This well-meaning but basically daft legislation has a relevance to the story that I am about to relate, sitting comfortably? then I shall begin.

The DORA act included amongst its somewhat bizarre rules were that no-one was allowed to buy binoculars, no-one was allowed to give bread to horses, horses or chickens, no-one was allowed to buy brandy or whisky in a railway refreshment room, customers in pubs were not allowed to buy a round of drinks and  public house opening times were also reduced to 12.00 noon to 2.30 pm and 6.30 to 9.30 pm. before the law was changed, public houses could open from 5 am in the morning to 12.30 pm at night..

Women were employed in men's jobs and proved that they were equal if not better in such occupations as factory work, driving buses, working on the land or in this case working in bottled beer stores in Salford....a recipe for disaster?

This curious story culled from the pages of the Salford City Reporter, April 1918 tells of the sad plight of three Salford women employed in such a job.

Salford police ever vigilant to stamp out drunken, unruly behaviour had been tipped off that women in the Greengate area had been seen drunk at times when the pubs were shut and so firm action was taken.

Detective Inspector Clarke had two of his men stake out the workers leaving the bottling store of Findlater and Mackie Ltd, a beer bottling company.

The daring duo didn't have long to wait and pounced on three women as they finished work and were making their way home.

Mary Taylor was alleged to have looked, "bulky" and was asked what she had hidden in her shawl, she replied, "Only a bottle of stout".

A search revealed a further five bottles of beer hidden in her clothing, I would have thought that they would have been attracted to the clinking sound coming from her clothing.

The two other women, Mary McLean and Jessie Kerridge made good their escape and went back to their homes seemingly oblivious to what would happen next.

The police duly arrived at  Mary McLean's house where they found her and her mother supping a pint bottle beer of each other, disposing of the evidence perhaps?

When questioned Mary told the police, "I am sorry I have taken a few bottles home with me"

You couldn't accuse her of lying, a search of the house revealed another 36 empty beer bottles all from Findlater and Mackie Ltd.

A visit to Jessie Kerriridges house found 12 empty beer bottles which she admitted taking from work.

All three appeared at Salford Magistrates Court charged with theft and were defended by Mr Desquesnes.

D.C. Clark told the court that he had been tipped off that women were stealing beer on a regular basis and that some women had even had stitched hidden pockets in their skirts so they could conceal even more, quite ingenious really.

Mr Desquesnes asked for leniency from the Stipendary reminding him that the women had already pleaded guilty to this offence and had helped the police with their enquiries.

Sadly he was having none of this and sentenced Mary Taylor too, two months in prison with hard labour, an incredibly harsh sentence considering the offence.

Mary McLean was fined 40 shillings or 21 days imprisonment.

Jessie Kerridge was fined 20 shillings or 14 days imprisonment.

I do hope that these two women were able to pay their fines which were quite hefty at the time, perhaps they should have taken the empties back to the off-licence and collected the deposit back, also it would have got rid of the evidence!

I'm certain that this court case had no impression whatsoever on the drinking and theft of beer in Salford and was merely a shot across the bows, a warning to stop it or else.

A look through the court pages of the Salford newspapers will confirm that drinking etc went on regardless and it would take more than a fine to stop them enjoying themselves.

Stories of feral teenagers brandishing firearms and terrorising local communities with their criminal activities is a shocking state of affairs and some would say a reflection on modern society, with violent computer games and rap music being the cause for this according to quite a few people, and reflect back on more gentler times when you could leave your front door open and all that old guff...

But is this true?

Following a spate of burglaries at numerous houses, shops and even railway vans in the Borough the police had decided to act fast to stamp this out and let the good people of Eccles sleep safely in their beds at night.

The intrepid D.S. Bentham from Eccles constabulary used his wile and cunning to apprehend the first culprit, acting above and beyond the call of duty, he secreted himself in a pawn shop at 130 Church Street, Eccles and waited for a possible suspect, he didn't have to wait long.

At 7.30am a youth by the name of Thomas Wilcox, 16, came into the shop and tried to sell a gold watch, D.C. Bentham intervened and was not happy with the boy's excuse and took him into custody whilst a search warrant was issued for his home at  Davies Street, where a  large amount of property believed to have been stolen was recovered.

Next on his agenda was to track down a boy mentioned to him, who went by the name of Reginald Haycroft, 16, who was working at Gardners Engineering in Peel Green, however, a friend of Haycroft's spotted Wilcox being taken into custody and tipped him off.

The police went to his house on Station Road, Patricroft and awaited his arrival, to their amazement Haycroft came swaggering down the street and a search revealed a fully loaded army service revolver tucked in his waistband! a search of his house revealed even more stolen property and slowly but surely the gang were all to be arrested.

These included Charles Rubery, 15, Gilbert Street, Peel Green and Fredrick Saville, 16, Alma Street, Eccles.

When the police arrived at Rubery's house he locked himself and had to be talked into opening the front door, once again the police recovered a fully loaded army service revolver and a veritable Aladdin's cave of stolen swag.

All four were remanded in custody whilst further investigations took place.

The initial holding charge was of a burglary at a private house in Ellesmere Park, Eccles called The Elms belonging to a Mr F. Dowson where property including gold watches, rings, gold brooches, chains and even a set of opera glasses were stolen with an estimated value of £45.

The question was raised in court as to how the boys had obtained the army pistols, the answer was quite simple, they had broken into gunsmiths in King Street, Manchester and stolen them along with the ammunition!

Once again the boys were remanded in custody whilst the police had to sort through all of the stolen property recovered from their homes including some that the boys had, hidden buried beneath privets at the back of Peel Green cemetery.

It was revealed that this daring gang of villains had broken into Miss Butterworths tobacconist shop at Eccles railway station by entering through the roof and used a rope to drop into the premises where they stole, cigarettes, cigars, chocolate, tobacco and cash, and possibly an indication into their magpie behaviour was their admission that they had broken into railway vans at Patricroft Station and stole scissors, lamps, bandages, liniment and bottles of Friars Basalm - a popular cough medicine.

Eventually, the gang appeared at the Salford Hundreds Azzize Court in Manchester in February 1918 under the watchful gaze of the Vice Chancellor, Dudley Stewart Smith.

The boys had separate legal representation and pleaded guilty to the charges, a wise thing to do on reflection.

In the summing up for their defence, Mr Foley said, somewhat naively:

"These boys might have thought they were imitating Dick Turpin and could do wonderful things" then added that if the court could administer a 'severe thrashing' to them that would be the best thing, obviously..."

As to be expected the Vice Chancellor didn't agree with this whimsical notion and sentenced Wilcox, Saville and Haycroft to three years in Borstal whilst Rubery the youngest at 15 years of age was sentenced to three years in a Reform School.

Thos brought down the curtain on this mini crime wave, well at least for the time being.

Looking more closely at this story I was struck by the strange assortment of goods they stole, what good would be a bottle of Friars Basalm, unless you had a cough and as for scissors, bandages and liniment, perhaps they wanted to be male nurses when they grew up? and as for the guns? I'm certain that these were stolen as an act of bravado and would never have been used.

If they wanted to fire guns, the three eldest could have done worse than try to enlist as 'Boy Soldiers' in the British Army, who were not that fussy about your age and so long as you were keen to fight and hopefully kill the dreaded Hun you were in, welcome to the Western Front!

One horrible statistic about these 'Boy Soldiers' is worth showing for the madness that it was.

On the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, 500 ‘Boy Soldiers’ were killed and 2,000 wounded and by the time the battle had ended, 18,000 ‘Boy Soldiers’ had been killed or wounded.

Did you know that the IRA organised campaign of bombing and sabotage against the civil, economic, and military infrastructure of the United Kingdom from 1939 to 1940,

The S-Plan or Sabotage Campaign or England Campaign as it became known was intent on wreaking death and damage to the country and it was partially successful.

In January 1939 bombs exploded in London and Manchester, sadly a chap called Albert Ross aged 27 was killed whilst walking through Stevenson Square when a bomb exploded and he was hit by a flying manhole cover.

The following day an unnamed man was walking along Barton Road when he noticed an alarm clock in a field next to an electricity pylon, he had heard about the bomb explosions that had taken place the day before and quickly informed the police.

D.S. Naylor and D.C. Downs from Green Lane police station arrived at the scene and quickly discovered that the clock was part of an explosive mechanism.

Fastened to the pylon and some seven feet from the ground were three sacks containing gelignite, detonators and dynamite, fortunately the clock which had been primed to explode at six o clock had stopped and thus prevented an explosion.

If the pylon had come down it would have meant a total power black-out in the Eccles and Davyhulme area and could have affected the nearby Barton Power Station, the possible real target.

Police also took possession of an IRA leaflet saying, "Give Ireland Its Freedom" which had been pinned to the noticeboard at St Catherine's Church, Barton.

The caretaker Mr Arthur Cookson had seen the leaflet earlier in the day and didn't take much notice, later in the evening he saw the notice flapping about soaking wet, hanging from the board.

Later on he saw a policeman at McAlpine's shop near Barton Bridge and told him what he had seen, both men returned and to their amazement found that a new notice had been pinned up, meaning that the IRA man was in the area at that time.

He described seeing a mystery man in the churchyard the night before, middle aged in his 50's wearing a light coloured raincoat and cap hanging about the church gates, who disappeared when he approached him.

Armed police were stationed at Barton Bridge and Barton Power Station in case of any further bombing attempts.

I couldn't find if any people were arrested in the Eccles area in connection with this bomb, however on 23 January two women were arrested in Manchester in possession of explosives including one barrel of potassium chlorate, two Mills bombs, 49 sticks of gelignite and 10 electric detonators.

Were these women in any way responsible for the Eccles bomb? again I could not find any record of anybody being charged with the Barton bomb.

A fascinating story which had an happy ending but could have been so close to disaster for the local area.

The accident occurred without warning at 5.35am on the morning of Tuesday 28 April. 

Locals first noticed a powerful rumbling sound followed by an almighty crash as a railway tunnel which passed underneath Temple Drive collapsed in on itself, the ground shook like an earthquake as the smoke arose from the tunnel, it was only as the dust settled that the the true horror of what had happened would unfold.

The 'Black Harry' tunnel was on the Patricroft and Clifton branch of the London and North Western Railway line linking Patricroft with Clifton Junction. 

Two houses - numbers 22 and 24  were swallowed up and the adjacent house number 26 had its end wall sucked into the pit. 

The alarm was raised and at first ambulances arrived with fire brigade and police following swiftly behind them. 

