25 YEARS AGO

A 'POTATOES for pensioners" appeal launched by a Bolton cinema got off to a flying start today with a 56lb donation by an Ashburner Street market trader. And film and television star Sally Thomsett was at the Odeon children's matinee to receive the first potatoes from young patrons. The "give-a-spud" is the idea of Odeon manager Mr Alan Mason, whose plan is to encourage people to hand in potatoes at the cinema at any time during the next two weeks. A distribution will then be made to pensioners who are finding the present potato prices beyond their means.

WHILE the rest of the world celebrated May Day, Los Angeles celebrated Mae Day, in recognition of Mae West's lifelong contribution to the entertainment industry.

50 YEARS AGO

A NUMBER of inquiries take me into country about which the records seem scanty, writes Quidnunc. I can say that Dixon Fold Station was closed on Monday, May 18th, 1931. But the railway line from the Kearsley junction crossing, Manchester-rd., near Stoneclough Brow, is one of those industrial developments that seem to evade the ordinary records of news. Barton, the Farnworth historian, in 1887, writes: "From here it is contemplated to make a branch railway into Kearsley Moss Collieries." However, it was finally abandoned in comparatively recent times because it no longer served any purpose.

But it certainly had a busy lifetime. Long before Kearsley Moss pits were closed, it was continued across Worsley-rd. to link up with the Bridgewater Collieries system. A line ran round to Highfield, another to Brackley, still another to Wharton, and there are links with Mosley Common, Ashton Field, Linnyshaw, and Sandhole, and even the canal basins at Worsley and Boothstown. The line had no passenger business in its life.

125 YEARS AGO

IN these days we, in Bolton, have had such a lamentable experience of the effects of the consumption of milk, deficient in strength and tainted by the addition of water from a polluted stream, that we welcome cordially any substitute for the milk which we are obliged to purchase from dairy farms.

Mr Henri Nestle, of Vevey, Switzerland, has endeavoured to supply this want by the introduction of an excellent compound of milk, sugar, and wheat flour. In the nourishment of young children, and also of invalids, milk forms so important an element that it is absolutely necessary, if health is to preserved and strength attained for its purity to be assured.

Doubtless this end might be achieved by the application of a very stringent law of adulteration, but apart from the difficulty of applying such an act, there is always the difficulty of the probable failure of the supply of English milk.

In this case Switzerland comes to the rescue, and offers us through Mr Nestle an admirable product. Our readers will observe from our advertising columns that they may obtain this useful and palatable article from Mr James Richardson, chemist and grocer, Knowsley-street, Bolton.