From the Evening News 1992 - SHOTGUN raiders escaped with more than £50,000 after two Bolton bank robberies within four hours.

Five terrified customers were threatened with a shotgun and machete in the biggest of the two National Westminster Bank raids. The first happened yesterday morning at the Derby Street branch of the bank, and the raiders fled with more than £47,000. In the second raid in the afternoon, a man brandishing a sawn-off shotgun burst into the Darwen Road, Bromley Cross branch, escaping with £3,000.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

October 24, 1977

BOLTON model turned actress Karen Palmer nearly lost her first major television part -- because she was too glamorous! Karen, a former Miss Bolton, of Cope Bank East, Smithills, takes one of the roles in a new Granada comedy series "The Girls". After the first audition she was turned down on the grounds that she was "too glam". But a subsequent audition, and a "de-glamorising session" led to the offer of a part.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

October 24, 1952

HAVE you any Forces wool? Don't shake your heads. Just have another look in those drawers and boxes where old bits of uniform and khaki and Air Force blue wool have lain, neglected and despised, since you, your brother, your father, or your husband, was demobilized. There must be pounds of Forces wool in Bolton, and the WVS needs it urgently, for comforts for the Forces serving in Korea. "We will knit the comforts," said Mrs E. Warr, organiser of the Bolton WVS, "although we would also welcome any ready-made garments which have been knitted in Forces wool."

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

October 24, 1902

THE Public Librarian (Mr J.K. Waite) has just issued his 49th annual report in which he records with pleasure a marked improvement in the use of the libraries. The special efforts which had been made to popularise the free lending libraries by forming a carefully selected collection of children's books for each of the five lending libraries had been much appreciated by the juveniles, who had been encouraged and assisted by the principal teachers of the town. A small library of Braille embossed books for the use of the blind had also been in great demand, and a very carefully selected list of standard works of science, history and economics has been purchased for the same libraries.