Locals desperately hurried to help sift through the debris however confronting them was a crater some 20 feet deep and into it was tipped timber, tiles, brickwork and a section of roof along with person belongings. 

Agnes Williams, the 77-year-old resident of number 26, was lying near the pavement, buried in rubble up to her waist. She was reported as calm and relatively unscathed while three neighbours pulled her clear. 

Her maid, Frances Watson, was then seen standing against the wall of her devastated bedroom, alongside an overturned wardrobe. 

Miraculously, she had survived the collapse and rescuers soon brought her down. 

Sadly the residents of numbers 22 and 24 were not so lucky. 

It was later in the afternoon that the first body was recovered - Fred Potter, aged 87, followed by his wife Clara, 73, and Jean Salt from next door who, at 28, was the youngest victim. 

Sara Salt, 69, and daughter Emily, 45, were found still in their beds, 15 feet below ground level. 

Black Harry had claimed five lives that fateful morning. 

The tunnel collapsed at a point directly beneath an old brick-lined construction shaft, the contents of which fell into the space below, the surrounding soil which was a loose mixture of sand and clay, poured into the hole and formed a large cavity underneath the foundations of the two houses on Temple Drive. 

Work to secure the tunnel got underway the following day. 

Even this was not without incident. Four workers were overcome by diesel fumes after a concentration of gas build-up caused by lighting equipment. 

On the 1st of May, work came to an abrupt halt after more rumblings were heard, but with ashes packed solidly at either side and timber bulkheads in place, the fall was finally sealed nine days after the roof came in. 

Sadly, it appears the Black Harry disaster could have been prevented, as on 15 April 1953, a labourer noticed some bricks had fallen onto the tracks and that more were peeling from the roof. 

All traffic on nearby roads was stopped to allow repairs, and it was decided to use steel ribs to reinforce the damaged area. Over the next two weeks, further land movements were detected and cracks started to develop. 

Immediate steps were taken to stop rail traffic and arrangements were made to strengthen the tunnel at this point, but before the protective work had been completed, the roof collapsed in the early morning of 28th of April. 

Brigadier C A Langley conducted the official inquiry on behalf of the Minister of Transport. He concluded that the failure was in no way attributable to mining subsidence but due to an inherent weakness in the construction of the tunnel. 

When the old shaft was examined, rotting timbers were found amongst the wreckage. 

It was determined that these had been used to brace the shaft when it was filled in after the tunnel was built, and that over time they had corroded, increasing the stress on the walls of the shaft. 

When they gave way, the full load of the shaft was transferred to the tunnel roof. 

The timber exposed by the original fall of brickwork formed part of a frame which supported this shaft. It was slowly being crushed by a 200-tonne column of wet sand perched on top of it. 

This, together with a century of decay, resulted in a massive load being transferred onto the tunnel arch. 

When the timber finally gave way, the brickwork could not withstand the pressure, allowing the contents of the shaft to break through catastrophically a vacuum pulled the houses into the void above. 

Today there is only a collection of garages to mark the spot of this infamous disaster where 22 and 24 Temple Drive once stood. 

Councillors planning Salford’s Chimney Pot Park wanted to open the city’s first urban boating lake in Langworthy, but things did not go according to plan with some fearing the City would have a proverbial white elephant on its hands.

The six-acre park, at the corner of Liverpool Street and Langworthy Road, opened in August 1915 on the site of the former Highfield Reservoirs.

A reminder of the park’s heritage can be found in the banked brick walls facing Langworthy Cornerstone and in the names of nearby streets, such as Reservoir Street, Wall Street and Highfield Road.

Today Chimney Pot Park it is still a popular spot with a children’s play area and well-used bowling green, but had original plans gone ahead it could have seen Salford’s first yachting lake high above the chimney tops.

How Chimney Pot Park could have looked if boating lake plans went ahead

The plans were only scuppered by fears the council could have an expensive white elephant on its hands.

In 1871 the Manchester Waterworks Committee made a contract to supply a stated amount of water per day to the community – whether it was used or not.

Salford Council decided that because they were not using this amount of water, but were paying for it anyway, built reservoirs to hold their surplus supplies.

But by 1903, Salford struck a new deal with Manchester to supply water through a meter, so there was no use for the vast reservoirs.

Councillors offered Highfield to the Salford Parks department, who readily accepted with the idea of building a boating lake.

The mass labour required to fill in the reservoir, ready for Salford’s first marina, was given to local unemployed men, who spent thousands of man hours on the backbreaking task.

It began in September 1908 and continued through until May 1909, costing a total of £2,500 – some £268,774 in today’s money.
Between 1909 and 1913 no further moves were made to get boats on the lake or open it to the public, as the former reservoirs had to settle.

The park was to be called – not Chimney Pot Park – but the rather less memorable ‘Langworthy Green’.

But just two years before it was due to open, the Parks Department abandoned the idea of a boating lake for the Langworthy public, instead refocusing the plans to provide general recreational space.

£9,500 was pumped into building two bowling greens, six tennis courts, and two gymnasiums for children.

The bowling green in 1966 – © Salford Local History Library

Can you imagine what the park would look like today if the earlier plans had gone ahead?

Langworthy Green was opened on 11 August 1915 by Mayor Alderman Worsley, along with his daughter and a host of civic dignitaries.

He told the Salford City Reporter:

“On approaching the park one is much struck by the splendid appearance of the entrance, the gates are in the centre and one or two ways are is open for the visitor to pass along.

“Mounting the asphalted walk a splendid view is obtained of the park, some six acres in extent”.

Interestingly enough at the opening ceremony the Mayor wasn’t presented with a key as was the norm but a silver tea service inscribed with the wording, ‘Presented to the Mayor of Salford, Ald Worsley upon the occasion of the opening of Langworthy Green, August 1915’.

The Mayor then gave a speech in which he remarked that Langworthy residents could, instead of making the journey to Buile Hill Park, “enjoy their own local park at their own desire”.

In a sign of the times, Ald Worsley continued to say that ladies could “bring their sewing and mending to the park” and sit in comfort doing their work in pleasant surroundings.

The opening ceremony was finished off when the Mayor and Alderman Oliver opened one of the bowling greens and had a game of ‘five up’, which history records Alderman Oliver won by one game.

The greens were then thrown open to the public for the afternoon, free of charge for that one day.

During World War Two the park was closed for safety measures and ‘barrage balloons’ – inflatables held down by steel stansions to prevent enemy aircraft from flying too low – were erected in the park and manned by Canadian soldiers.

Do any of our Langworthy residents have Canadian heritage, I wonder?

If you walk along Wall Street adjacent to the park, you can still see where the entrances to the air raid shelters which were dug underneath the park, these would have saved many lives in Salford as that area suffered quite badly in the Blitz.

The park is still open to this day and it hasn’t really changed much, although it has a new stone stepped entrance from Langworthy Road, it still has at least one bowling green with a club house, and children's swings and is as popular as ever.

A young miscreant by the name of Clifford Hunt faced the wrath of magistrates when he appeared before Salford Juvenile Court on 6 July 1915.

Hunt, 12, from Robertson Street in Salford was charged with throwing stones at trains coming in to the long-demolished Seedley train station.

The court heard that station porter reported a group of youths trespassing on the line. They ran away when he shouted at them, but as he returned to duty, one of the boys threw a stone which struck the man on the leg, while another stone narrowly missed a steam train coming in to the station.

Local officer PC Thomas, who was on duty in the area, saw Clifford Hunt throw six stones at passing trains and gave chase. When the boy was caught he still had a stone in his hand.

He was arrested and charged at Salford Juvenille Court with ‘Throwing stones at an engine on the London and North West Railway Company in such a manner as to endager the safety of persons travelling on the line’.

The prosecutor Mr Branthwaite told the court that earlier that month a porter at the same station had been hit on the head by a stone thrown by a group of boys and that there had been a large number of complaints recently about this sort of shocking behaviour.

Hunt’s father appeared in court and said that he didn’t know anything about this incident until the boy received a a court summons. He then recounted to the bench that he had given the 12-year-old “a good thrashing”.

The Stipendary Mr Burnley complimented the father for administering this kind of justice and then added his own: Clifford Hunt was ordered to be taken to the nearest police station and given five strokes of the birch.

Directly following Hunt, two boys aged just 8 and 10 tramped into the court room to face a similar charge and a similar punishment.

William Mann, 8, and William Varden, 10, were found guilty of throwing stones at workmen on the train line.

Mann received two strokes of the birch while the older Varden took three strokes.

It does seem terribly harsh giving the birch to a boy as young as 8, however the consequences could have been a lot worse if they had actually smashed the windows on passing steam trains.

Seedley train station closed in 1956 and there is little trace of where it stood, close to Langworthy Road.

50 years later, and 100 yards down the line, two boys age 12 and 16 almost caused one of the worst train disasters in Salford history.

Sadly to this day we still get stories in the press of youths vandalising trains and throwing stones from railway embankments. Both are highly dangerous and have the potential to result in fatalities. Times may change, but people stay the same, it seems.

In May 1965 a group of young chaps from Salford and Swinton who called themselves The Rogues were intent on world domination of the musical kind.

The Eccles and Patricroft Journal’s music columnist ‘Tempo’ told of this local band and assured his readers that they were destined to be the Next Big Thing.

The band consisted of lead vocalist Albert Wood, 16, 15-year-old lead guitarist and harmonica Mike Amatt rhythm guitarist Brent Forbes, 16, 17-year-old bassist Diccon Hubbard and Terry ‘Tex’ Rogers, 17, on drums.

They had been rehearsing together for 18 months and could boast of having equipment worth £450.

They had already played at clubs in Manchester, Salford, Eccles, Bury and Middleton and explained that their favourite numbers were, ‘Mary Ann’, ‘Find My Way Back Home’, ‘Can’t Explain’ and most hits by Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones.

The group’s name used to be The Jokers but they changed it after a fan remarked that they looked like “a bunch of rogues”.

We learn that the band had stage outfits in which the four instrumentalists would wear red waistcoats, white tab collared shirts, black knitted ties, dark trousers and black cuban heeled boots.

Ever the rebel, frontman Albert would wear a blue waistcoast instead of a red one.

The Rogues also had a manager, Mr Jim Shephard, who owned the Princes Cinema in Monton and he would guarantee them bookings.

The band did release one single on the Deccal label called, ‘And You Let her Pass By’ which, sadly, bombed by all accounts.

So what became of The Rogues?

