Archive

  • £20,000 reward to net armed robber

    DETECTIVES investigating a string of armed robberies have revealed more details about the mystery man they are hunting. Police believe the middle-aged man has carried out 34 armed raids on building societies across the North West including several in

  • Police to find £14m cuts

    LANCASHIRE police are heading towards a multi-million pound budget crisis, according to financial experts. The county's police authority is busy preparing its spending plans for the coming years and a long term financial strategy is also being drawn up

  • Girl aged three is 19th meningitis victim

    A GIRL of three has become the latest child in East Lancashire to be struck down with suspected meningitis. She has become the 19th suspected case of the killer virus since Christmas Eve. The condition of the Blackburn toddler was today said to be "improving

  • Where are they now: Brian Pilkington

    BRIAN Pilkington has enjoyed a 50-year love affair with football that shows no sign of ending. The Burnley winger who graced Turf Moor for a decade and won a League Championship medal in 1960 scaled the heights with the Clarets and also won an England

  • Head welcomes new rules on unruly pupils

    A LEADING East Lancashire head teacher has welcomed new advice on using reasonable force to restrain pupils in the wake of national guidelines issued by the Department for Education and Employment. Michael Humpreys, head of Our Lady and St John RC High

  • One small step - one giant achievement!

    A FORMER taxi driver who was left fighting for his life following a double brain haemorrhage has walked again for the first time in more than three years. Craig Yates was paralysed from the chest down after a car crash in Hall Street, Blackburn. His devastated

  • FIVE YEARS AGO: Council rents leap

    COUNCIL tenants in Blackburn and Darwen faced rent rises three times the rate of inflation after Blackburn housing committee agreed to recommend a 6.7 per cent increase. The committee blamed the increases on inflation, reduction of Government subsidies

  • Superb sum

    NORTHERN Friends of Action and Research for Multiple Sclerosis would like to thank the generous people of Blackburn for donating £367.34 to our collection outside Blackburn Rovers football ground on Saturday, January 9. DEREK HAMMOND, ARMS, Arkwright

  • CRICKET: Players under fire at AGM

    A LACK of commitment by the players was the greatest concern expressed at Rishton CC's annual meeting. But there was also some criticism of professional Corrie Jordaan's attitude. Chairman Rod Simpson said the club had relied too much on the captain and

  • NON LEAGUE SOCCER: UniBond rivals clash in cup

    RIVALS Accrington Stanley and Chorley take a welcome break from their relegation tussle in the UniBond Challenge Cup at Victory Park tonight. Chorley boss Bryan Griffiths said: "The cup comes as a reprieve from our league fixtures and it's a chance to

  • Make junction a safer place

    AS part of my journey to school in Lammack, Blackburn, I have to cross the road at Four Lane Ends, but because traffic lights there allow pedestrians so little time, I find myself having to run across as soon as the traffic comes to a halt. This is made

  • No switch in housing policy

    YOUR article 'Cash cut for run down estates' (LET, January 19) was wrong. It caused a lot of unnecessary worry among the people it misinformed. There has been no change in policy. The council agreed at the housing and community services committee on September

  • Ingleby set for Clarets cheque delivery

    RAY Ingleby was set to deliver a cheque - believed to be worth around £600,000 - to Burnley chairman Barry Kilby today as the Clarets prepared to receive a cash injection of almost £4 million. Three-quarters of that sum has come from Kilby himself who

  • Rescuer tells of 'man in flames' horror

    A RESCUER has told of his horror as he tried to help a 23-year-old dad engulfed in flames in the street outside his home. Shane Hunter, 21, ran to the rescue after he and his girlfriend heard screaming and breaking glass outside their house in Princess

  • Company spearheads big expansion

    A TEAM of East Lancashire number crunchers have joined the Lancashire office of business advisers KPMG. They are part of the biggest ever recruitment drive by the firm which has its office in Preston and covers an area ranging from East Lancashire to

  • Night club drug alert

    POLICE have issued a stern warning about the dangers of designer drugs after a 21-year-old woman was left unconscious and lucky to be alive. The woman, who has recovered, drank from a miniature spirits bottle which contained the drug GBH or GHB and alcohol

  • Down By the Riverside

    A fan's-eye view from Ewood Park, with Phil Lloyd IT WAS a strange feeling, one that a commentator once called 'djM- vu, all over again'! Ten-man Rovers, defending heroically a precious one-goal lead, but defending deep against opponents playing with

  • Ingleby set for cheque delivery

    RAY Ingleby was set to deliver a cheque - believed to be worth around £600,000 - to Burnley chairman Barry Kilby today as the Clarets prepared to receive a cash injection of almost £4 million. Three-quarters of that sum has come from Kilby himself who

  • Rovers eye York ace Garratt

    YORK City's teenage starlet Martin Garratt is being tracked by Blackburn Rovers who could well have switched their attentions from Crewe's Seth Johnson. Garratt, an 18-year-old midfielder who can play centrally or on the left, is rated as a star of the

  • Events in East Lancs tomorrow (Wednesday, January 27th)

    Organ Recital, student ensemble from the RNCM, Blackburn Cathedral, 1pm-1.30pm. Blackburn Rambling Association meet at the Oddfellows Hall (Mind Centre entrance), Regent Street, 8pm. Mallorca Slides. Parkinsons Disease Society (Burnley branch) meet Temple

