IT’S the first December general election since 1923 and in the run up to Christmas we can all expect that knock on the door from those canvassing to take Bolton’s highly contested seats.

Back in 1974, David Young was the Labour candidate for Bolton East and is shown here examining the poor state of housing at Top-o’th’-Brow with Under Secretary of State for Housing, Gerald Kaufman, John Horan and Community Council members Rene Cavannaugh and Margaret Stirzaker.

Mr Kaufman launched a scathing attack on Bolton Council after he visited the town on a whistle-stop pre-election tour.

After looking at the houses in the area, he told the Bolton Evening News he was “disgusted” by their poor state.

He said: “I am horrified that a local authority should allow an area like this to slide into this state of dereliction. I don’t know how the ratepayers tolerate tolerate it.”

The election campaign was to prove a successful one for Mr Young who was elected to the House of Commons on his fourth attempt for Bolton East in February 1974. He served as Parliamentary Secretary to Fred Mulley from 1977 to 1979.

Following boundary changes, he became MP for Bolton South East in 1983. Although willing to continue, he was replaced as Labour candidate for the seat by Brian Iddon before the 1997 General Election. He died on January 1, 2003.

Mr Kaufman meanwhile was knighted in 2004, became Father of the House in 2015 and was the oldest sitting MP of the UK Parliament at the time of his death in February, 2017, aged 86.

Our second photograph shows the Liberal Party on the campaign trail for the 1950 General Election with their slogan decorated caravan pulled by a red-coloured Jeep. The caravan was to be used by candidates, Alan Tillotson (Bolton West) and Arthur Holt (Bolton East), when they held open-air meetings in the town. The caravan and Jeep were loaned by Mr H Sharples, a caravan and car dealer on Manchester Road.

The Liberal Party fielded 475 candidates in 1950, more than at any general election since 1929, but the strategy only succeeded in causing a very marginal increase in their overall Liberal vote with 319 Liberal candidates losing their deposits, a record number until 2015.