From the Evening News, October 5, 1976

25 YEARS AGO

BOLTON'S Eagley Band has certainly "blown it". Blown themselves straight into the record books, that is. For the 26 members of the band are the new world record holders - for non-stop brass blowing.

Just after 3pm yesterday the band called a halt to a marathon 30 hours and six minutes non-stop playing at St Dominic's Youth Centre in Marsden Road, Bolton. They beat the previous record by over 80 minutes.

AN Israeli engineer has designed what he claims is the world's first solar-powered car. He predicts that in 10 years the country will be dotted with fuel stations where drivers will fill up on sunshine. "The trick is to park in the sun rather than in the shade as you normally would", he says.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, October 5, 1951

THIS has been an exciting week for 29-years-old tenor singer Fred Brown, 20, Mortfield-st., Bolton. He made his debut on the professional stage on Monday, and since then has been singing popular songs twice nightly to hundreds of people.

And where better to go to begin his professional career than in his home town? This is what Fred has done, for he has been the fourth act in the Grand Theatre programme. But no-one, apart from a few close friends who have visited the theatre every night, has known that he is a local boy. He has been singing under the name of Paul Brent.

"I wanted the audience to think I was a stranger, so that I would get a more true assessment of the quality of my singing from their applause," he said today. "I did not want them to applaud just because I was a local boy."

125 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, October 5, 1876

A SHOCKING accident, involving the loss of two lives, has occurred at the Lum-street Gasworks. In connection with the extension of the works, a plot of land formerly covered by cottages with gardens has been cleared, on which it is intended to erect a large coal shed.

Workers are now forming the bed of the shed, and a number of the Corporation labourers have been engaged in clearing the land, removing a quantity of soil which composed the gardens. Skirting one side of the ground is the stone wall forming the boundary of the present coalshed adjoining the retort house, and it was whilst removing the earth from the side of the wall that the mishap took place. Without any warning whatever, the wall, for about forty yards in length, gave way, being evidently forced out of its position by several hundred tons of coal which were stacked against it. Two of the Corporation labourers, named James Butler, of Stable-row, and Thomas Ryan, of Back Charles-street, were at the time engaged in filling a cart with the rubbish, when the debris came down upon them. Both were found dead. The horse and cart, the property of the James Dickinson, of Folds-road, were buried, the animal being killed.

The cause of the mishap was freely discussed by the persons attracted to the spot, and the opinion was expressed that the excavations had weakened the wall, the earth having been taken away from the foundations for between two and three feet in depth. Still with this amount of earth removed, the ground is still only a few inches lower than that on the other side of the wall.