Some of the members of the band went onto other groups and I recall Diccon Hubbard being in ‘The Salford Jets’ fronted by Mike Sweeney. He also went on to become Carls form tutor at Hope High, poor fella, no rogue deserves that.

Do any readers have any memories of this band of rogues?

The low canal bridge that carries the Bridgewater Canal towards the aqueduct at Barton has seen many a mishap over the years with both buses and large lorries inadvertently smashing into it.

This story from the Eccles and Patricroft Journal from January 1965 illustrates this problem.

Eccles Magistrates Court heard that at 9.30am on 7 December 1964 the driver of a 22X North Western double-decker bus coming from Urmston, turned down Barton Lane with disastrous consequences as the top of the bus was completely ripped off, showering passengers with glass.

The bus driver Robert Daniel told the court that he had been driving single-decker buses for 20 years, but on that fateful day had been told to take a double-decker from the Cross Lane depot to Eccles.

Read: Road blocked as bus smashes into Eccles railway bridge

Read: Green Lane closed: Lorry’s roof ripped off after hitting railway bridge

He had turned right down Barton Lane instead of going along Barton Road and before he realised his mistake he had crashed full speed into the 70-year-old, 11ft 6in bridge.

The height of the bus was almost two feet too high at 13ft 4in.

In his defence Daniell said he had not been told about the height restrictions at Barton and there were no warning signs in his cab.

Luckily there was only one passenger upstairs at the time, 17-year-old police cadet Michael Judge. He was the son of Mr T. Judge a well known butcher who had premises on Liverpool Road, Patricroft.

He told the Journal that he had been playing football with a police cadet team at Baguley and was returning home at the time of the crash.

He said:

“I know that double decker buses are routed to avoid turning right into Barton Lane where the aqueduct crosses the roadway, as the bus made a right turn I thought it might have been a smaller double decker bus which could go under the bridge.

“Then I saw the steel framework of the bridge looming up and I knew that a crash was inevitable.”

Michael flung himself flat across the gangway as the bus roof roof crunched down over his head, his head and neck were covered with fragments of glass from the shatterd windows as the roof was pushed down to seat level.

“The lights went out and all was black except that I could dimly see the steel bridge over the top of the seats, the conductor came up the stairs to see if everybody was safe, I scrambled own the stairs and told him I was the only upstairs passenger.”

Three passengers on the lower deck suffered cuts from the glass but luckily the driver and conductor were both unhurt.

Magistrates fined Daniel £2 for driving without due care and attention; this does seem quite lenient considering the accident could easily have killed his 17-year-old passenger.

The Eccles Journal for December 29 1964 reported on the fate of Ian Bebbington 14, of Grasmere Crescent, who the paper described rather cruelly as being a "heavyweight" who tipped the scale at just over 10 stone. 

Ian and his pals, Malcolm Gelder, 12, and Peter Murray, 12, had been playing at the Eccles Corporation tip at Dukes Drive off Carriage Drive, Monton when Ian became stuck in slimy mud and sand on the edge of a floodwater lake. 

Malcom Gelder and Peter Murray waded into the muddy lake in an effort to retrieve their friend but all three got stuck up to their knees in the ooze. 

They struggled for an hour until Malcolm eventually managed to get free and shouted for help. 

Luckily his cries were heard by Mr Stanley Stout 52, a railwayman of Verdun Road who was walking along the towpath of the Bridgewater Canal which runs alongside the tip. 

Mr Stout could not rescue the boys because of the deep water but shouted across the canal to his home where a member of his family called the police. 

Police contables Duckworth and Shelton arrived on the scene and discovered that Malcolm had been able to escape from the mud and was sat with Peter shivering on the canal bank. 

However Ian was still stuck in the mud up to his knees and it was getting darker. 

The two officers managed to obtain a plank on which they stood upon and managed to drag Ian out by his wrists and to safety. 

Disaster struck however when both of Ian's wellingtons came off and had to be abandoned to the deep mud. 

The boys were taken home in a police car for a hot bath and doubt a right telling off just as other policemen arrived with ropes and safety equipment. 

The strong arms of the law had once again managed to save the day, if not the boots. 

Back in 1966, Salford Magistrates Court heard the story of an undercover police visit to the Irwell Castle Hotel on Great Clowes Street in Broughton. 

These being rather less open-minded times, the incident would cause the landlord of this Salford pub to lose his music licence and pay a hefty fine. 

PC Malcom Nellis and a female police office PC Jessop found the artiste - real name James Stone - being played onto the stage by a Mr Kenneth Taylor with Diamond Lil "dressed as a woman in a tight fitting dress, wearing high heeled shoes, his hair piled high on his head, wearing white earings and his chest padded to simulate a bosom". 

The court heard that the plain clothes police ordered drinks as Stone started his act by raising his skirt and adjusting his suspender belt. 

PC Nellis proceeded to take notes of the songs that Diamond Lil was singing and alleged in court that he changed the words: instead of singing, "There goes my heart" he changed it to, "There goes my bra" whilst singing them "with undulating and suggestive movements" 

The show got a lot worse for the pure-hearted PC Nellis as Diamond Lil told suggestive jokes and then mixed with the audience, making "improper remarks" and "suggestive gestures". 

One elderly couple stood up and walked out saying that the show was "disgusting". 

Among the jokes heard by PC Nellis some referred to using the ladies toilet and saying to some youths in the audience: "You may think I'm a queer but I'm very strong, I'll see you outside" 

There was also "frequent lifting of his skirt and manipulation of the upper part of his dress". 

PC Nellis had seen enough and called for Sgt Hoyle who had also seen a small part of the performance, was he more faint of heart than his fellow police officers? 

They stopped the landlord Mr Green in the lobby and told him that they considered the show to be lewd and that they intended to prosecute him. 

In a trial at Salford Magistrates Court Mr Simon Fawcuss for the prosecution said that the police had been observing the pub for several weeks and that there were audiences of 20 to 60 men and women watching the performance. 

He told the court that Mr Stone appeared dressed as a woman telling indecent jokes and making lewd gestures amd movements which were obscene whilst Mr Tayor accompanied the act on piano and drums and acted as a "stooge" to Mr Stone. 

In his defence Mr Stone AKA Diamond Lil said: "I've been up for this sort of thing before, and its practically ruined me, I don't tell obscene jokes or gestures, I admit I told the jokes but as far as movement is concerned, its only sideways movements such as you see in any television dance show, there's nothing wrong with that" 

Leslie Owen, defending the landlord Mr Green, said that he had been there for 12 months and Saturday and Sunday evening was always entertainment night, adding that Diamond Lil as James Stone was a regular customer at the pub and had actually performed his act for Mr Green who did not find it objectionable. 

And while the landlord terminated Diamond Lil's engagement at the Irwell Castle Hotel, the drag queen was easily able to get work at another Salford pub. 

Mr Taylor, the pianist, told the court that he was strictly employed as a musician and was "blushing and embarrassed throughout the show" as the police well knew. 

That guardian of morals in Salford, magistrate Mr Leslie Walsh was having none of this. 

He revoked the music licence of the pub from Mr Green and fined him £50 adding: "It's high time that publicans know that this sort of objectionable performance will not be tolerated in Salford. 

"It's quite disgraceful that it should be thought fit to amuse people in this disgusting way." 

He then turned his attention to Mr Stone the female impersonator and fined him £50, adding. 

"I'm not quite sure that you should not be going to prison." 

Finally the pianist Mr Taylor was fined £20 for aiding and abetting in these shows. 

It makes me wonder what Mr Walsh if he were still alive would make of the antics as such clubs at the Birdcage in Manchester or many of the clubs and pubs in the Gay Village? 

Thankfully we now live in more enlightened times in Salford.

Looking back through archives, crime and punishment is certainly not more lenient than it is today, despite what the history revisionists might have you thinking.

This case in particular seems exceptionally sad and the punishment administered quite shocking.

Mary Chandly, who was described as being ‘elderly’ and having no fixed abode, appeared at Salford Magistrates Court charged with the theft of a shawl.

The garment was apparently taken from a pram in the backyard of Annie Hilton’s house at Marlborough Road in Broughton.

The court heard that Annie Hilton’s daughter, age 7, saw Mary swipe the shawl and immediately told her mother.

Annie followed Mary Chandly to a place called Fitton’s Court off Bank Street and accused her of stealing the shawl.

Mary didn’t seem too perturbed by the accusation and firmly denied the theft, then added, “Do what you like,” which to be honest does sound like an admission of guilt.

Mary was employed as a servant for Jewish families in Broughton, and was known in the local area as a ‘bucket pincher’, the translation for which hasn’t survived through the ages.

One would guess it meant a habitual offender who only stole small articles of little value.

Mary’s age isn’t given in the Salford City Reporter story but the term ‘elderly’ indicates that she was no doubt in her sixties.

Police Constable Hodgson from Salford police arrived and promptly arrested and charged her with theft.

He told the court that Mary was “no shrinking violet” and had 13 previous convictions for theft and drunkenness.

Amazingly the Magistrate sentenced poor Mary to a month’s imprisonment with hard labour.

Female prisoners given hard labour were forced to do the most menial and back-breaking tasks, including scrubbing stone floors, sewing old uniforms, sorting out huge piles of rags; basically anything to keep you occupied whilst you were in there.

Admittedly she was a convicted thief, but to be given hard labour on top of a prison sentence does seem particularly harsh by today’s standards.

Photo: © Working Class Movement Library

The eternal battle in journalism is to decipher what exactly is the difference between news in the public interest, and news that’s interesting to the public.

This story from the pages of the Eccles and Patricroft Journal from August 1916 shows that while newspapers deal in both of the above, articles revealing salacious details of the affairs of your neighbours are still the most popular.

Here, on a Saturday morning in August the residents of Birch Avenue and Fir Street in Cadishead were treated to a rather unusual spectacle.

The circumstances around the story are almost farcical but worth retelling as a warning to would-be errant husbands.

An unnamed woman living on Birch Avenue received a letter supposedly written by her husband’s mother, who lived in faraway Scotland.

The mother-in-law wrote that she was so ill she “feared for her life”, and begged to be able to come and meet her daughter-in-law in Cadishead.

Unusually, she did not write to her dutiful son.

However the woman lost no time in rushing to Scotland to tend to her mother-in-law, whom she assumed was at death’s door.

It was a shock to find, then, that the elderly woman was not only in rude health, but had no knowledge of the letter.

Not unexpectedly the woman, accompanied by her no doubt irate mother-in-law, caught an express train back to Manchester and then made their way to Cadishead.

