From the Evening News, November 18, 1992 - TWO police officers dived for their lives when a gunman opened fire on a Bolton police station early today.

Traffic patrol officers Pc Alan Southern and Pc Will Stevens dropped to the floor of the canteen when the man brandishing the gun pointed it directly at them -- and fired. Four shots were fired at the Castle Street police station before the man fled on foot. The police officers who were shot at chased the gunman, who was arrested less than 400 yards away as he ran into a team of detectives who were on a stake-out.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

November 17, 1977

COUNCILLORS have decided for a second time that Bolton cinemagoers should be prevented from seeing "Emmanuelle". After a private showing of the 1974 French sex film, the 11-member Environmental Health and Public Control Committee decided to refuse permission for it to be shown in Bolton.

The film has already been shown in Bury, Walkden and Manchester.

Counc. Arthur Gledhill, deputy chairman of the committee, said the film was the "most obscene, most pornographic" thing he had ever seen.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

November 17, 1952

THE Dean of Canterbury, Dr Hewlett Johnson - the "Red Dean" - told an audience in Bolton Technical College last night that he would be a traitor to the religion he professes if he did not say to the Soviet Union "God speed you; you have done what we ought to have done."

The Dean spoke of the broad road "which leads to a thing called Communism, which is giving to everybody according to his need." If this country put itself in the same conditions as existed in Russia, it would be a mighty world, he added.

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

November 17, 1902

THE Mayor's Sunday in Bolton is an event which is always anticipated with a considerable degree of pleasure, both of those joining in the time-honoured procession to the Church, and by the public who assemble en route. Sunday last was no exception to this rule, and the weather being fine, though somewhat cold, there was an unusually large turn out of public representatives and private citizens, whilst the route from the Town Hall to the Parish Church was lined by many hundreds of spectators.

Last year it was a matter for regret that the procession was unaccompanied by a band, a feature which, on occasions of this kind, lends an added charm to the proceedings, but this year there was no room to complain on this, the Bolton Military Band figuring prominently in the procession.