25 YEARS AGO From the Evening News, March 4, 1976

HUNDREDS of London commuters had a miraculous escape today when a bomb ripped open part of a train they had just left at Cannon Street station.

IF you yawn a lot when you're not tired or bored, watch out. You could be showing that you are sexually immature, according to Dr Ivor Felstein, a specialist at Bolton General Hospital, writing in the medical paper "Pulse". Dr Felstein says: "The adult who yawns over frequently and for no obvious reason can be viewed in terms of sexual immaturity. Or as indicating a low sexual tension with frequent failure to be aroused."

50 YEARS AGO From the Evening News, March 5, 1951

BOLTON town centre had its first electricity cut of the winter today. It caused inconvenience and annoyance to some shopkeepers, but business people generally suffered it all with understanding, and even amusement.

There was the shopkeeper in Deansgate, for instance, who had to imitate Scrooge, and do his accounts by candlelight. Then there were the multiple stores, changed for a brief spells a brief spell into Victorian emporiums, their gloomy gas light bringing a subdued hush to the once-bustling counters. Many a shop keeper used an oil lamp to cast mystery over his wares. One Deansgate tailor's lamp was placed on a chair inside the doorway, its flickering flame seeming to light up some utility Aladdin's cave.

125 YEARS AGO From the Evening News, March 4, 1876

A CASE of supposed attempted suicide and attempted drowning of a child occurred this morning at Astley Bridge. After ten o'clock last night, Police-constable Shackleton was accosted on Blackburn-road by a woman, carrying a child, who said she wanted lodgings for the night. She told him that her name was Mary Whalley, and that her husband's name was Benjamin Whalley, weaver, Royton, near Oldham. Also that her husband had quarrelled with her, and she had left him. She claimed acquaintance with a person named George Abbatt, of Bank-place, Halliwell, and the officer took her there.

She was accommodated by Abbatt for the night, and left his house at seven o'clock this morning, announcing that she was proceeding to Blackburn. Instead of proceeding thither, however, it seems she went down to the brook which runs near to Messrs Murton and Co's Bleachworks, Astley Bridge. She was noticed standing in the water by the work people, and upon one of them - Richard Bridge - going to her, he found that her child was lying in the water, nearly drowned. The woman's clothing was saturated with water, as if she had been laid in the water. Both woman and child were taken to the residence of Mr Bridge, and the neighbours gave every assistance to restore the child and provide both it and its parent with dry clothing.

Their efforts were successful in restoring the child, which does not apparently seem to have suffered much. The woman, who has a very wild appearance, is now confined at the Little Bolton Town Hall, where every precaution has been taken to prevent her doing further injury to herself or child. She is about 38 years of age, and the child nine months old.