MEMORIES of political meetings outside Bolton Town Hall have been evoked by recent Looking Back items.

You may recall that Harold Owen of Armadale Road, Bolton, remembered a demonstration by the Unemployed Workers' Union in the 1930s.

The message, which protested about a new cycle allowance for policemen, was "Half a crown for bobby's bike - two shillings for unemployed man's child."

Well, Linda Smith of Orwell Road, Bolton, tells me that her late mother, Christina Howarth, was probably one of the organisers.

Linda, who is 85, says Christina ran the Bolton Unemployed Workers' Movement in the town and was a prominent campaigner for people's rights.

Christina, who was 100 when she died in 1996, was moved by the poverty and unemployment she saw around her after the first world war. She stood twice - unsuccessfully - for election to Bolton Council, and went on hunger marches including the Scottish women's march to London in the mid 1930s.

Linda remembers helping at the Christmas parties her mother used to organise in Bolton for various poor people who were in need of help.

"Poverty was rampant in those days," Linda says.

By all accounts Christina was a remarkable woman who did her best to make a difference.

Linda believes her mother would have been a Suffragette if she had been born a little earlier.

Christina began work in the textile mills at the age of 12 and continued working after her marriage in 1917 to her first husband, William Bentley.

She was Christina Bentley when she stood as an Independent candidate in West Ward in the 1930s.

We can understand the politics of the times when we read one of her election addresses.

She wrote: "My policy is for the clearing of slums, the building of new houses at reasonable rents for the poorer classes, the making of new reservoirs, road repairing and the making of the suggested Lido at Moss Bank Park.

"I shall fight strenuously for work to be given to the able-bodied unemployed at trade union wage, thereby relieving the rates.

"I shall also advocate free milk for the school children whose parents are unable to pay for it.

"I am a representative of the Bolton Unemployed Council and will strongly oppose the New Unemployment Bill, also the Sedition Bill, also Fascism."

Other interests included clinics, maternity and matters of public health.

As part of the textile trade union movement, Christina was a delegate to Russia for three weeks in 1932, visiting Communist factories and the famous Red Square.