READER John Turner has loaned me some fascinating old postcards acquired by his wife's grandfather, George McGinn, and now handed down in the family.

There are more than 300 of them - dating from 1906 to 1920 - and quite a number have relevance to the Bolton area. Mr Turner, who lives in Greenfield Close, Westhoughton, intends to take them along to Bolton Museum and Art Gallery at some stage to see if they are interested.

I include three on today's page and will use others at a later date.

PICTURES:TOP : What on earth is going on here? These fine footballers appear to be wearing skirts long before David Beckham tried to make it fashionable. There is absolutely nothing on the postcard to give us a clue. I cannot believe they played dressed like that, but maybe it was some kind of charity match - most of them seem to be wearing black arm bands. It is also possible, I suppose, that this was a promotional stunt for the products of a local mill or it was deemed to be immodest for players to be photographed in their shorts.

Any ideas?

MIDDLE: This is the Fire Station ambulance photographed outside the old fire station in Marsden Road, Bolton. I have found occasional references to this conveyance in papers from 1903 and 1904 as I have compiled the snippets from old newspapers which appear on the left of this page. It seems to have been called into action on the occasions when people fell under trams or were injured in horrific accidents in the mills.

BOTTOM: Once patients arrived at the Royal Infirmary they were dealt with in the accident room. There was obviously an austere air to "casualty" in the early years of the last century.