From the Evening News, December 31, 1992: THREE Bolton MPs today cast aside party differences to brand the annual New Year gong-show as "mediaeval, a joke, and a long-running farce".

As the New Year Honours List was unveiled - again showing a massive southern bias - Tory MP Peter Thurnham (Bolton NE), Labour's David Young (Bolton SE) and Terry Lewis (Worsley) called for sweeping changes. Mr Thurnham said he would insist that Prime Minister John Major sticks to his pledge for a total reform of the system.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

December 31, 1977

MR DAVID Young, MP for Bolton East, has accused the council of turning part of the town into a "bulldozers' paradise". He is backing a campaign by householders in the Bury New Road area for improved facilities. Their complaints centre around a large demolition area facing their homes. They claim there has been unbearable noise, dirt, and loss of shopping facilities in the area in the past 18 months. Mr Young says he is going to press the Government to penalise councils which leave demolition areas derelict for long periods.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

December 31, 1952

AT the end of a year - no matter what that year may have brought, good luck or ill - hope rises and we all look forward hopefully and expectantly, forgetting the past.

January 1st can never be just another day; it is a fresh beginning; we are given a new start and feel that, whatever we may have failed to achieve in the old year, all things are possible in the new.

We have passed the turn of the winter, and, although there may be bad weather ahead, the days are now lengthening and spring is not so very far away.

At each year's end, we echo Browning's lines:

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be

The last of life, for which the first was made.

The best is yet to be! In the spirit, we must wish all readers, a Happy New Year.

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

December 31, 1902

THE wife of a scaffolder told a Wandsworth Coroner that when she took her three-weeks-old child to a doctor, he told her its "liver had shifted up into its mouth". To a neighbour, who also declared that the doctor made the same remark, the Coroner observed: "I think you must have misunderstood him".

"Oh no, I'm sure he said it," replied the neighbour.

"Didn't he say it was livid about the mouth?" asked the Coroner.

"No," replied the witness. "He said distinctly its liver was in its mouth. I thought it a strange thing that a child so young should have its liver in its mouth."

"It would be a strange thing at any age," commented the Coroner.

A pathologist to the Council assured the jury that the infant's liver was in its proper place, and they returned a verdict of "Death from natural causes."