PENSIONER Len Monks has more reason than most to be grateful to Bolton Wanderers - they paid off his mortgage when a disaster wiped away his Moses Gate home!

It is 40 years since the Fylde Street disaster made the world's headlines - after a huge hole opened up and swallowed whole terraces of cottages.

People living in the street were horrified to wake up one day in September, 1957, to find the road, the pavement, and their homes sinking into the massive void.

Nearly 400 people were evacuated from 60 houses in Fylde Street, Hall Lane, Hall Street and Annie Street. And they were forced to stay out for three months as sewer works were carried out and safety checks completed.

The most amazing things about the disaster is that no-one was hurt - and no-one accepted responsibility.

Seventeen houses - including Len's - were wrecked as they slid into the mud.

The area has never had a house built on it since although the St Peter's Way by-pass directly crosses the site of the disaster.

Following the disaster there was widespread anger as Farnworth Corporation and the Coal Board both denied responsibility, laying the blame on "natural causes".

To bring some relief to the victims, the Mayor of Farnworth set up a Disaster Relief Fund and just under £21,000 flooded into the coffers from a variety of sources, including a whip round at Burnden Park on October 5, 1957 when Wanderers lost 0-1 to Arsenal. Members of Farnworth Boys' Club took the collection.

The majority of the team who played that day went on to win the FA Cup that season, except Nat Lofthouse who was injured.

In addition, a charity concert was organised, headlined by the late Farnworth-born star Hylda Baker. Other big names on the bill included Jimmy Clitheroe, and Bolton tenor Tony Vallance.

Len Monks, 68, now of Lupin Avenue, Farnworth, can still vividly recall the day his home disappeared down the hole.

And after all these years he is still bitter about the way the victims were treated by the authorities. "It was utterly ridiculous. No-one would accept any responsibility. They wouldn't get away with that attitude now."

But he will be ever grateful to the kind people of Bolton, and particularly the football club, who rallied round to give practical and financial help to the people made homeless.

All those affected received £200 - £50 in cash and £150 in vouchers - from the Mayor's Fund. That was to pay for damaged and lost furniture.

As Mr Monks recalls: "I bought a bedroom suite with the money. But I went back after the disaster to rescue my television and the wife's engagement ring. I nearly got arrested for going back."

But he was still left with a mortgage for a house that no longer existed. But Mr Monks says that following the whip round at Burnden park, he never paid another penny of the mortgage for the non-existent house.

The bill was settled through the football club from the cash raised.

"I've never been interested in football," admits Mr Monks. "But I will be always grateful to the Wanderers for their help."

Less than a year after the disaster a report came up with the most likely explanation for the sewer collapse.

The Bolton Evening News of June 19, 1958, said: "The primary cause of the disaster was a 90-years-old assumption that the sewer was being laid on fairly substantial boulder clay when in fact it was being laid on silt clay which disintegrated.

"Two other factors, says the report, are that the houses most seriously damaged and which had to be demolished were built on a 'filling' of what was once a wide valley between Hall Lane and Fylde Street and the damming of the river."

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