CRAMPED coppers at Farnworth police station will soon be able to breathe more easily.

Bolton councillors have granted permission for a much-needed extension to the Victorian building, ending the need for filing cabinets to be stored in corridors and officers eating in a makeshift dining room. Space is so limited that in some parts of the Church Street building, built in 1879, two people cannot pass each other.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

August 30, 1977

APPRENTICE property repairer Stephen Peatfield ripped up floorboards in the front bedroom of a Bolton house last night, picked up two dusty objects . . . and immediately sounded the retreat. Stephen, aged 18, found himself dusting off a hand grenade with its pin still in and a shell, at the house in Seymour Road, Astley Bridge. A policeman arrived, promptly popped them into a bucket of sand, and a bomb squad called to defuse them.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

August 30, 1952

WHO is the person who rises at 5am and works hard during the whole of the day until after midnight? Not for five days a week, either, but for seven.The farmer's wife, of course. Particularly at harvest time she is up to prepare for the men, clean up, prepare a "break for the men at 8am, the 11am tea and sandwiches to make and take to the men in the fields. At 2,30 another snack in the fields, another at 4pm, and tea in the farmhouse between 6 and 7pm. Then there is supper at 10.30.The Bolton farmer's wife we spoke to told us: "The men work hard, and they must get plenty to eat." Incidentally, she told us that crops were yielding a good harvest this year.

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

August 30, 1902

THOMAS Bradshaw, 18 Milk-st., who has been out in South Africa with the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers for two years and seven months, was summoned to the Town Hall this morning by his wife Mary Ann Bradshaw, for using threatening language against her, whilst the husband summoned his wife for assault. Mr Fielding appeared in the interests of the male defendant, who, his wife alleged, picked up a big carving knife and flourished it, threatening to do for her, on Saturday morning. He returned from South Africa only five weeks ago, and apparently absence had not made the heart grow fonder, for the revelations pointed to very unhappy relations. On the case of assault being called up, Bradshaw alleged that his father-in-law struck him with a stick and knocked him down, and his wife hit hit on the arm and over the head with a poker. Both husband and wife were finally bound over the keep the peace for a month, and pay the costs.