From the Evening News, April 25, 1992 - SNAKES alive! Against all the odds, a stolen python has been returned to its owner.

Neil Barnard was celebrating today after his three-foot long Indian python was found alive. The thieves who stole the snake last week appear to have had a pang of conscience . . . and placed the reptile through the letterbox at Golborne Library. Staff found the snake and reunited it with 26-years-old Neil, from Leigh, who uses snakes, spiders, and iguanas in his World of Reptiles show at local libraries and schools.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, April 25, 1977

Bolton Council has lost a fight over the closure of a 400-yards long footpath at Heaton. The Department of the Environment has supported objectors and ruled that the path linking Victoria Road and Chorley new Road should remain open. Bolton Council, which had made the closure order, maintained that the path was no longer used or needed. However, the Ministry said that the path was a facility for which there was a definite need, irrespective of its apparent actual use.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, April 25, 1952

THERE seems to be nobody surviving today who can answer the problem, of how the Parish Church of Bradshaw came to be known as St Maxentius.

The Rev. S.H. Martin, a former vicar, who searched and wrote extensively about the history of the parish and the old church, whose tower still stands, admitted himself mystified by a name of which there is not another example in the country.

He tells us that Maxentius was patron saint of St Maxient, near Poiters, France, where Edward the Black Prince fought in 1356. He speculates that possibly the Bradshaw men were stationed there during the fighting. Or again that some family from that town came to Lancashire and kept alive their veneration of their saint by persuading the authorities to adopt him as their patron. Also in the mists of uncertainty is the date when the parish was formed.

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, April 25, 1902

THE attention of His Worship the Mayor (Ald. J. Miles) and Mr W.E. Walker, was directed at the Town Hall this morning to several painful instances of domestic infelicity. Mary Ann Delanty, who summoned her husband, Dennis Delanty, Independent-st. for persistent cruelty, informed the Court that she had not been to bed since Good Friday, because of her husband putting her out of the house the following Saturday morning. He had thumped her and kicked her, and although she had forgiven him many times, she could not stand his brutal conduct any more.- A separation order was granted, the wife to have the custody of the five children, and an allowance of 10s a week.

"I've bin in prison seven wicks and worked three, and eut o't money I earned I had fur't pay fourteen wick's meight. Heau could I pay my wife anythin'?" That was the problem which Thos. Fogg, labourer, 24 Lomax-st. asked the Magistrates to elicidate when brought up on a warrant for £5 5s arrears towards the maintenance of his wife, Esther Fogg. He had paid nothing since March 26th, it was stated. When interrogated by the Mayor for his reason of allowing his arrears to run on, Fogg explained: "I wur liked to get somethin' t'ate and clugs fur mi feet." - The Mayor: "You must pay the five guineas or a month's imprisonment." - Fogg: "Well, thanks, I corn't help it."