Crowd safety measures needed at Gigg Lane

25 YEARS AGO

BURY'S football ground should be shut down unless crowd safety measures are carried out, say the police. The police describe the ground as a potential battlefield of missiles. A spokesman listed the hazards faced by officers on match day extra duty as

Broken masonry around the ground perimeter and piles of bricks behind one stand.

Stones, bottles and pieces of wood on the terraces, and crumpled tarmacadam on the club car park

Lengths of tubular steel accessible to hooligans.

He said that six policemen have been injured on duty at Gigg Lane this season.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

November 2, 1951

ALTHOUGH the dream home nearly always includes a kitchen packed with labour-saving devices, it is found, in practice, that one can have too many of such aids. Experience shows that "few but good" is the best rule.

An ingenious new washing aid is the enamelled trident, which you place in the sink, with detachable mesh to keep the clothing down, and an air-hose connected to a vacuum cleaner.

Switch on the vacuum cleaner, and the hot water in the sink bubbles and eases the lather through the fabric of the clothes, removing dirt and grease without rubbing. The washing is rinsed in the same way.

In some homes the essential aid is a wringer with open-ended rollers guaranteeing that no buttons nor hooks will get broken.

The wringer can be fastened to an ordinary porcelain sink, so that water wrung from the clothes runs straight into the sink, doing away with buckets and baths, leaving no mess to clear up afterwards.

125 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

November 2, 1876

YESTERDAY witnessed for the first time since George the Second was king a free and uninterrupted highway between the Borough of Bolton and the city of Manchester.

This has been effected by the removal of the toll gates at Moses Gate, Farnworth, and Kearsley Moor, Kearsley, in accordance with the terms of the 53rd section of an Act of Parliament relating to the Moses Gate and Ringley Branch Turnpike Road, which act received the Royal assent on the 45th July, 1865, and repealed a former Act passed in the third year of the reign (1833) of His Majesty King William the Fourth, which last Act also repealed one passed in the reign of George the Fourth.

Shortly after eleven o'clock on Tuesday night a throng of persons began to assemble at the Moses Gate tollbar to witness its extinction, and at midnight the throng numbered no less than 100 persons.

As the witching hour of twelve approached the interest in the proceedings increased, until the climax was reached by the approach of two vehicles, one commissioned to be the last to pay the toll, and the other to pass through the gates toll free.

One passed through (the driver having been bribed with the price of a pint of beer). The noon of night being now at full, the second vehicle approached, and the toll gate being thrown wide open, the horse stepped only one or two yards through it when it began to rear and plunge most violently, and overturned the body of the vehicle, including its occupants.

It needed nothing to induce the late occupants of the vehicle to gather themselves up from the pavement and remove to a safe distance. We are pleased to report that no personal injuries were sustained.