Lo and behold when she opened the door to her house she was met by another woman – said to be “a soldier’s wife” who lived in Rochdale.

Now, if this happened to you, what do you think your reaction would be?

Certainly what happened next was unprecedented.

The shocked and distressed woman called the police who arrived and made enquiries, advising the soldier’s wife to leave the house without delay.

As word spread – like wildfire no doubt – her neighbours, excited by the scandal and the presence of the police on their street, decided to make a show of solidarity for the spurned wife.

In what would have made a stunning photograph (which sadly does not appear to exist), local residents lined the street to shout boos and cat-calls at the ‘scarlet women’, a crowd even following her to the railway station to ensure that she left the neighbourhood!

Cadishead Station – courtesy Irlam and Cadishead History Society

The neighbours no doubt, excited by the presence of the police and a, no doubt, ‘scarlet woman’ in their presence made a show of solidarity for the spurned wife.

The reporter from the Eccles and Patricroft Journal had a way with irony, calling it “a very warm send off” and I should imagine it was.

The newspaper then states that the husband was given the same treatment when he dared to walk along the street, as these puritannical defenders of morality lay in wait, eager to vent their wrath on him.

No police charges were brought but the whole event scandalised the neighbourhood.

I have no idea whether the couple maintained a happy life after this incident but I doubt it very much.

I should imagine he was made to live a dog’s life for a very long time, with his wife and mother under the same roof reminding him of his infidelity.

If I had been him I think I would have been tempted to leave Cadishead and join the army or go and live with the ‘scarlet woman’ – either would surely lead to a happier or quieter life.
 

Main Photo: Liverpool Road, Cadishead © Salford Local History Library

The Germans in a last-ditch effort to bring the country to its knees attempted to starve Britain into surrendering by attempting to sink boats bringing much-needed food and supplies into the country.

Almost 40% of all meat being consumed in the country was imported from either North or South America making these boats enviable targets.

Stricter food rationing was introduced in April 1918, with meat, butter, sugar, cheese and milk  all put on the ration list with Ration Books given out to the general public and you had to register with a Food Controller as to which butcher and grocery shops you would be purchasing from, the rules were very strict, anyone found cheating could be fined or even sent to prison and if we are to believe even King George and Queen Mary were given them, yes I can see them queueing up on The Mall to buy their food....

Now you have read these amazing facts - stop laughing at the back - we come to this week's juicy story from June 1918 which will go some way as to explaining why I regaled you with it, read on, it gets better, hopefully.

Herbert Groves, the Manager of the Argenta Meat Company butcher's shop on Union Terrace, Broughton, Salford appeared at the Salford Magistrates Court charged with assaulting one of his customers the unfortunately named, Herbert Bugg, do you think he was called Bertie Bugg at school?

Last inane fact afore we get to the "meat" of the story, the Argenta Meat Company far from being South American were actually founded in Oldham in 1899 and had over 100 shops dotted around Lancashire.

According to Chief Inspector Clarke from Salford Constabulary who was the main prosecution witness, Mr Bugg had gone into the shop and demanded that Groves return his precious meat coupons that his wife had handed over earlier that morning.

Sadly for Mr Bugg, Groves was busy cutting up the carcass of a dead sheep ready to be put on sale in the shop and I can imagine he wasn't in the best of moods.

Bugg complained that the meat his wife was given wasn't value for money and demanded the coupons back, at which Groves threw his coupons at him and told him to clear off from the shop 'or else'

Strangely enough, Bugg returned back to the shop several hours later, no doubt having been home and told not to come back without the coupons by Mrs Bugg and told Groves that, "I can not eat that kidney that you gave my wife earlier today and I demand my coupons back"

Enraged at this slur on his offal products Groves was then alleged to have hurled the coupons in his face and as he bent down to pick them up was rewarded with a boot in the face, followed by a pummeling to the head and the body causing Bugg to flee the shop.

Hell hath no fury like a butcher scorned it would appear, insult the man but not his meat products!

Mr Groves had a Mr Murray acting for his Defence and to be honest, he doesn't sound all that good, hardly George Carmen or Clarence Darrow.

Murray asked Bugg if it was not correct that he had been in the shop on three previous occasions complaining about the meat and threatening to report him to the local Food Controller, and had also been struck off Groves list of registered customers and the only reason he was in court today was that the kidney wasn't to his liking, strong line of questioning there!

Bugg strongly denied these allegations and stuck to his story that he was the injured party.

Unable to break him down with his rugged interrogation, Murray told the court that Groves was held in high esteem by his employers the Argenta Meat Company and there had been no complaints about him apart from those by Bugg.

With a final lunge at the jugular, he then accused Bugg of being rude and arrogant to Groves and that it was he, not Groves who started the fight.

Sadly all to no avail as Bugg continued to plead his innocence.

The Stipendiary Magistrate no doubt as bored with this court case as you are, found Groves guilty of assault and fined him 20 shillings.

So did Groves get the "chop" from his job? was it all a "missed steak? did they "meat" again? to settle their "beef" and not "mince" words? or all these puns to "offal" to repeat?

Sadly I'm here all week I athankayew.

Readers of a certain age may recall the "thrill" of perusing the page, known as, "Before The Bench".

This salacious news page gave full details of any felon who had the misfortune to appear before the dreaded Stipendary Magistrate, Mr Leslie Walsh, a proper, old school, no-nonsense Magistrate who would send you down if he even thought you looked guilty!

Heaven forbids if your name was to appear on that page, you instantly became a social pariah a veritable, "talk of the washhouse" merchant.

This particular story comes from August 1918 and tells of a gentleman called Charles Berry or Charles Clennel depending upon who he was meeting.

Charles would appear to have been a somewhat silver-tongued, lothario, fond of the ladies, a drink and a gift of the gab as poor Miss Adelaide Evans was to find out.

Charles Berry appeared before Salford Magistrates Court charged with obtaining sums of money from Adelaide Evans with intent to defraud.

The couple met on that popular Salford thoroughfare, Cross Lane, where they got into conversation.

Charles told Adelaide that he was a "well known local footballer" by the name of Charles Clennel, a single man who worked at Mather and Platts Engineering Company in Trafford Park.

I liked the way he told her he was a "well known local footballer" perhaps Adelaide had visions of becoming a forerunner of the modern days WAG?

He asked the fragrant Adelaide to "keep company" with him and promised her that one day he would marry her, what a smoothie.

The poor girl should have got the "odour of rodent" when Charles began to borrow sums of money from her on various pretexts.

He told her that during their courtship he had, had the misfortune to lose not only his father but his mother and aunt! fortunately, they had all left him sums of money in their wills, sadly he had to look after his sister who was ill and living in lodgings.

Charles had some neck he even offered to take her to his family's solicitor's to verify the facts.

When she declined this offer, the borrowing of money began, obviously with promises to pay it all back on a lump sum and an added bonus as a gesture of goodwill.

Charles like all good con men went in low borrowing small sums such as 10 shillings one week and a £1 the following week, slowly increasing the amounts until he had run up a debt of £25-17-6, a tidy sum in those days.

He then began to tell Adelaide further excuses as to why he couldn't pay her back just yet, the £15 his mother had left him had been stolen, the £50 his father had left him had somehow got misplaced by the bank, sadly no mention of the money his aunt had left him, eaten by mice presumably?

The poor woman (and she probably was) by now had by now had enough and contacted the police who quickly tracked him down and arrested him, charging him with deception.

Charles wasn't beaten yet he wrote to her from Strangeways prison, one letter read,

"I have only you to think of me whilst I am in here, I am going to ask you to fix the day to make me the happiest of men"

He is persistent I'll give him that!

In the dock, Charles did the honourable thing and pleaded guilty to all of the charges.

However, all sympathy for him evaporated with the appearance of a surprise witness, no other than Mrs Berry, his wife and mother of his two children.

Mrs Berry told the court that Charles was a good husband and always tipped his wages up regularly, let's face it he could afford too.

Charles told the court that he loved his wife but his downfall was horse racing and gambling, no mention of gullible young women.

The Stipendiary Magistrate said that this was a carefully thought out and cruel deception and sentenced him to six imprisonment with hard labour as a possible inducement to curb his future activities in Salford.

It was the first winter of the Great War in Salford, and while coal was not officially rationed until 1916, supplies of fuel and light were restricted and many families were suffering. 

Looking through the record books, the winter temperatures in Salford were not particularly harsh. 

But the Defence of the Realm Act, passed in August 1914, allowed the government to take charge both of coal production and supply, and there is no doubt that nearly all of the coal that was being produced at this time would have gone to the mills, mines and factories producing weapons and munitions and the war effort in general. 

Mysterious figures were spotted carrying railway lamps lurking in the shadows of Weaste, ready to pounce and steal timber of any description, even front and back doors were not safe from this unscrupulous bunch of plunderers. 

The local residents were furious and one told the Salford City Reporter that "this nefarious practice starts at 11.30pm and continues until nearly 6am." 

We learn that this gang of villains were stealing trees from the estate of Mr Edward Tootal - known as the Weaste Estate - going as far as the railway lines on the Eccles New Road side. 

It is worth remembering that the Tootal Drive and Meadowgate Estates had yet to be built and early maps show that the area of Tootal Drive spreading up to Buile Hill Park was known as Bluebell Woods, a good indication of the rural nature of Weaste at the time. 

Trees were spotted stripped of their bark and chopped down awaiting collection which would happen several hours later, the noise of their waggons carrying the timber would be drowned out by the noise of the passing steam trains. 

It was reported that gas lamps had been tampered with, however:

"brilliant lights are retained in the bedroom windows on the main roads to apparently aid the thieves there." 

The newspaper then goes on to say that:

"While this timber plunder is going on the trade of the Guardians is suffering also the coal trade is at a low ebb. 

"The people who are using the wood can well afford to pay for it if they spend a little less on dress and finery. 

"But then as a Salford Warrants Officer calls this locality the 'Debtors Retreat' perhaps this can not be wondered at." 

A favourite time to steal the timber was apparently when there was storm raging, as the noise drowned out the sound of the cart wheels as they shifted their ill gotten goods to nearby houses. 

One resident complained that dogs which used to bark through the night were suspiciously quiet - no doubt silenced by "mystery biscuits" fed to them. 

The following week the Salford City Reporter stated that the situation had got much worse, as trees were reported as being stolen near Weaste Hall by gangs using coded whistles and using scouts as look outs in back entries where the sound of wood being sawed up could be clearly heard! 

