From the Evening News, August 7, 1976

25 YEARS AGO

BOLTON'S Destitute Animal Shelter is definitely not closing down! That was the message today from Shelter officials who claim they are astounded by rumours of closure.

WORK has started on the luxury £1,000,000 private hospital-cum-convalescent complex at the Last Drop Village, Bromley Cross. The proposed 24-bed hospital is expected to be ready in about 14 months.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

August 8, 1951

SIR,- Bolton is the largest town in the country and one of the largest in the British Isles, but shall we ever gain a greater status? One of the leading townsmen at the present time told me many years ago that one of the objects of the Town Council was to endeavour to raise the status of Bolton from that of a county borough to that of a city. What progress has been made towards that desirable end?

We speak with justifiable pride of our beautiful civic centre, of our lovely countryside, of the fact that Bolton is the centre of the fine cotton spinning industry, of our varied industries.

But the whole of these desirable attributes have not done as much to put Bolton on the map as our much maligned football club over the years. Yours, Boltonian.

125 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

August 8, 1876

MONDAY next, the 14th inst., is fixed as the day of execution of the culprits Fish and Thompson, who are at present in Kirkdale awaiting sentence of death.

The visiting justices had arranged that the parting interview between Fish, the Blackburn murderer, and his relatives, should take place on Thursday. This fact having been made public, there was quite a crowd - many of them from Blackburn - at the gaol gates, waiting to see the sorrowing kinsfolk of the unhappy man.

The relatives of Fish who visited him on Thursday were his wife, his two children, his mother, his uncle, and his brother-in-law. The parting interview was a most painful one.

Some of those present had seen many last partings in the condemned cell, but none so touching as this. Among the visitors there were those who cried bitterly, while others' sorrow was so great that they could not give it words, for it was the "grief that does not speak".

The unhappy culprit is resigned and cheerful. He says that there is no hope for him in this world, but that he hopes he is saved and forgiven. His manner is most gentle, and he obeys with the utmost docility the instructions of the prison authorities.