25 YEARS AGO

THE England soccer team woke up today in Bratislavia to find themselves besieged by 120 weary soccer fans looking for shelter. The fans were stranded when England's match against Czechoslovakia was fogged off yesterday. Hotel Bratislavia, the team base which manager had locked to all outsiders, including the Press, was the last refuge for supporters. The fans had spent a cold and almost sleepless night. First they were driven to the airport for the trip home, but no planes were taking off. Then the police told them that the airport was being cleared because of an anti-hijacking regulation. There was not a single hotel bed available in the city, so the fans made for the hotel where the team was staying . . .

50 YEARS AGO

YOUNG Men and Lads of 15 to 18. A job in mining is a job for good. If it's interesting work you want, with a skilled job for years ahead, come into Coalmining now! Above ground at 15 you earn 39s 6d a week increasing half yearly till, at 21, you can earn £5 a week. Underground at 15 you earn 49s 6d a week, increasing to £5 15s a week minimum at 21. The average earnings of skilled face-workers are between £7 and £12 a week It's a job you can be proud of doing.

125 YEARS AGO

A CASE of immorality came before the magistrates for the Nantwich division, on Tuesday. Two young men, cousins, farm servants at Cholmondeston, were charged with stealing four petticoats and a pair of stays, the property of Martha Stockton, a good-looking girl of 17, in the employ of Mr Major, of Cholmondeston. Defendants were in the habit of courting Mr Major's servant girls, Stockton being one, and in order to do so they came to the house at night, reared a ladder against a wall, and gained access by way of the window to the bedroom in which the young women slept. On the night of the 26th ultimo, John Wilkinson gained entrance to the room, and having remained there for some time with the three girls, he left, and for 'a lark' took all their petticoats away with him. These he carried into the yard and stuck them on top of the cowshed. These facts coming to the attention of the Major, he instituted proceedings.- Mr Tollemache, in stopping the case, held that the things had evidently not been stolen with a criminal intent, and stigmatised the conduct of Cheshire farmers, who were in the habit of giving up the key of the house to the servant girls to admit their 'lovers'.