25 YEARS AGO

SHUTTERS have gone up at a £40,000 Bolton Labour club opened four years ago by Mr Roy Jenkins, the Home Secretary. The West Ward Labour Club on Brownlow Way, Halliwell, has been forced to close 'for financial reasons'. The secretary, Mrs Doreen Stewart, said today that membership was dwindling and the club could 'no longer pay its way.'

CONTRACT car parkers would still be allowed to use Bolton's Bow Street multi-storey building - but it could cost them £75 a year. Bolton Council had planned to move all contract parkers out of the multi-storey building to allow room for shoppers, but the new plan is for the two lowest decks of the car park to remain open to contract parkers to have a reserved space.

50 YEARS AGO

TREMENDOUS interest is being shown in Bolton in the visit of the official of the Australian Department of Immigration, who is interviewing people who desire to emigrate to Australia on assisted passages. Yesterday almost 100 people called to see him, and by 11am today more than 40 more had been interviewed. Commenting on the people he had seen, the official said they were good types - young tradesmen with young families - just the type Australia needed. However, he said Australia wished to take a representative cross-section of Britons, including old people.

SIR,- In a Bolton shop on Saturday, I was asked to give up 2oz of my personal points for a piece of confectionery for which I had previously given only 1oz. A polite request to the shopkeeper to weigh the bar met with the delicate answer, 'Take yer 'ook and spend yer points somewhere else'. I would warn all people to whom the points value of sweets is more important than the price to watch the shopkeeper and not to be afraid the query any mistake they think is being made. Yours, etc, Pointless.

125 YEARS AGO

THIS morning, in the Bolton Parish Church, the nuptuals of John Crook, Esq., son of John Crook, Esq., cotton spinner, of Birkdale, Southport, and grandson of the late Joshua Crook, Esq., of White Bank, Rumworth, with Mary Ann, eldest daughter of John Bradshaw, Esq., of Heath Bank, Chorley New-road, Bolton, were solemnised in the presence of a large and fashionable congregation. Soon after ten o'clock the sacred edifice began to fill, and by eleven o'clock, the time for the arrival of the wedding party, there was a numerous company. From the gates of the churchyard to the church, scarlet cloth was laid on the path. A few minutes after eleven o'clock, a subdued whisper amongst the congregation announced the arrival of the bride leaning on the arm of her father. The bride was met at the altar by the bridegroom, and the proper positions being taken up, the ceremony commenced. The 'happy pair' leave on their wedding tour this afternoon, their destination being Switzerland. The presents to the bride were of an exceedingly valuable kind.