The police came in for criticism saying that they "pay little or no attention to the action of the men in the night time", and more damningly that, "they only walked down one side of the thoroughfare - possibly Weaste Lane - and return with extreme quiteness apparently taking no notice of what is going on around them." 

Some of these thieves were a little more enterprising and would under cover of darkness sneak into the rear of large houses in the area and steal the wood which the owner had stockpiled over the year. 

Others stated that the money saved by not purchasing wood enabled these men to spend it in other directions, possibly food for their families? 

I looked through further editions of the newspaper and found no stories of the timber plunderers being hauled up before the local Magistrates Court and the story seemed to fade away. 

Can we assume that by Christmas 1915 the Great War had started in earnest and that more local men had enlisted in the army? 

On reflection it seems staggering to read about the moral outrage that the actions of these desperate men had caused. 

I know full well if I had no money for coal and there were trees close to my house I would be out there chopping a few down to keep warm, and possibly keeping my eye out for a Christmas tree to add to the festive season of goodwill. 

Photo: Weaste Road

The case excited enormous public interest with its hints of sexual liaisons, the accusations of corruption against a deeply unpopular police chief, and the continued refusal of condemned men to admit their guilt. 

On Saturday 26 April in the year 1817, wealthy Manchester merchant Thomas Littlewood and his wife returned home to find their house had been burgled. 

Gaining entry through an upstairs window they found a scene of horror in front of them. 

Two servants - Margaret Marsden, 75, and Hannah Partington, just 20 - had been bludgeoned to death with a poker and a cleaver, and were found covered in blood in the kitchen. 

A search of the house revealed that a large amount of money had been stolen, some £160 in notes and silverware. an staggering amount of money in those times. 

Witnesses soon came forward and gave the names of four men, James Ashcroft, 53, his son James, 32, David Ashcroft, 48, brother and uncle to the aforementioned men, and 47-year-old William Holden 47. 

The men were arrested the next day by Joseph Nadin, the Deputy Constable of Manchester. Their rooms, in Silk Street, Salford and St George's Road, Manchester were searched, and cash was found, but although Nadin searched for any bloodied clothing, and pressed the men to disclose where such garments might be, none was ever found beyond a handkerchief with some blood on it, lying beneath David Ashcroft's bed. 

On Monday 28 April the prisoners were taken to the scene of the crime and forced to look at the corpses. Holden in particular was reluctant to do so, and press reports of the time were quick to conclude that he and Hannah had been lovers. 

The men were arrested, charged with the murders of Margaret Marsden and Hannah Partington and sent to Lancaster to for trial on 5 September. 

At the trial, presided over by Sir Richard Richards, a succession of witnesses testified to seeing the Ashcrofts and William Holden leaving the house carrying bundles and they were later spotted in various public houses in Manchester. 

One even said that he saw David Ashcroft with a pile of notes in one hand and silver coins in the other. 

James Jnr and William Holden were seen later in the day in Hanover Street in Manchester betting large amounts (5 shillings a throw) on the toss of a coin. At no time did their demeanour suggest that they had recently, and savagely, murdered anyone. 

Not one witness recalled seeing blood on any of their clothing, which was described in often minute detail, right down to the colour of their handkerchiefs and their boot tops, and yet the perpetrators of the crime would certainly have been stained quite severely, given the very nature of the murders. 

The final prosecution witness was William Collins, a man James Snr had shared a cell with, and to whom he supposedly confessed. 

In the face of this kind of testimony the defence counsel Mr Williams had little to offer. 

Williams called a good number of witnesses, mostly to testify to the character of the men accused, or to place them well away from the scene of the crime, but a great many of the people called had criminal records themselves, and their evidence counted for very little. 

One witness, Adam Halwell, had taken William Collins to prison after his arrest and happened to see him on the day he was released. Halwell asked Collins if Ashcroft had said anything to him about the murders, to which Collins replied that they were 'all as innocent as the child unborn.' 

Cross-examined, Collins denied this. 

Given a chance to speak the men all pleaded innocence. 

Interestingly, both Holden and James Jnr mentioned being taken to see the bodies, and of being so shocked and moved by the sight that they kissed them. This would have been significant, as there was a belief at the time that a corpse would bleed anew at the touch of its killer! 

David made a dramatic plea to the court that the evidence against them had been falsified, that witnesses had lied and that he and the others were innocent. 

By now it was approaching 8pm and the jury retired to consider its verdict. They returned just two minutes later and pronounced that they had found all four men guilty. 

Amid sobbing and screaming from wives and family members all four men loudly protested their innocence, so much so that the judge reprimanded them and the bailiffs and to struggle to regain order. The court finally fell silent as the sentences were passed. 

The men would die in two days time, on Monday 8 September. 

Amid more accusations of corruption, mostly levelled against Joseph Nadin, the men were finally removed from the dock and taken down to the cells below. 

On the day of the execution the area around Hanging Corner outside Lancaster prison was thronged with people. 

One by one the men were brought out onto the scaffold and one by one they reiterated their innocence. 

Finally just before the trap fell they began to sing a hymn: 'I'll Praise My Maker While I've Breath' and when, 
some four minutes later all four men were dead, there was said to be "scarcely a tearless eye among the crowd, while many of the women wept aloud". 

Interestingly enough, some 26 years later a man called John Holden, who lived in Atherton, made a death bed confession saying that he had murdered the two women and that innocent men had been hung. 

The truth of the 1817 Pendleton Murders would die with Holden, as he was to pass away the day later.

Photo: Hanging Corner - Lancaster Castle

19-year-old Thomas Kean, who lived on Clarendon Crescent in Eccles was returning home from a night in Manchester city centre, when he spotted a bright light in the sky. 

He told the Eccles Journal back in 1966: "I dismissed it as unusually bright flash of lightning, [but] I mentioned it to my family when I got in." 

He believed it to be a strange shooting star with what appeared to be sparks coming from it. 

Brushing it off, he retired to bed, but later that morning at around 3.45am Thomas's mother Elizabeth awoke with a start. 

When she went into the bathroom, lo and behold she too saw a strange light in the sky. 

She said: "Looking through the window I saw a bright white light, the stars were much higher in the sky and as I watched the light it appeared to become a red ball, not completely round, but more of an oval shape, and its brightness was going out and then coming back again. 

"It almost disappeared and then came back and grew larger, I thought I was seeing things so I went and woke up my son Frank." 

Frank was roused from his slumbers with the third Kean son Peter, and the family watched the bright flashing object until 4.15am when they traipsed back to bed. 

The newspaper went on to say that while there were no confirmations from officials, reporters believed it might have been a new satellite which had been launched. 

It is worth noting that shortly after midnight there was a storm over Eccles with torrential downpours which reportedly roused many people from their sleep. 

So what do we make of the bright, glowing red ball, possibly oval- or cigar-shaped with sparks coming from it hovering over Eccles? 

The report came at a time when the Cold War and space race between America and Russia was hotting up, paranoia abound, and stories of little green men in flying saucers spying on planet Earth. 

Then again, I could be wrong, and the Kean family really did have a close encounter of their own - what do you think? 

Stories of miscreants being treated roughly by police when resisting arrest are no uncommon thing when looking back through the pages of the Salford City Reporter.

But the one thing you can count on is that the force usually end up on top.

This case making the headlines in Salford in August 1916 shows this all too well.

William Marshall, of no fixed abode, appeared at Salford Magistrates Court charged with “being on enclosed premises for the purpose of burglary”, and unlawfully wounding PC Blakeley.

Marshall appeared in court with his head swathed in bandages and nursing a broken jaw, injuries he sustained during his arrest.

The court heard that the police had been tipped off that thieves were stealing poultry from land near the old Manchester Golf Club Links at Vine Street in Broughton.

PC Blakeley, along with a Mr Bond and Mr Rylance, lay in wait watching a hen coop for the return of the thieves.

At 11.20pm two men were seen approaching the henhouse: this is when PC Blakeley sprang into action and tried to seize William Marshall by the legs.

Marshall had ‘come equipped’ to some degree and was not ready to be taken down lightly.

He smashed the constable on the back of his head with a glass bottle, felling the officer to the mud.

Undeterred, the plucky copper picked himself up and collared the fleeing felon, throwing him to the ground, where a fierce fight ensued.

All the time PC Blakeley was blowing his police whistle – not a euphemism – which echoed shrilly across the fields.

Mr Bond chased the second suspect but he managed to escape over the fields and into Broughton.

By the time he returned, the fight between the officer and William Marshall was, incredibly, still going on.

Mr Bond went to PC Blakeley’s aid and joined in the fracas which lasted for some 20 solid minutes.

It must have been one hell of a fight.

It emerged later that PC Blakeley had suffered a serious head wound leaking blood which caused him to eventually collapse, not before overpowering William Marshall in a particularly forceful way.

But it would be the whislt that would save the battered and bruised officer’s life.

Five soldiers recuperating at the nearby Vine Street Military Hospital heard the ear-splitting screech and arrived, out of breath, to the officer’s aid.

They found PC Blakeley on his knees with blood pouring from a gaping wound.

Marshall was spreadeagled on the ground, unconscious and lying flat out.

PC Blakeley handed his handcuffs to Mr Bond and told him to “put the snips on him and don’t let him go”.

I assume snips is an archaic slang word for handcuffs, I have also heard them called ‘bracelets’ and ‘derbies’.

Both the officer and his suspect were taken to Salford Royal Hospital for treatment to their injuries and were examined by Dr Gosh, the house surgeon.

The PC had sustained a cut to his head two and a half inches long, with another cut half an inch long on the other side of the head.

He was also found to be suffering from shock caused by loss of blood.

Strangely enough there are no details of how William Marshall came to suffer a broken jaw and several injuries to his head and body.

I think we can safely assume that PC Blakeley gave him a severe thrashing ably assisted by the five soldiers from the Military Hospital. It was certainly not William Marshall’s night to get in a fight.

In court the heavily bandaged Marshall said that his intentions on that night were to sleep rough in the field when he was savagely attacked by PC Blakeley and ‘other men’.

But then the bombshell really dropped.

It came out in court that William Marshall was a deserter from the Royal Navy, where he had been serving as a stoker.

His name was being circulated by the military authorities and there was a warrant out for his arrest – with that in mind it’s no surprise Marshall put up such a fight

The Stipendary Magistrate, Mr PW Atkin, sentenced William Marshall to three months imprisonment with hard labour, after which time he would be handed over to the naval authorities who would no doubt come up with even more punishment.

So, all in all, not the best of evenings for William: thrashed by the police and several soldiers, suffering a broken jaw and numerous injuries, as well as being sentenced to Strangeways and facing a dreaded return to the Navy.

