From the Evening News, April 15, 1992 - AN investigation is underway into the discovery of a pile of General Election ballot papers found littering a Bolton street this week.

The ballot papers relate to the election held in the safe Essex Tory seat of Harwich, 350 miles from Bolton. A spokesman from Harwich said that all official ballot papers used in the Harwich election have been accounted for, and the most likely explanation is that they are printers' proofs. The several dozen ballot papers dated for last Thursday's election were discovered blowing about in Chorley New Road by an amazed Noel Spencer, husband of Kearsley councillor Pauline Spencer.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, April 14, 1977

THE BBC is setting up an independent and international broadcasting research trust to examine violence on television. This was announced today by BBC Chairman Sir Michael Swann in reply to the recent Annan Report on the future of Broadcasting, which criticised the amount of violence on TV.

BY 1984 it is possible that more than a million homes in Britain could be plugged into an information network more comprehensive than all the newspapers and periodicals published during any one week, according to today's New Scientist.

Just a local telephone away will be a public service called Viewdata, equivalent to at least 70,000 pages of text stored in a computer memory and flashed on domestic television screens. Run by the Post Office, the public service is expected to start early in 1980.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, April 15, 1952

DO you want a new car? If you have £1,300 or £1,400 to spare, you can get one from a Bolton dealer in about a month.

The snag is that if you have only a spare £500 or £600 you will have to wait for years. That is the situation in the motor trade at present. The demand for the more expensive types has fallen away completely, but there is still a long waiting list for the more utilitarian models. Bolton motor car agents are helping to conduct an inquiry on behalf of the "Big Six" manufacturers to find out how many of the people who ordered a new car in 1946 are still in need.

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, April 14, 1902

WE shall probably never hear the last of the discussion as to the composer of the air which we have long ago adopted as our National Anthem, but a lecture which Dr W.H. Cummings, Principal of the Guildhall School of music, gave at the Royal Institution on Saturday, contained sufficient evidence to convince any reasonable man that the real composer was Dr John Bull. Dr Cummings has been making researches into the authorship of the National Anthem for 40 years, and it is remarkable that his conclusions exactly coincide with the best opinions at the opening of the last century. Probably the words as we now have them were written by Ben Jonson, and were set to music by the bearer of our national nickname at the request of the Merchant Taylors' Company.

There is a tradition that it was first sung in their hall by the gentlemen of the Chapel Royal at an entertainment given to King James 1 on Tuesday, July 10, 1607, a sort of congratulatory feast on the King's escape from the Gunpowder Plot.