Flying saucer came over our house!

25 YEARS AGO

A BOLTON couple today described how a "flying saucer" hovered over fields near their home at midnight last night. Retired ambulanceman Mr William Eastham, aged 67, and his wife Edith were in bed when Mr Eastham says he saw a "strange object" above the trees opposite their home in Mitre Street, Astley Bridge. He said it was a spherical reddish object about five feet wide with a glowing silver ring around the outside. It moved slowly over the trees, rotating all the time. He said he watched it for about a minute then it disappeared below the level of the trees.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

September 25, 1951

INDUSTRY in the North-west faces a grim winter in view of a joint announcement today by the Regional Board for Industry and the North-western Electricity Board. The 1,500,000 electricity consumers in the North-west - industrial and domestic - will have "a fair shares for all" policy.

This means that industrial premises will be in the same danger of receiving electricity cuts as domestic consumers. There will be exemption for hospitals if cuts become necessary.

125 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

September 25, 1876

ON Saturday afternoon, dark clouds settled over the town, and after a lapse of half-an-hour loud peals of thunder were heard, intermingled with one or two vivid flashes of lightning. One of these did some damage to the house of Mrs Stubbs, the Wellington Inn, Bury New Road. A little girl, aged seven years, daughter of the landlady, was sitting alone in the dining room, when there suddenly came down the chimney a shower of rubbish, broken bricks, soot and flame, setting fire to the hearthrug. The child ran out terrified, but was uninjured, and all the inmates escaped unhurt. The lightning entered through the open window of a store house connected with the Wellington Inn, travelled through the room, and then left by the ceiling, the plastering of which was ripped open, revealing chinks in the roof, from which one or two slates were carried in broken fragments. One of these fragments was found in Radcliffe-road by a person who says he noticed the lightning emerging from the roof, and saw the broken pieces of slate and brickwork scattered to the ground.