From the Evening News, November 30, 1976

25 YEARS AGO

STEPHEN Nightingale and his confectioner wife Lynn are determined to get a house of their own - even if it means taking time off work to queue for more than 33 hours outside Bolton Town Hall.

Stephen, a brick presser, aged 23, and Lynn, of Old Lane, Little Hulton, arrived in Le Mans Crescent to stake their claim at the head of the queue for tomorrow's monthly handout of Council mortgages. At 5am today, welder Roy Alan Sharples, 24, of Montserrat Road, took up his place. Five hours later the queue had grown to 13.

A £25,000 fire engine on its way to rescue a trapped man skidded on ice and ploughed into a bank today. The crew of five, cut and badly shaken, were taken to Bolton Royal Infirmary. One has been detained with a broken leg. The fire engine was extensively damaged after smashing into Williams & Glynn's bank in Bridgewater Road, Walkden.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

November 30, 1951

INVESTIGATIONS are being made into the cause of a fire that resulted in an explosion which injured five workmen early today at Wolstenholme Bronze Powders, Ltd., Springfield-lane, Dunscar.

In Bolton Royal Infirmary are William Porritt (36), 7, Marsden-st., Bolton, who has severe burns to the face and body, and James Walker (28), 18, Charles-st., and Arthur Glasgow (20), Heaton-rd., Lostock, both with burns to the face and hands. James Sayers (40), 221, Bark-st., and Frank Simon (36), 79, Castle-st., left after they had received attention.

The men, night shift workers, were tackling a fire in an aluminium grinding shed, when the explosion occurred. The blast tore away the shed's corrugated asbestos walls, cracked a 14in. protection wall in a nearby shed, and shattered the walls of sheds on either side.

125 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

November 30, 1876

AT a meeting of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, held on Tuesday evening, a paper by Dr W.A. Roberts was read on the adaption of the "Dental Burring Machine" to surgical and other operations. The machine, which was exhibited, is mounted on a stand, and is wrought by means of a shaft driven by the foot, which turns a driving wheel, the motion being communicated to a small wheel at the top of the stand, and thence to a tube to the working instrument, which is so fixed that it can be made to move in any direction and revolve with great velocity.

The instrument, which can work in the mouth, is at present used in dental operations in America; and Dr Roberts in his paper showed how, by the affixing of a small machine with a circular saw, it could be made exceedingly useful; in surgery, and rapid in its action. A member mentioned that a machine similar in construction, but stronger, had been shown in the Philadelphia Exhibition, and had been one of the most interesting of the small objects exhibited.