THIS has to be one of the more unusual visitors to Bolton over the years - a 66-foot long, finback whale named Jonas.

At the time Jonas was the only chemically preserved whale in the world with around 8,000 litres of formalin being used to stop him from decomposing.

Jonas was captured by a team from Oslo University in 1965 off the coast of Norway and was travelling around the UK to help raise awareness of the World Wildlife Fund’s campaign to raise £1million in Britain for wildlife conservation.

Before coming to Bolton, Jonas had been on display in Japan, Germany and South Africa and was due to cross the Atlantic for a tour of Canada next.

The whale came complete with his own 79-foot long trailer which had been specially built to transport him. It was situated on Victoria Square at the bottom of the town hall steps for a week with many of Bolton’s school organising special trips to see this giant of the seas

He was certainly an impressive specimen. When he was being embalmed his liver weighed 12,000 pounds and his tongue 4,800 pounds. For all his size he could still swim at around 30 kilometres an hour.

The World Wildlife Fund was working to preserve different types of whales and had already changed the law on the hunting of blue whales, humpback whales and finback whales like Jonas.

Do you remember the time that Jonas came to town? Did you go with syour chool or with the family? Email any memories you might have and particularly any photographs to john.anson@nqnw.co.uk.