From the Evening News, February 9, 1992

AN old Bolton wash-house has undergone a spring clean - to give future generations a glimpse of the town's steamy past. The former Moss Street wash-house, dismantled in 1969 despite local protests, has been scrubbed clean and preserved for posterity. The Moss Street wash-house is now a central feature at the award winning "Underground Manchester" Gallery at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, February 9, 1977

A FORMER Bolton woman has been named as one of the victims killed in the horrific Chicago train crash at the weekend, when 11 people died and 200 were injured. Miss Marion McKeag, formerly of Rose Street, Bolton, emigrated to Chicago 18 years ago.

ACTRESS Penelope Keith has become the first woman in 21 years to win the Variety Club's top entertainments award when she was named Show Business Personality of 1976.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, February 9, 1952

FORESTERS, gamekeepers, gardeners, and other workers on the royal estate of Sandringham, and their womenfolk, began this morning to file past the coffin of King George V1, who was their well-loved "squire" as well as their sovereign, in the parish church of St Mary Magdalene. Last night and during today and tomorrow, the coffin is being guarded by estate workers, who are taking two-hour turns, four at a time, to stand in homage at its four corners. A special train will take the body to London on Monday.

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, February 9, 1902

A STRANGE epidemic, called by doctors "Kankakee" is raging in New York. The symptoms border on nervous hysteria, and patients are compelled to keep their beds for a week under close medical care. Several hundred cases are reported from different parts of the city, and physicians are at a loss to understand the cause. Those suffering from the malady give way to uncontrollable laughter on the slightest pretext, and continue to shout and scream for hours at a time. The doctors find that the surest way to cure "Kankakee" is to make the suffered depressed and morbid, and with this intention he is told he is dying, and is ostentatiously measured for his coffin, and such subjects as increased taxation and financial loss are ordered to be repeatedly spoken of in the sick room.