25 YEARS AGO From the Evening News, July 10, 1976

Holidaymakers planning to cruise on Britain's canals this summer face new restrictions as the drought continues. The British Waterways Board says that a number of locks on canals not fed by rivers, will have to be closed or only opened for a few hours per day.

LEFT-handed children write just as well as right-handed youngsters and their number in British schools in growing, a national study discloses today. It explodes the myth that left-handers are less intelligent, clumsier, or less articulate than right-handed children.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

July 11, 1951

RANDOLPH Turpin, conqueror of Sugar Ray Robinson, the world middle-weight champion, last night, was up bright and early today. Sugar Ray Robinson had 10 stitches inserted in the eyebrow injury which the British champion inflicted in the seventh round of the fight.

IN spite of pelting rain, hundreds of women - and some men -queued outside a town-centre dress store this morning for the opening of its summer sale. At the head of the queue, which stretched, by 9.15am, round the shop and down a side street, was a woman who had sent her husband to the shop at 4.45am. And there were plenty of things going cheap. Summer dresses were being sold for 5s, 9s 11d, and 13s 11d, and coats for as little as 49s. There was a wedding dress for £1 1s, and bridesmaids' dresses at 14s 11d.

125 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News,

July 11, 1876

AT the picture gallery of Mr George Barnes, Bradshawgate, there is a portrait in oils of Mr Samuel Scowcroft, coalowner of Bolton. The painting is the work of Mrs Whitley, artist, of Sweet Green House, Crook-street, and has been declared by competent persons to be a "speaking likeness".

The expression of the late gentleman's features has been admirably portrayed, the position is easy and graceful, the colouring singularly well modulated, and the hands the most difficult of the human frame accurately to portray, are skilfully and naturally represented, being given as in the act of twirling a pair of spectacles.

The artist may be fairly congratulated upon having succeeded in drawing at once an excellent and artistic picture and a capital portrait. The painting has been executed for Mr Baxter Scowcroft, of Kearsley Collieries.