MINERS leaders this afternoon decided to call for a ballot on strike action. And they turned down Mr Heath's latest call today urging them to think again.

MORE than two-and-a-quarter million people registered for unemployment benefit in the middle of this month. But it was impossible to say how many of those were on the register because of the three-day week.

50 YEARS AGO

LESS than six per cent of the total civilian consumption of bacon, and not more than 10 per cent of all rationed foods, is served in catering establishments, and of this amount over one half is eaten by workers in their canteens and children in school feeding centres. These facts are revealed in a letter from Dr Edith Summerskill, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, to Bolton's two MPs, Messrs. Jones and Lewis, in reply to a resolution sent by the Bolton Women Citizen's Association, and members of other local women's organizations, deploring the opening of so many snack bars, and asking for some diversion of rationed and points goods from such shops to the domestic consumer, who at present was unable to obtain goods like ham and tongue.

125 YEARS AGO

OUR readers will remember that some months ago it was given out far and wide through the press that Mr J. Rostron, of the Blackhorse Hotel, Kearsley, and the Railway refreshment Rooms, Bolton and Southport, had received an order to supply the principal bride cake which should grace the table at the marriage of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh to HIH the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia, at St Petersburg, also to provide the English portion of the breakfast. The cake was prepared and adorned with a variety of embellishments, both chaste and tasteful, and last week Mr Rostron started for St Petersburg in charge of the wedding cake. From what has since transpired, we suspect that a 'hitch' has occurred at the Imperial city. Mrs Rostron has received a telegram from her husband, desiring her to request the Mayor of Bolton (J. Marsden, Esq.) to give his sanction to Mr Rostron to present the cake as a gift from the Mayor and Corporation of Bolton. Mr Rostron does not, however, state definitely that the cake has been declined on any other terms. The Mayor has, we understand, refused to allow his consent to be given for the presentation to be made on behalf of the borough, and in this state affairs now stand. It appears that in the first instance Mr Rostron wrote to St Petersburg, intimating his ability and readiness to prepare the wedding cake. No reply came, and, interpreting 'silence as consent', he forthwith began to make preparations. Not feeling quite satisfied, however, Mr Rostron consulted the Russian Consuls in London and Manchester with reference to the presentation of the cake, the latter of whom, after stating that he had no authority to commission Mr Rostron to manufacture it, gave it as his opinion that if it were presented at St Petersburg, it would not be refused. Our townsman seems to have acted on these somewhat frail grounds, and taken the initiative in preparing and conveying the gift to St Petersburg.

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