25 YEARS AGO From the Evening News, July 6, 1976

THE Lancashire Riviera continues to top the British sunshine league. For the sixth day running, Blackpool baked yesterday in higher temperatures than Majorca.

It's been the hottest coastal resort in Britain for the past four days with thermometer peaks of 90, 93, 88 and 90F.

Southport leads in the sunshine stakes with an incredible 141 hours in the past 10 days - the highest in Britain.

MR Denis Howell, Minister for Sport and Recreation, is consulting local authorities and other bodies about a massive Government scheme to curb Britain's dog population. It could lead to a ten-fold increase in licence fees, a round-up of strays and unlicensed dogs, and restrictions on where animals can be exercised.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

July 6, 1951

BOLTON cinemas and theatres are sharing in a boom week, in spite of the fact that so many thousands of people are away on holiday.

Queues have formed in the evening outside several town-centre cinemas, as people who have stayed at home, bored with the unsettled weather, have decided to spend the evening at the cinema. Full houses are reported from several cinemas, and the Grand has been having a particularly successful week, too.

125 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

July 6, 1876

AN important branch of work in connection with the Turton and Entwistle water scheme has just been completed. The inhabitants of the high-level districts of Daubhill, Middle Hulton, and Heaton have had cause to complain of scarcity of water. The Corporation, to provide a plentiful supply to those as well as other parts, have laid mains above the Sweetloves Reservoir, conveying the Entwistle water direct to the Heaton reservoir, which might thus always be kept as near full as possible.

The distance over which the pipes are laid is about two miles and a half, the direction from Sweetloves being through Smithills Park, across Chorley Old-road, and thence through the fields to the connecting point with Heaton reservoirs. The mains, which are 18 inch, were "pieced up" into the 24 inch mains from Egerton tunnel on Saturday. On Tuesday morning, the water was officially turned on.

It is intended to keep the mains in continuous use, thus conferring a boom upon the inhabitants in the outlying districts already mentioned, which they cannot fail greatly to appreciate.