TODAY you can read how properties have been put up for sale that used to form part of a children's home in Edgworth.

The children's home started out as a haven for children rescued from a life of poverty and ruin in London.

Before then, the building was a public house in Edgworth. A pub that was renowned as a den of inquity, where dog fighting and rat baiting were listed among the unlawful activities.

It was bought by Methodist mill owner James Barlow in a bid to halt the illegal behaviours and he passed it to Rev Thomas Bowman Stephenson.

Also today we run a story about hoodlums who were caught on camera standing by while some of their party trashed and vandalised a plastic bollard in the middle of the street.

What do these two stories have in common?

James Barlow would have called it the evils of drink.

Mr Barlow used his Victorian wealth to save his neighbours from the inquitous behaviours that followed when some men in the village got drunk at the Wheatsheaf Inn.

On Saturday the Big Alcohol Conversation bus was in Bolton to try to help modern-day Boltonians face facts about what happens when they drink more than is good for them. That conversation is principally about health.

But clearly some people need to face up to the fact that when they drink too much, they fall to criminal behaviour that we can all do without.