From the Evening News, August 16, 1976

25 YEARS AGO

POLICE ended violent clashes between members of the National Front and "anti-fascist" demonstrators in the Town Hall Square at the weekend.

Hundreds of shoppers milled round in confusion as police fought to separate the two factions when fighting broke out in front of British Home Stores, where National Front members were handing out anti-immigration leaflets.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, August 16, 1951

SIR,- I was a shop assistant some 20 years ago. I chose to work in a shop with its longer hours and smaller wages, for the advantages I preferred - meeting people, a dainty overall, clean hair and manicured hands. I worked from 8.30am until 8pm to 9pm on Saturdays with one half day.

My evenings of leisure were short, so I made the most of them.

All to often I have been attended to in recent years by self-centred young ladies who could not for one moment forget themselves to take any interest in me or the goods they were supposed to be selling.

They appear so resentful as if they had been forced into the job. I daresay many would prefer to be film stars. Who wouldn't?

But there are good shop assistants, and I appreciate them, along with other customers.

Yours, Miriam Greenwood, 16 Le Gendre-st., Tonge Moor.

125 YEARS AGO

The Evening News, August 16, 1876

ON Saturday a pleasant excursion, under the auspice of the Bolton Co-operative Society, was made to Chapeltown, when a party of 50, including half a dozen females, proceeded to the village by train, accompanied by the Rev J. Freeston, for the purpose of finding trees, flowers, and shrubs about which it was Mr Freeston's intention to lecture.

On arriving at Chapeltown, the party returned through the Jumbles, where many plants were gathered.

Several specimens of the "lipped" flower family, which had a very disagreeable odour, were plucked and commented upon as they passed along.

The party then took train at Bromley Cross for Bolton, and many of them partook of tea provided at the Co-operative Hall in Bridge-street, where, in the evening, Mr Freeston delivered a lecture entitled: "Botany, its advantages and pleasures".