From the Evening News, August 18, 1992 - HORWICH radio ham Jean Woodcock got the surprise of her life when two Polish cyclists turned up on her doorstep.

Her surprise turned to delight, though, when she found out that the pair were the same people that she had spent the past two months chatting to over the airwaves, and that they had travelled all the way from Poland to see her. They had cycled most of the 1,000 mile distance.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

August 19, 1977

DON Revie, the manager who turned his back on England, is to be charged by the Football Association with bringing the game into disrepute. The FA have been carefully considering what action to take against Revie over the manner in which he left the England job five weeks ago to accept a £340,000 four-year contract as national coach to the United Arab Emirates.

HOUSES can be built on "extremely attractive" tree-dotted farmland off Chorley New Road, Bolton, planners have decided. The planning committee last night said yes to a plan by Beaumont Estates to put 27 detached houses on eight acres at Woodsleigh.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

August 18, 1952

THE full extent of the North Devon flood disaster became clearer today when more and more details of the trail of death and destruction through flooding became known. Throughout the area 13 bodies have so far been recovered, and the police have issued a list of the names of 29 people missing. It is feared that workers toiling among the debris of what was the picturesque village of Lynmouth might find further bodies. The hundreds of Servicemen, police, firemen and civilian workers were hampered in their task today by rain - and more is forecast.

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

August 19, 1902

AN alarming accident occurred to a party on Saturday, at Hindley, whilst on their way to Abbey Lakes. The party, which consisted of twelve persons, mostly girls of about eighteen years of age, started in a conveyance from the White Horse, Westhoughton, at two o'clock, and on going through Hindley met a motor engine with a lurry attached.

The horse on passing the ending became startled, with the result that the conveyance ran into a low part of the road and turned over.

The girls screamed, and many of them were bruised and received black eyes, but the most seriously injured is Ashton Hilton, a young fellow residing at Manchester-rd., one of whose thighs is badly fractured and his face considerably bruised.

He, along with two of the girls, were brought home in the ambulance carriage, whilst the others returned by train.