THE BOLTON News has been there for the events that matter in the town’s rich history.

Here are just a few of the historic moments in Bolton’s past covered by your local newspaper.

Westhoughton was left reeling from the news of the Pretoria Pit Disaster in 1910.

There were 344 men and boys killed on that fateful day with almost every family in the town affected. A collapsed roof released gas and coal dust and a damaged safety lamp triggered an explosion.

Local author Andrea Finney recently wrote an account of the disaster and how it affected local people based on her great great grandmother’s diary.

Reporters from The Bolton News are always on hand to bring readers the latest news from the town’s busy emergency services.

Major blazes have made the news on several occasions including back in 1961 when the popular Top Storey Club went up in flames.

A total of 19 people died as a blaze swept the nightclub in Crown Street.

In 1981 Bolton Town Hall was the scene of a massive fire when the historic Albert Halls were almost destroyed.

Flames engulfed part of the building and a £3.4 million rebuild took three years.

In 1985 a mystery blaze destroyed Bolton’s famous Navada roller skating rink.

In 1958 Bolton Wanderers had the opportunity to bring the FA Cup back to the town.

They were playing a makeshift Manchester United side recently decimated by the Munich Disaster and although the sympathies of the neutrals fell to United the people of Bolton were hoping for glory and got it with a 2-0 Wembley win.

Bolton has been graced with its fair share of royal visitors, including six visits by the Queen—her first in 1954.

It was a miserable day but crowds gathered in the town centre, including 21,000 schoolchildren given a half day’s holiday to celebrate.

In 1961 she officially opened the new law courts in Bolton and came back to the town in 1968.

In 1971 she visited the Anderton Service Station, now Bolton West Services, on the M61, and in 1988 officially opened Bolton’s Market Place complex.

The Queen was in Bolton last year when she visited Warburtons Bakery.

Other royals to visit Bolton have included Princess Diana who in 1993 visited Bolton Hospice and HRH the Earl of Wessex in 2008 who unveiled a plaque at the newly extended Market Place his mother had opened in 1988.

In 2004 Bolton lost one of its most famous sons when steeplejack and local character Fred Dibnah lost his fight with cancer. The rough and ready Boltonian became an unlikely TV superstar and for all his fame never lost his love of Bolton. Bolton has a permanent reminder of Fred thanks to a statue in Bolton Town Centre.