From the Evening News, December 7, 1992 - WORKING mum Joy Pennington has scooped a top national prize for doing what she likes best - looking after children.

Joy, aged 38, who lives off Church Street, Westhoughton, has won the 1992 Working Mother's Thank you Award, beating off hundreds of other competitors from all over the country. Joy has been a registered child minder for the past 14 years, and runs her own business, Happitots Nursery, at Wingates, with her husband David. The couple also run School's Out, a collection and care service for schoolchildren, based at the Lostock Parish Centre.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

December 7, 1977

STARSKY and Hutch, Match of the Day, and other top TV shows have been given a massive switch-off vote in a new television survey carried out by a group of Bolton teenagers. They voted for less violence, less sport, less crime and more variety, more culture, and more so-called information programmes. About 25 boys and girls, aged from 14 to 17, from the Christ Church, Heaton, Young People's Fellowship, spent three weeks watching television and listening to the radio to find out the effects of the media on everyday life. And their shock verdict on the TV box was - "We could live without it. It isn't really necessary."

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

December 6, 1952

SIR,- I would like to reply to Girl Student, who wrote a letter about the discipline of children. However, girls are no different from boys, prefects included.

As a bus conductor I have seen girls - 30 or 40 of them - fight harder than boys to get on the top deck of my bus. They have also pushed old people out of the queue to do this.

Once on the bus, the conductor has to persistently tell them to stand up for adults, and then put up with backchat and cheek.

This happens at one of the main grammar schools in Bolton. Yours, Bus Conductor.

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

December 6, 1902

SIR,- I have received from a Bolton friend a copy of your paper for October last, which contains a memoir of the late Mr Thomas Hardcastle, of Bradshaw Hall. In the said memoir a paragraph reads: "He had a passionate fondness for Bradshaw Hall and its historic associations. There are many antiquities in the old building, some being pieces of furniture which belonged to Judge Bradshaw, who resided in the hall in the seventeenth century, and who played a leading part in the trial of Charles 1."

I have been looking up facts recently relating to John Bradshaw, the Regicide, but in all my researches I have been unable to come across any record which said that the said John Bradshaw ever resided at Bradshaw Hall, Bolton-le-Moors. In 1620 a John Bradshaw did reside there, but he was not the John Bradshaw mentioned in your memoir." Yours etc., J. Renshaw, Oldham

(The statement that Judge Bradshaw resided at Bradshaw Hall was erroneous. He belonged to the Derbyshire branch of the Bradshaw family. It was his heir who purchased and resided at Bradshaw. - Editor).