I have written before about Joshua Batty, a Salford man who was to become a familiar figure in the Magistrates Courts of Salford and even the Crown Court in Manchester, for his political beliefs and his no nonsense attitude to the authorities.

Prior to this appearance in the Salford City Reporter from February 1908, he was in trouble for slandering Sir Andrew Lees Knowles the owner of several local coal mines and Thomas Greenhalgh who was the President of the Lancashire and Cheshire Mineworkers Federation, it has to be said that Batty had no fear of speaking out, on matters he felt strongly about and in the next few weeks I will tell you the outcome of those court cases.

On the morning of Sunday 27th January 1908, the 11 o' clock mass at Salford Cathedral, Chapel street, was interrupted by shouts of, "Query" and "Hear, Hear" as Father Walsh was preaching  a sermon from the pulpit.

A man then stood up and shouted, "Dearly beloved Brethren, in the name of God..." and proceeded to accuse the priests of the Catholic Church of hypocrisy and demanded to know what they had done for the unemployed people of Salford?.

This turned out to be Joshua Batty, who refused to be quiet when told by members of the congregation and continued saying that he had a right to speak for the unemployed people, he was eventually bundled out of the Cathedral but shouted that they had not seen the last of him.

Half a dozen men took him to the police station with a view to having him prosecuted, the police however, said that they knew Batty and he was searching for notoriety, and he was given a caution, not to approach Salford Cathedral again, then released.

The Salford City Reporter visited Batty at his home in, Arthur Street, Pendleton and he gave them the reason why he had stood up in the Cathedral and spoken out and here are his exact words, strong stuff.

"I am sick of the hypocrisy going in the Church, I was brought up a Catholic and I know all their attitudes on all such questions when it comes to the unemployed, it was my intention to get into the pulpit and say the following before I was dragged out.

"I appeal to the Catholic clergy to give me one instance of what the Roman Church has done to uplift the low wage workers and starving unemployed from their present condition of poverty.

"I appeal to the Pope and his followers to come out of their fools paradises and try to do something for the material benefit of the downtrodden masses of humanity.

"It might be said that they care not for the worldly interests of the body, only for the spiritual needs of the soul, I contend not for the spiritual needs of the soul, but for the material needs of the body, a God on earth and not a phantom in the sky.

"It is a hollow mockery for you to come here and waste your time while there are men and women in Manchester and Salford, starving, homeless and shelterless"

The church was given the chance to reply and the Catholic Times said that they were indignant that an agitator was given the chance to disrupt the Mass and added that they feared that the  "brawler", would not be saved from "the indignant chastisement of an outraged people" if he attempted this again.

A youth by the name of John Bonar Thompson, a friend of Batty's  who was also removed from the Cathedral, told the Salford City Reporter that he was told by those that dragged him out that if he tried it again, the police would not be called, and they would be taken into the backyard of the Cathedral and thrashed into an inch of their lives.

Not sure if this was brave or foolhardy of Joshua Batty to stand up in the Cathedral and let his feeling be known, and strange that the police didn't press charges against him, Batty was certainly well known in Salford as a champion of the unemployed, having been sacked from his job at Pendleton Pit for what he he said was, "asking the right questions to the Management"

Perhaps they thought the publicity may have swelled his popularity with local people?

This certainly didn't deter Batty for within months he would be back in the courts on the more serious charges of inciting people to riot in Manchester at a gathering of unemployed people in Stevenson Square.

I went into the Working Class Museum on the Crescent and was astonished to find that they had never heard of him and had no newspaper reports of his activities.

I firmly believe that Batty was a genuine, believer in standing up for not only his rights but for those of the less fortunate, the homeless, the starving and unemployed of Salford, despite the efforts of the authorities to persecute and hound him, which they did, right up to his death in 1929.

I have mentioned that he is in an unmarked common grave in Weaste cemetery, Salford, my intention is to try and find the exact location and pay a visit to pay my respects to this unsung hero.

More on Joshua Batty and his exploits over the coming weeks.

The Eccles and Patricroft Journal of August 1966 told how Deborah Hayes was playing on the canal bank near Parrin Lane bridge with her five-year-old brother Adrian and another young girl.

Somehow Deborah fell into the water and being so young, her friends had no chance of her pulling out.

Fortunately because of the Bank Holiday a group of men were fishing further along the canal bank.

A view of the Bridgewater Canal at Monton © Salford Local History Library

Fred Wharmby, 27, of Stanley Road in Peel Green was enjoying an afternoon’s fishing with his brother, Gordon, 33, and his father in law, Harry Flack, 54.

They had been on the canal for several hours in an attempt to land the ‘big one’ when they heard the girl’s screams and cries for help.

Fred told the Journal: “I looked into the distance and saw something splashing in the water and at first I thought it was a dog swimming near the side, I decided I’d better make sure and went towards the spot.

“It was then that I could see that it was a little girl.

“I threw off my leather jacket and raced to the scene, she had disappeared beneath the water but her head popped up, so I jumped in and pulled her to the canal bank where my brother Gordon lifted her out of the water.”

Miss Joan Grieves, 37, who lived at Verdun Road, was alerted by the sound of the shouting and rushed to help.

She took the little girl into her house and turned her upside down to empty the water out of her.

There was reportedly a horrible wait.

Luckily, Deborah was responsive and started crying, a sign that she could breathe unaided.

They wrapped her up in a blanket to keep the tot from shivering and phoned for an ambulance.

Meanwhile Deborah’s younger brother Adrian had raced home to tell his mother Marjorie what had happened, she was occupied looking after her two other children, Beverley and Brendan.

Adrian blurted out that Deborah was in the water: the mum’s first thought was that she was in a paddling pool, but when he mentioned boats, she quickly realised the seriousness of the situation and panic-stricken rushed to the canal, fearing the worse.

You can only imagine her relief when she met Joan Grieves who told her that her child was safely wrapped up in her house.

The ambulance arrived and the relieved mother and daughter went to Hope Hospital to check that she was okay.

As for our hero, Fred Wharmby, he had to go to his father in laws house in Anson Street for a much needed bath and change of clothes and the day’s fishing was abandoned.

In May and June 1965 the Salford City Reporter carried a stunning story on how a dog walker saved scores of lives when he averted a potential mega-disaster on the railways.

Local man Leonard Jones was exercising his dog close to the now demolished Weaste rail footbridge when he noticed two youths on the tracks.

To his horror he saw that they had placed five steel plates on the line – each measuring 5 inches by 15 inches and secured in place with a pickaxe handle.

He shouted at them to stop and even managed to get hold of one of them, however they both escaped on bicycles in the direction of Liverpool Street.

Mr Jones quickly dialled 999 and waited for the police to arrive.

Had a steam train gone over the steel plates it would have derailed the carriages, causing certain injury and even death for the 20-30 passengers.

The following evening the two boys, age 12 and 16, were arrested when Mr Jones spotted the pair from a police car trawling the streets.

At first they denied being at the scene the night before, then the younger one said: “Is it about the railway line that you are chasing us?”

He then admitted his guilt and said that the other boy – who it turned out was his brother – was also responsible, adding that their reason for the act was that they wanted to see if the train would derail.

The full extent of the story came out the next day as it was revealed that the train was the 10.20pm boat train from Manchester to Holyhead and would pass through Weaste at 60 miles an hour.

The train was a steam locomotive and compromised six corridor coaches, and two vans.

Investigators told that the heavy metal plates had been stolen from a scrap yard and had been carried a considerable distance to the railway lines.

Mr Theodore Clayton, a railways expert who examined the scene, said that if the train had hit the obstruction it would have been definitely derailed with two probable outcomes.

Firstly either the engine and two or three coaches would have been completely overturned, or if it had managed to remain upright it would have ploughed into the stone buttress of the Weaste footbridge.

The feared magistrate Mr Leslie Walsh remanded the boys in custody for a week whilst further examinations took place.

When they appeared in court the following week they were told that the train derailment bid could carry a life sentence.

Mr Walsh also criticised the boys’ mother for not taking up his advice when he offered legal aid: she claimed she wasn’t in the house when the policeman called.

Two police officers carried one of the steel plates into the court, along with the pickaxe handle to show the court the size and weight of them.

Both boys were sent to the Crown Court in Manchester.

Mr W. H. Jalland, prosecting, told the court that perhaps the nastiest aspect of this incident was that the plates had been secured in place by a pickaxe handle being driven into a railway sleeper.

For the defence Mr Logan Petch said that the accused could never have visualised for one moment the terrible consequences that might have been forthcoming.

Judge Crichton told the boys: “This was a dreadful act, I cannot believe that each of you failed to contemplate that which would have resulted from the derailment of this express train travelling at high speed.

“Many innocent people could have been killed and families made fatherless.”

He sentenced the 16 year old boy to five years detention and the 12 year old boy to three years detention.

Strangely enough, I knew the younger brother, and the evening before I had been playing football in nearby Grey Street when he told me that he had been playing on the railway lines and had put old pennies onto the railway lines to watch them being flattened, which I thought was not only strange but stupidly dangerous.

We have to thank Mr Leonard Jones who managed to avert this possible tragedy by being in the right place at the right time.

Lancashire has had some grand traditions which have sadly died off, coal mining, child chimney sweeps, rickets, bare knuckle fighting, dog fight, bear baiting and that old favourite, "purring" better known as clog fighting.

The rules like the combatants were simple, two people which often included women as often as men, would grasp each other by the shoulders and start kicking the living daylights out of each other with steel tipped, heavy wooden clogs, until one of the combatants either collapsed in agony or worst....

The following story from the pages of the Eccles Journal, December 1921 tells how clogs were used to good effect, in a neighbourly dispute.

Mrs Emily Shimmonds and her husband, Frank who resided at Strand Street, appeared at Eccles Magistrates Court charged with assaulting, Ethel Whiting.

The Court heard that Ethel Whiting was seen by neighbours having an argument with Mrs Shimmonds on her doorstep which quickly escalated into a full blown brawl. Mrs Shimmonds took off one her clogs and used it as a weapon to batter Mrs Whiting around the head with it.

A neighbour, Gertrude Bent told the court she had gone to bring her milk in and saw the women fighting, she bravely separated them, only for Frank Shimmonds to come out of his house and he joined in hitting Ethel about the head and body, and urged his wife to carry on with the assault.

Emily Shimmonds admitted to the Clerk of the Court that she had given Ethel Whiting, two black eyes by striking her with her clog, but only because she had bit her husband, Frank on the arm.

