25 YEARS AGO

INSTEAD of sitting in the back garden of her home on Bank Holiday Sunday, Mrs Eva Hird will be flying high in Concorde at 1,400 miles an hour. Mrs Hird, aged 39, of Limefield Road, Smithills, is one of the lucky 35 people to get a free trip in the Anglo-French supersonic jet-liner. Her name was picked out today by British Airways, along with Mr Charles Atkinson, aged 61, of Laburnum Road, Walkden. Half a million people had written off for one of the seats on the three-and-a-half-hours trip on August 24.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

August 15, 1950

A DAUGHTER was born to Princess Elizabeth at Clarence House, her London home, at 11.50 am today. The Duke of Edinburgh telephoned the news to the King at Balmoral and to his mother, Princess Andrew of Greece. Crowds gathered outside Clarence House after the news.

AFTER a very fine match with H. Greenhalgh (Stand), G.K. Whitehead (Markland Hill) retained the men's singles title of the Bolton Charity tournament on Saturday evening. It is the fourth time he has won the title.

125 YEARS AGO

THE forming of the under-ground passage at Tyldesley Station by which passengers will pass from platform to platform has been commenced. This safeguard is at length tardily conceded by the directors after years of agitation, which as the erection of suitable waiting-rooms on the departure platform for Bedford, Leigh, Bolton, Wigan, &c. has been deferred, must be continued we suppose for ten years longer. Were the directors or their wives only once to suffer the infliction of waiting for a late train on some bleak winter evening at this horrid station, a speedy reform would ensue.