From the Evening News, July 25, 1992 - DEVASTATED Bolton holidaymakers heading for Euro Disney and Rome were reeling today after the shock news that a major coach company had gone bust.

One Farnworth man could lose £7,500 on behalf of 124 people booked on a "dream trip". Coach firm Land Travel went into liquidation yesterday, and people are having to face up to the brutal fact that they will not get their money back. Land Travel, based in Bath, was not a member of the Association of British Travel Agents, which means that holidaymakers have no rights to a refund.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

July 26, 1977

A WOMAN of 84 faces eviction from her council house unless her daughter gets rid of a monkey she keeps on a lead in the front bedroom. Bury's Housing Director, Mr Frank Hilson, said today he was going ahead with a notice for Mrs Violet Howarth to quit her Central Drive home with her daughter Miss Margaret Howarth, 50, and Kim, the monkey, who is 15. Mr Hilson said he considered the monkey dangerous and a possible health hazard to future tenants.

A defiant Miss Howarth declared: "There is no way I am going to get rid of Kim. I've had her for almost 15 years and she's one of the family."

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

July 26, 1952

SIR, - I think Leverhulme Park should have a large boating lake, with a launch or two, similar to the waters of Taylor Park and Carr Mill Dam at St Helens. Both of these lovely spots are a source of pleasure to thousands of people in the summer, and I am sure that the boats pay for themselves and are a source of revenue to St Helens. Leverhulme Park need not be a "white elephant". It could be made into a splendid local holiday place as well as a place for evening and week-end recreation.

The Crompton lodges at Farnworth could be joined into one big sheet of water, and with rowing boats and launches, and with trees planted round the far sides, they could be made into a paying concern. It would be a source of pleasure to thousands of Farnworth and Little Lever people.

Yours, John E. Pickering, 35, School-st., Little Lever.

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

July 26, 1902

BOLTON is in difficulty with regard to those of her inhabitants from whom the light of reason has fled. Lunacy, without doubt, is on the increase. The hurry and rush of present day civilisation, the strain of competition in business, the labour-saving but at the same time nerve-trying inventions of the century, the telephone for instance - these and, it must unhappily be added, the ravages of spirit drinking, all tend to fill our lunatic asylums with those whose intellect is clouded with the dark cloud of insanity.

The latest development in regard to the matter has made the subject still more difficult for Bolton and some other towns; we refer to the Lancashire County Lunatic Asylums Act, 1902, the effect of which is that the County of Lancashire and the County Boroughs wherein will contribute to the maintenance of the Lancashire lunatic asylums in proportion to the respective use of the asylum, and not, as hitherto, in proportion to their rateable value. A meeting is now to take place with the view to building an asylum of our own for the accommodation of our own lunatics.