Frank Shimmonds took the stand and told the Court that Ethel Whiting was always interfering and was a busybody, who had scratched and bit him when he tried to calm her down, and that there had been bad blood between the two women for the past five years.

The unnamed Clerk of the Court, said that he hoped that there would be no return to clog fighting on the streets of Eccles.

He fined Emily and Frank Shimmonds, ten shillings and sixpence each, Ethel Whiting was cautioned to her further behaviour and the neighbours left the Court no doubt to lead a quiet and peaceful life.

Over 100 years ago the 400 hostelries in Salford were doing a roaring trade – but as this June 1915 court case shows, some had better clients than others.

The Nags Head beerhouse on Regent Road was a boozer that seemed to attract the more ‘rough and ready’ customers, shall we say.

The licencee was Emmanuel Bradshaw who hailed from Rochdale and his previous occupation was that of a calico printer.

This was his very first venture having saved the £140 to purchase the licence. Sadly it would be something he would come to regret, not having done his homework on the pub and its regulars.

It came out in court that the pub depended chiefly on sailors and dock workers, and such was its notorious reputation that Salford police were called to step in at least once a day.

Mr Bradshaw was summoned to appear at Salford Magistrates Court on the charge of ‘permitting the house to be the habitual resort of disorderly women’.

The court was told that the pub had been under police observation from 16-23 April and it was noted ‘that women of ill fame’ had been seen to enter the pub and leave with foriegn sailors and other men.

Police Constable McNee told the court that he visited the pub on 16 April and saw in the parlour “two women of ill repute, eight other women, and fourteen sailors, mainly foreigners”.

One of the women was sitting between two sailors and was smoking a cigarette, whilst another was sitting on the knee of a sailor and seemed to be indulging in improper conduct.

PC McNee brought this to the attention of the landlord who replied: “I think you people are messing me about, I was wrongly fined last time, and I am doing the best that I can”.

Police Constables Lamb, Neary and McDonald all gave evidence against the landlord stating that the pub was a well known haunt of women of ‘ill fame’.

However, in his defence, Mr Bradshaw said that he had only received one warning from the police and in his opinion the women were entitled to a drink or reasonable refreshment and that he intended to serve them.

Mr Brocklehurst, defending, told the court that the pub was situated close to Salford Docks and was undoubtedly a difficult one to manage. He added that his client had come to Salford with his wife as a perfect stranger to the district and would not willingly allow disorderly women into the public house.

Sergeant Ronan, the Licencing Officer for Salford, said that he had warned Mr Bradshaw about the class of women who visited the pub and had told him to be very careful.

The Stipendary Mr Carnt weighed up all the evidence and and imposed a fine of £5 on him and warned him about his conduct and the class of customers that his pub was attracting.

Looking through the Salford City Reporter court cases from that period it would appear that the pubs of Regent Road/Trafford Road area particularly the Fox, Trafford, Ship and The Clowes were all well known haunts of these ladies, a tradition I believe that carried on until the late 1960’s.

Photo: Greater Manchester Police Museum

April 1965 saw the Salford City Reporter proudly boast in an article that the “Ellor Street dream begins to come true” complete with interviews with residents of the newly constructed Walter Greenwood, Eddie Colman and John Lester Courts all which towered some 120 feet above the Hanky Park skyline.

These particular blocks of flats were of special significance because their completion was the end of the first stage of the Ellor Street redevelopment scheme which was to provide 3,000 new homes, the £10 million pound Salford Shopping Precinct and a new civic centre – which never got built – making this “A Salford of the Space Age”.

In what is the perhaps the most optimistic assessment of the former ‘slum clearance’ area, the Reporter article states it will have tree-lined open spaces, a community centre and a health centre all segregated from traffic – which sounds really pleasant but hardly the truth as time would tell.

“Small wonder that many Ellor Street folk have fought shy of moving to overspill areas or other parts of the City, and have waited eagerly for the chance of being rehoused here – if they leave their present homes,” the reporter writes.

I grew up in Hanky Park and I can guarantee that my parents were in no rush to leave their terraced house in Bell Street and move into these concrete monstrosities, which could only boast of having two bedroooms, not very useful if you came from a large family as did many people in the area.

The 14-storey towerblocks were built at a cost of £1 million each and could boast of having such luxuries as built-in cupboards, underfloor electric heating, drying cabinets, gas or electric cookers, bathrooms, and a balcony from which you could view the site of your old house in the middle of a slum clearance area.

Several of the residents of these flats were interviewed and its interesting to read of their hopes and fears for the future in their new high rise flats.

Annie Joynson, 52, formerly of Florin Street but now in Eddie Colman Court told the paper: “We really wanted a house but these new flats are so nice and well designed that I would not change for a house.

“I like the underfloor heating, the nice living rooom, and bright bedroooms, we used to pay 16 shillings a week rent and now it is 44 shillings and 10 pence and well worth it”

Dorothy Huckle, 26, moved into Walter Greenwood Court from Church Street with her husband and baby daughter Jaqueline.

She said:

“We would have preferred a house but now we find that we really like living in these flats, I think that they are lovely and the rent is fair.

“We have no coal to buy and mess about with and we only occasionally use the electric fire.

“My only criticism is that the hall is a bit big and the kitchen a bit small.”

It would appear that almost everybody interviewed much preferred their new homes in the sky.

Let’s face it, in those days having an inside toilet, a bathroom and central heating was the height of luxury for most people in the Ellor Street area.

One dissenting voice came from 71-year-old widow Mrs M Rathbone ,who had previously lived on Bury Street. She complained about the lack of clothes-washing facilities – she had to take her washing to a launderette which was a 10-minute walk away – also that some of the windows on her flat were not reversible as they were on most other flats and she couldn’t clean them.

I can recall how houseproud the women were in that area: clean windows and curtains were the order of the day and door steps were “donkey stoned” in brown or cream sandstone.

Walter Greenwood Court was demolished in 2000/2001 whilst Eddie Colman and John Lester Court are now student accommodation for the nearby Salford University.

The city planners have since demolished some of the other tower blocks that were thrown up in that period, whilst others have been sold to private developers.

In April 1965 the Eccles Journal reported how a local company Bridge TV had an innovative idea to turn a a former Sunday school into a television and radio workshop.

Bridge was incorporated in 1934 and continued to trade until 1997.

It saw The Ebenezeer Chapel on Liverpool Road, Patricroft, was prime for conversion.

But council planners refused permission and an almighty row broke out between Councillors Cooper, Bradley and Woodrow as to the merits of using church ground for such a purpose.

Councillor Cooper stated that not so long ago the building had been used by the Ministry of Labour and National Insurance as a group office, adding:

“I would have thought that the church authorities must have been in agreement with the premises being used for these purposes.

“It does not detract from the church grounds and the sacredness of the church, I would have thought that the church would be glad of the income to be derived by letting off the building and if the council wants to help the church then let them rent off the rooms.

“I would further presume that this workshop would be inoffensive and not in operation day and night”.

Councillor Woodrow said that it would appear that the church authorities were going to move across the road and merge with the Trinity Methodist Church but if that were so the building would become empty and become a target for vandals who would smash windows and steal lead off the roof.

However Councillor Bradley spoke up:

“We must realise that television and radio service is a seven day week service and I think it would be wrong to mix this workshop with the Church.

“It is wrong for Councillor Cooper to refer this matter back for this is drafted on the Town Map as being for religious purpose only.”

The application was turned down by the Planning Committee and Bridge TV had to take their holy plan elsewhere.

However further research led me to discover that the owner of Bridge Television Mr Naylor was the father of Doug Naylor who went onto fame as the co author the cult TV series Red Dwarf, how many people know that?

The Ebenezeer Chapel was finally demolished in 1972 and a became a Mormon Church, was built on the site, which in turn was demolished and the site is now the Springfield Medical Centre.

Finally the merger between The Ebenezeer Chapel and the Trinity Methodist Church did take place, but that building is now the Theatre Organ Heritage Museum in Peel Green and a new Methodist Church on Liverpool Road was built and opened in the 1990s.

While the Great War raged on in Europe troops were looking forward to an end to the fighting and a return to their homes in Blighty.

However judging from a newspaper article from the Eccles and Patricroft Journal from April 1916, the prospect of a cosy home life was far from reality.

Sergeant Downs, serving with the Royal Army Medical Corp, lived at Worsley Buildings in Pendlebury with his wife Sarah Ann and their four children aged, 5, 8, 10 and 12.

The paper reported how on a visit home from the battle lines he was shocked at what he found.

His wife was a habitual drunkard, his children were under-nourished and the house was in a filthy and squalid condition.

It emerged that a young girl aged 14 was staying at the house and was giving Sarah Ann nine shillings a week from her wages earned at a local mill.

On top of this Sarah Ann was receiving her husband’s army pay of 27 shillings a week. She was also asking her 12-year-old daughter for three shillings a week rent.

Sergeant Downs was so shocked by this state of affairs he took the 14-year-old girl to live with her aunt and reported his wife to the local authorities.

Detective Constable Falder and Inspector Rivers from the NSPCC paid the house a visit on a Monday evening after concern for the children grew.

When they called the children’s mother was out and the eldest was sent to fetch her from a nearby beerhouse.

An examination of the rooms that they lived in showed that they had only one chair in the house and that the only bed was filthy and verminous.

The children were found to be filthy, ragged and crawling with lice.

When Mrs Downs returned to the house she denied that she had been drinking in the beerhouse but had been ‘cleaning’ there.

Mrs Downs and the children were taken to a nearby police station for further examination by Inspector Munroe.

He found that the children were poorly nourished, their clothes were filthy and that they were all verminous about the head and body.

Mrs Downs smelled of alcohol but wasn’t deemed to be drunk, her clothing was said to be dirty and she was unwashed.

Further investigations revealed that she had been visited on at least three occasions by the NSPCC who have grave concerns for the children’s welfare and so she was committed to the Manchester Police Courts to face charges of child neglect.

The court heard further damning evidence against her including the fact that she had sold most of the furniture to buy alcohol and that the children were often fed by sympathetic neighbours.

The Chairman of the Court told Mrs Downs that this was about as bad a case as he had heard in his court and that he was going to make an example of her: chilling words indeed.

She was sentenced to six months imprisonment with hard labour whilst the poor children were taken to the workhouse.

In this sad tale the main losers are the poor children; at least they would be fed and clothed but the workhouse regime was known to be ferociously harsh and they would have to stay there until they were of an age where they could find full-time employment.

