‘Climbing pig’was in the dock

75 years ago A ‘CLIMBING pig’ was blamed for breaching the black-out, a court heard.

Farmer Percival Slater, of Meadow Head Far, appeared before the Borough Police Court on Wednesday September 27, 1939, charged with a black-out offence.

He told the court the light in the pig sty had been obscured with brown paper, but when P C Jaundrill saw light shining from the window of the sty and drew the farmer’s attention to it, he said the pig must have pulled the paper down. The chairman of the magistrates Mr T Howarth said “It must be a climbing pig” and fined Mr Slater 5s. A VICAR said education bosses were taking a ‘grave risk’ by allowing Littleborough children to return to school without having air raid shelters being built.

Writing in the parish magazine the Vicar of Dearnley, the Rev F Skinner, said: “I don’t wish to be alarmist or unduly to stimulate apprehension, but I am convinced that the education authorities are running a grave risk in reopening schools in a district like ours without first of all providing shelters for the children. I am reminded that ours is not classified as a vulnerable area, and yet in this very district most elaborate defences have been made in the district council offices basements. I know those in key positions must be protected, but at the same time it is terribly risky to have 200 or more children massed together every weekday for several hours a day without masking any effort to provide them with shelter.”