Women were found drunk in street after walking 48 miles
HERE in our regular nostalgia feature we look back at stories in the Rochdale Observer from years gone by.
Following on from last year’s 100 years ago feature, this year, we are turning back the clock to see what was being reported on 80 years ago:
●●FOUND INCAPABLE
AT a special sitting of the County Police Court yesterday, before Mr Charles Stott, Fanny Smith (56) and Bridget Cavanagh (65), both of no fixed abode, were charged with having been drunk and incapable in Union Road, Dearnley, at 10pm on the previous day.
PC Tweddle said he found the prisoners lying on the footpath in a helpless state of drunkenness.
They were taken to Littleborough Police Station and made no reply when cautioned and charged.
Both prisoners admitted the offence.
They said they had worked in the fields and had walked 48 miles in two days to get work. Two friends had paid for the drink.
On promising to leave the town, both women were charged by the magistrates with a caution. ●●AIR RAID WARNINGS AND PUBLIC AIR RAID SHELTERS
In a public notice dated September 1, 1939, Harry Bann, ARP controller of Rochdale Town Hall, states: “The public air raid shelters which have now been opened are intended for the use only of persons caught in the street should an air raid warning be given and should not be used by persons indoors at the time of such a warning, or who are able to reach their own homes. The public are also informed that all factory sirens and hooters are now prohibited except for the purpose of air raid warnings.”
●●SCREENED TRAFFIC LIGHTS
ALTHOUGH the Rochdale borough magistrates, by their ruling on Monday, indicated that it was no offence for a motorist to pass screened traffic control lights at red, the decision must not be regarded as an invitation to motorists to treat the lights as nonexistent. In this particular instance a ‘bus driver’ said he considered the light was at green when he drove over a junction, but three witnesses said the red light was showing.
Mr R S Clegg, on the driver’s behalf, submitted that according to regulations the lights must be separately illuminated and each with an effective diameter of not less than eight inches, so that the screening of amber and green made the lights not legal.
The magistrates dismissed the summons, but no guidance was given by the chairman as to the reason.
●●A WAR DIARY Friday
GERMAN statement that German motorised troops entered Warsaw at 5.15pm officially reported by Warsaw radio to be absolutely untrue. General Czuma, Commander-inChief of Polish forces defending Warsaw, broadcast an order that positions had been occupied from where there would be no retreat.
Tuesday
ORDER prescribing maximum prices at which eggs may be sold wholesale and retail to be made by Ministry of Food in next few days.
●●ROCHDALE AUCTION MART
A SPLENDID show of beef qualities was on view on Wednesday, and butchers took full advantage of the offering. WITH a few exceptions little fault could be found with the entry and a batch of heifers from the Milnrow farms included a number of super grades. ●●Fusiliers’ Colours Laid Up in Parish Church: The Vicar of St. Mary’s Wardleworth and an Hon. Chaplain to the Forces delivered a sermon in which he talked about how the colours of the local Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers were placed in the Rochdale Parish Church “for safe-keeping until such time as peace shall again prevail”. He mentioned how colours carried into battle were “too highly prized to be left with any but the most courageous and loyal” and how they were “symbolic of that regiment’s spirit and of its tradition”.