A visit to the cinema today is plush experience with state of the art of equipment including luxury seats, wide screens and surround sound.

Over 100 years ago it was completely different story with small cinemas sprouting up across the country.

These early cinemas were often a meeting hall or dance hall which had been converted into a makeshift cinema, with long benches to sit upon and very little attention paid to hygiene or personal safety.

At its height Salford could boast of having a staggering 22 cinemas: Irlam, still a small town at the time, had two, Eccles had 12 and Swinton had at least three.

At the time, film stocks were made on a nitrate. This was cheap and easy to produce but had the drawback of being highly flammable.

It was sensitive to changes in moisture, static electricity, friction, light and heat, making the projectionist extremely vulnerable to the hot lamp of a film projector in a small, cramped room.

And the projectionist would be much busier swapping over rolls of film in that era, as each would contain no more than around 20 minutes of video.

The worst tragedy on record in a cinema was the Glen Cinema disaster which was caused by a fire sparked by a smoking film canister in Paisley, Scotland on 31 December 1929.

The resulting panic and crush killed 69 children and injured 40; the final death toll was 71.

It wouldn’t be until 1948 that Eastman Kodak brought to the market a much safer version of the technology with cellulose acetate film.

This story from the pages of the Eccles and Patricroft Journal, September, 1916 predates the Glen Cinema disaster but was to serve as a warning of the dangers of not being prepared for an emergency.

George Fredrick Wilson, proprietor of the 150-seater Royal Picture Palace on Manchester Road, Swinton was summoned to appear at the Manchester County Court charged with offences under the Cinematograph Act.

Inspector Munroe told the court that he visited the cinema at 8pm on Friday 15 August 1916.

Along with his collegague Detective Constable Falder, he saw Mr Wilson in the auditorium and told him that he wanted to inspect the fire appliances in the operating room and the auditorium.

In the operating room, from where films were projected, they found a young boy named only as Cheadle.

He, rather suspiciously, gave his age as being “over 14”.

Subsequent questioning revealed that he was in fact only 13 years of age – it meant he was working illegally as the school leaving age, and first possible employment age then was 14.

‘Cheadle’ told the police that he was paid four shillings a week to operate the projector whenever Mr Wilson was downstairs.

An inspection of the projection room found no firefighting appliances at all.

Portable fire extinguishers were available in 1916 – usually heavy brass and copper tools – but were a far cry from today’s modern equipment.

More damningly police discovered a a rickety wooden stool that children would use to operate the heavy projecter and a “considerable number of highly flammable film-ends were lying about the floor”.

They asked Mr Wilson what he would do in the event of a fire.

He rather flippantly replied, “I would blow it out.”

This was not what the concerned officers were looking to hear.

The police then discovered another boy in one of the ante-rooms, Simon Atkinson, who was busy winding films onto a spool which were driven by electricity, which could run at up to 1,000 revolutions per minute.

The edges were sharp and there was nothing to protect the boy’s hands from from being cut by the fast-moving mechanism.

Simon was asked if he worked there regularly; he told the officers that he “only did it now and again,” but didn’t get paid, but was allowed to watch the films for free.

The police inspected the auditorium and again found no firefighting appliances, Mr wilson pointed out that it was like this when he took over in May.

Mr Wilson was issued with a warning to stop employing underage boys and to acquire adequate firefighting appliances before they returned a week later.

When the date rolled round for the officers’ second visit, they arrived on Manchester Road to find no safety equipment in the auditorium and in the projection room just a simple bucket of water and some loose sand to shovel onto a fire: hardly what was required if a blaze broke out.

Mr Wilson got his court-orders there and then: he was charged with three offences, one for not having adequate fire fighting appliances and two charges of employing underage boys in dangerous occupations.

The Magistrate fined him £5 for the first offence, whilst the other two summonses were withdrawn.

On a curious note the father of the Cheadle boy, Thomas Cheadle of Lansdale Street, Swinton was fined 5 shillings and 6 pence for allowing his son to be employed there!

I believe the cinema changed its mame to The Adelphi shortly after the First World War as this information suggests and was possibly demolished to make way for the New Adelphi Cinema.

The New Adelphi Picture House was opened on 15th December 1923 with a (then) state of the art 28ft wide proscenium.

Operated by Swinton Entertainments it was re-named Adelphi Cinema in 1929 and came equipped with a Western Electric sound system.

It was taken over by the Newcastle-based Essoldo chain in March 1947 and was re-named Essoldo in 1949.

The cinema finally closed its doors for good on 3 October 1970.

Pendleton Pit or Pendleton Colliery to give it's real name was situated in the Whit Lane area of Salford, and was owned by Andrew Knowles and Son, and opened in the 1830s  

Pendleton became the deepest coal mine in the country when the workings reached 3,600 feet where the temperature at the coal face reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

The pit was no stranger to human tragedies, in February 1870 an explosion took place in the Albert mine causing the deaths of nine men and boys, two of the boys being 14 years of age, the following story is about the events on the morning of September 25th,  1923 when a further four men would be killed in the mine.

An inquest was opened and adjourned at Pendleton Town Hall and the deceased men were named as, Thomas Fury aged 24 of Picton Street, Amos Williams aged 32 of Railway Street, Richard Collier aged 46 of Higson Street and Joseph Gallagher aged 47 of Bolton Road.

The relatives of the dead men told the Coroner that they had identified the bodies at the Police Street Mortuary and gave harrowing testimonies of the last time they saw them alive before the accident.

The inquest into their deaths reopened in October before a jury at Pendleton Town Hall, the proceedings lasted two and a half hours.

Thomas Constantine a coal getter at the pit told the inquest that he went to work at 6 am and proceeded to the 14 West Level and about 12pm there was an explosion which blew his lamp out and threw him to the floor, he mentioned that the roof was well timbered.

Thomas Bold a fireman said he heard a loud retort or "crump" and found Gallagher in a sitting position surrounded by roof and rails, he said he had worked there for 12 years and had never seen a crump lift the floor as this one did.

Henry Halliwell also a fireman told the inquest that he was working in 15 East District and was told that something had wrong, he found Fury dead with a tally in his hand as is if he was putting it into a tub, and Amos Gallagher dead between two coal tubs he then went to release Gallagher who was dead and helped bring the bodies to the surface.

After all the evidence was heard the jury retired and gave a verdict of Accidental Death on all four men.

I spoke to Paul Kelly an ex miner and historian who told me that a crump was the noise caused by sudden movement of the earth suddenly shifting, or a floor heave,  just another hazard for the poor coal miner.

Sadly there was another crump at Pendleton Colliery in November 1925 which saw the deaths of a further six men.

Pendleton Colliery closed in April 1939 with the exhaustion of available reserves in the Rams Mine. 

At Salford Media we are strong on our local history with our Salford History Group which has over 15K members who regularly contribute both photos and memories from the surrounding areas.

Last week we showed you some colour photographs from the early 1960s taken by our Eccles photographer, the wonderful George Shepherd, who collection of photos were saved for the nation by his daughter Angie who had the foresight to see the importance in them.

Once again Angie contacted me with several more colour photographs that George had taken in the early 1990s around Eccles whilst on his travels, to me the early 1990s doesn't seem that long ago but it is 30 years ago and some of our readers were not born then or still young children!

The Flour Mill Construction

The construction site photographs are from 1993 and show the construction of Centenary Way and the Allied Mills buildings and others nearby.

Winton Senior School

The school photos are off Winton Senior School from 1992. memories of your time there?

Curtess Shoes Shop Fire

The photos taken mainly in 1992 show the aftermath of a fire in the Curtess Shoe Shop, in Eccles Precinct in August that year, now the Skill Exchange Centre.

The Regency Off Licence on Regent Street interesting to see that it was also a Video rental shop, I can remember when it was a small off licence that sold sherry from a barrel on the counter in the mid 1970s, it has been completely rebuilt and is now called Vintage which sells clothes etc.

Monks Hall is shown in all it's glory and a a painful reminder of what a beautiful building we once had in Eccles... don't get me started on this subject... just enjoy the photos!

Once again a huge thanks to Angie and George Shepherd for all your great work.

Trafford Road, was one of the main thoroughfares in Salford running from Cross Lane towards Trafford Swing bridge over the Manchester Ship Canal and more importantly it passed Salford Docks (I refuse to call it Manchester Docks) which saw ships from all over the world discharge and load cargoes and with it seaman eager to spend their money in local pubs,

There were three pubs, on Trafford Road, The Salisbury, The Trafford and The Clowes all of them very busy and popular pubs, I would suggest that The Clowes was the most, "lively and vibrant" shall we say, and saw it's share of incidents over the years.

The following story from October 1923 tells the story of William Anthony O'Keefe an assistant engineer on an American boat berthed in the docks, who appeared at Salford magistrates Court  charged with being drunk and disorderly and having a revolver pistol without a licence.

Detective Inspector Smith told the Court that the accused had been drinking in The Clowes with friends from his ship, the landlord William Farrell was told by one of the pubs waiters that he had seen O'Keefe with a revolver in the waistband of his trousers and was shouting loudly very calmly asked him to remain in the pub after it had closed as he wanted a private conversation with him.

They both went upstairs and Farrell accused him of having a revolver in his pub, a scuffle ensued and the Chief Officer of the ship who had been waiting downstairs, ran upstairs and  saw O'Keefe waving the revolver around, he was dragged out of the pub and put onto Trafford Road where he was hurried away by his friends.

The police were called and Constable Brown found two live bullets on the floor of the pub, he then went and arrested O'Keefe where a search of his jacket found another live round of ammunition, when charged he denied having the revolver in his possession but pleaded guilty to being drunk and disorderly.

Mr Desquenes who was defending O'Keefe told the Court that his client had pleaded guilty at the first chance to being drunk and disorderly but had forgotten that he had taken the revolver out with him that evening and he much regretted his behaviour and asked that a fine be imposed so that his client could rejoin his ship.

The Magistrate fined him 40 shillings for being drunk and disorderly or 21 days in prison.

As for possession of the revolver?

The Magistrate told him..."As for this other offence, you are a bounder and that is putting it, mildly, for having the revolver without a licence you will be fined £10 and £1 witness fees, failure to pay will result in 51 days in prison"

That was a whopping fine and £10 then is now equal to £7,500, no mention if the gun was confiscated perhaps because O'Keefe was American?

Sadly the three named pubs have been demolished but will remain in many peoples memories, along with Salford Docks, another part of old Salford gone.

Photo: The Clowes in 1923.