FORMER Bolton councillor Bill Hardman ironically endured years of jokes by his children about a fictitious town hall fire before the actual event.

Cllr Hardman's widow, Mrs Sharron Hardman, said: "Our children would sometimes tease him by rushing in and saying the town hall was on fire, they'd seen it on the news.

"On the first occasion he rushed to the radio or television to try to confirm the news.

"However, the joke wore thin very quickly and his reaction would then be to smile and say 'oh really'."

On the weekend of the fire, explained Mrs Hardman, her husband was away at a conference and the family had tried to relay the news of the blaze to him, by leaving messages at the hotel.

"Obviously he thought that these messages were the children's idea of a joke and he ignored them."

Some time later he did make contact with home, to check on his family, only to be told about the fire.

His initial reaction was to say "this has gone far enough -- it's not even funny any more".

Mrs Hardman said: "He took quite a lot of convincing that the fire was actually real and quite serious."