town to be completed in June.
Then the GPO began a promotional campaign in the Liverpool Echo appealing to local people to use their postcodes.
You have to give the Post Office credit for a good sense of humour, as their adverts bore the headline: "Now You Can Tell Us Exactly Where To Go"!
About 800 delegates from many parts of the country attended a conference on the 3rd to discuss the "Pilkington struggle and the right to strike".
The rebel Glass and General Workers Union had convened the meeting in Liverpool to support the men sacked by the glass giant and fight proposed anti-union laws that the Conservative government was planning to introduce.
The union's secretary, Councillor John Potter, told the meeting that of 600 employees that had lost their jobs, only 350 had been re-engaged.
And they had been forced to re-join the official General and Municipal Workers Union.
The conference passed a resolution that demanded a campaign to implement the nationwide "blacking" of all Pilkington products.
And during that evening, a gang broke into the garage of Tom Collins in Boundary Road by removing slates from the roof and they got away with 38 exhaust pipes and a couple of motor-cycle seats.
Next week's stories will include claims that St Helens had been conned over pollution in Sutton, the strange case of the Church Street safe at Eccleston Mere, the proposed sale of council homes and a campaign for the creation of ladies only rooms in town pubs.