MAKING the headlines today was a typhoid scare story.

Doctors and chemist across East Lancashire were inundated with requests for vaccinations from people heading abroad for holidays.

The panic had been caused by the confirmation of five cases among families who had just returned from the continent.

GPs had given 100 injections in the past week — more than they usually gave in a year — while some chemists in the area had run out of the ordinary vaccine, which protected against typhoid and para-typhoid.

Our front page image, showed licensee of the Foxhill Hotel in Oswaldtwistle, Bob Haworth with a bag of cement on his shoulder to publicise a pub fundraising event. Regulars were staging a sponsored cement bag walk in aid of the Peter Pan Club, a charity for handicapped children.

So Bob, dressed as Peter Pan and regular bob Higham, in a Captain Hook costume took to the streets to publicise their effort. They appealed to townsfolk to support the seven-mile walk in which participants would all carry a full hundredweight bag of cement.

There was also a photograph of 50 pupils and staff of St Thomas Aquinas RC high School, from Darwen, who made an early start to the holiday fortnight when they set off for a trip to Germany.

It wasn’t the weather for holidays, with grey, overcast skies and weathermen couldn’t promise any improvements for those staying at home.

The spot of sunshine for people who weren’t going away was the Telegraph’s popular X The Ball competition was offering a Vauxhall Chevette, plus £1,500, or £3,100 cash to the person who put their mark in the centre of the hidden football from a local game.

And you could have 150 attempts for just 50p!