  • We'll have a gay old time...again

    Ernie Wallace reviews La Cage Aux Folles, byChINA theatre group,Oswaldtwistle Civic Theatre until Saturday. OH, what a night of unbridled gaiety - gay in every sense of the word. The Hyndburn-based musical group have revived the production that knocked

  • TEN YEARS AGO: Debt club to close

    A CASH-STARVED working men's club in Blackburn was set to close and be sold to pay off debts of around £160,000. Council bailiffs seized snooker tables to meet Bank Top WMC's unpaid rates bills 10 months earlier and the Pink Street club had been acting

  • Axing public services may be cut too far

    IF, as Tony Blair says, we are all middle class now, the Middle England that New Labour has pandered to with tax promises may, in Lancashire at least, begin to think it has got a poor trade for such progress if being better off means being worse off in

  • Compassion from council

    I WAS so pleased to read (LET, January 18) about Lancashire County Council reversing its policy on the closure of old folk's homes. To me, their decision to hand the running and budgets of the homes over to an independent direct service organisation and

  • Lottery's a healthy option

    NO wonder the National Health Service is falling apart at the seams as it's been under-funded for too long, with too many hospitals being closed, not enough nurses or doctors, and patients left on trolleys. In Germany, the health service was over-funded

  • Beeb take the biscuit

    THERE has been many a debate on television licensing and the arrival of alternative viewing media. It is high time the debate should continue. As far as the funding is concerned, the licence money goes towards the BBC whereas revenue for ITV comes from

  • Cummings and Goings

    A fan's-eye view from Turf Moor, with Stephen Cummings ASK Burnley supporters of a certain age "Who was the greatest Claret of them all?" and they will invariably come back at you with one name - Alan Harper. No, but seriously, folks, of the galaxy of

  • Piazza style not for us

    HEAVEN forbid that Robin Whalley (Letters, January 21) and the Blackburn Civic Society should be upset by my protest concerning the traffic proposals for the town centre. Their consciences will be troubled enough when their disproportionate influence

  • Super sweeper Joe cleans up

    SUPER sweeper Joe Fielding is enjoying a brush with success! Mr Fielding, 55, who works for Blackburn with Darwen Council, has been named runner-up in the Lancashire section of the North West Silver Broom Awards. The awards are organised by anti-litter

  • Clean-sweep Harry's award

    SPICK and span pensioner Harry Beckett sets a fine example keeping the streets round his sheltered housing litter free. And his efforts have earned him a prestigious award for voluntary service from the Tidy Britain Group. Harry, 69, has lived at Burnley

  • Traders in cash fight

    MARKET tenants are set to go to war with Burnley Council in a £250,000 compensation battle. They claim their council landlords have failed to keep a promise to come up with a reparation offer for disruption caused to stallholders during major improvements

  • Woman alleges rape bid

    A WOMAN wept as she told of a "terror attack" when a man tried to rape her. The alleged victim said she was dragged by the hair, bitten, punched and thrown on to the floor by Andrew McCoskery, 39, as she tried to get him to stop. McCoskery, of Richmond

  • Takeover bid is on

    BRITAIN'S biggest venture capital company, 3i, which owns stakes in East Lancashire firms including Ultraframe has confirmed it was in talks to take over its main rival Electra Investment Trust. The deal would create a Europe-wide group worth more than

  • Heart swap dad's death shock

    A GRANDFATHER and football fan who was one of the first people in East Lancashire to undergo a heart swap operation has died. Vincent Hodkinson, 58, of Accrington, received his new heart in an operation at Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester, in September

  • Promotion is fitting reward

    TWO long serving East Lancashire staff members have been made associates at their firm. Senior managers Peter Johnson and Carlton Cooper have both worked for accountants Casson Beckman, which has offices in Burnley and Manchester, for more than 18 years

  • Travel king's tribute to staff

    AIRTOURS founder David Crossland is returning to his East Lancashire roots to honour staff who have helped him build his travel empire. Mr Crossland, who founded the company 21 years ago, is to visit the firm's new call centre in Accrington to pay tribute

  • Pupils inspired

    A VILLAGE school is keeping up to date with the news and improving reading and writing skills through our Super Story Search literacy project. Upper junior pupils at Sabden County Primary School are receiving a daily delivery of our newspaper for three

  • Film scheme could make them 'screen stars'

    FOLLOWING the recent occasion when celebrities flocked to a glittering national premiere of the film Shakespeare in Love, pupils in local schools have been invited to a premiere of the film in Burnley. Free or discounted showings of some of the latest

  • Drug smuggled in sweets pack for prisoner

    A MOTHER-of-two tried to smuggle a drug to her prisoner boyfriend in a packet of sweets. Georgina White hid five tablets of temazepam when she went to visit her co-habitee, who was in custody at Colne police station, Burnley magistrates heard. White,

  • Firm plans 100 jobs

    A £6.7 MILLION investment bringing more than 100 new jobs was being unveiled today. The opening of Canadian-owned Global Group's new European headquarters in Darwen is seen as a major vote of confidence in East Lancashire's manufacturing industry which