A GROUP of Bolton workers are celebrating the first phase of an unusual £1 million investment that's licensed to thrill.

Members of the sports and social club at British Aerospace at Lostock have embarked on a venture that really mixes business with pleasure - because the employees' acquisition is the pub directly opposite the factory gates, called The Barnstormer. A sports club is being built next to the pub.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

September 3, 1977

GROSSLY overweight people should be forced to slim by compulsory spells in "enclosed" hospitals, a doctor said today. Patients suffering from obesity have lost the element of self control and should have this control imposed on them just like mental patients, said Dr Ian Richardson, writing in the medical magazine "Pulse".

"Committal should be for, say, six months, and surroundings be comfortable and pleasant, if not up to the luxurious standards of a health farm," he said.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

September 3, 1952

THE operation of a master switch by Valerie Hobson, the film actress, tomorrow, will transform six miles of Blackpool's promenade into a scintillating fairyland of light and colour. This 19th annual display features about 300,000 electric light bulbs of different power. Blackpool is hoping that some 2,500,000 late-season visitors will be attracted to the town before Oct. 20th.

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

September 3, 1902

CONSIDERABLE alteration has been effected on the L and Y railroad at The Oaks, for a distance of 2,722 yards, viz., between Birtenshaw Farm and the Oaks Crossing. Sunday was the first time the new Station - for such it virtually is - was used. Instead of one up and one down line (two pairs of rails) there are now four sets of lines, so that goods trains can be shunted on to the inner sets of metals whilst passenger traffic passes along those next to the platforms. Two new platforms have been constructed, the old ones having been demolished. New waiting-rooms have also been erected, along with a new iron footbridge over the line for the use of passengers. There is also a new signal box at the Birtenshaw crossing.