Flights axed in airport strike

PETTY Officer Suzanne Haslam will be flying the Bolton flag in the world's biggest tall ships race - thanks to the efforts of kind-hearted Harwood people.

A massive fund-raising effort means that Suzanne can now take part in the prestigious event. The race is being organised by an international committee to celebrate Christopher Columbus's historic voyage to the New World 500 years ago. Suzanne, of Castle Croft, Harwood, is to set sail on the Francis Drake from Albert Dock, Liverpool, and her destination will he the Canary islands, from where she will be flown back to Liverpool.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

April 12, 1977

THE engineers' dispute at Heathrow became an all-out strike today, and it spread to Manchester Airport. Eleven flights from Ringway were expected to be axed this afternoon and this evening as a result of a walk-out by British Airways engineers in support of their London colleagues.

SENIOR doctors from the North-west are using jet-set working weekends on the continent to spy out chances of future employment abroad, a junior doctors' spokesman warned today. Dr Patrick O'Connor spoke of senior radiologists and anaesthetists who are earning £650 "clear" for a weekend's work in Europe, then returning to England to earn £150 for a full week's work. And the danger behind the new jet-set practice was that senior, skilled, doctors were being tempted into permanent employment abroad, leaving vital gaps in the already overstretched health service, he said.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

April 12, 1952

EASTER shopping brought crowds into Bolton town centre today, despite complaints from shopkeepers that the trade recession has restricted large-scale spending. Today is generally one of the quietest for trips to the seaside, but Ribble Motor Services ran 22 extra buses to Blackpool. Eight extra buses were run to Morecambe.

Women like to wear new hats at Easter, but a town-centre milliner said today that buying is not yet back to its pre-war scale; in fact, he had not done as much trade as last year. Women were buying more of the medium-priced hats.

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

April 12, 1902

A SERIOUS collision occurred shortly before eight o'clock this morning in Daubhill. An electric tramcar was proceeding towards the town when it came into collision with a brewer's dray, to which were attached three horses belonging to Magee, Marshall and Co., and which was in charge of Benjamin Lever.

The dray was proceeding out of Cricket-st. when the car struck the leading horse, which was knocked down and slightly bruised. Thomas Winterburn, a clerk employed at the Corporation Tramways Offices, who was riding on the front of the car along with the driver Benjamin Stephenson, was badly cut about the head, the driver also sustaining bruises about the head.

The dray was badly damaged, and the front portion of the tramcar, which at the time of the accident was proceeding about six miles an hour, was smashed in. The incident created considerable excitement in the vicinity.