Nostalgia: From the archives

A Heckmondwike woman issued a warning about threats in chain letters. She said: “I think they are ridiculous but when I looked at the letter it seemed to have been written by an old person. You had to send 20 copies to friends and neighbours and it gave examples of what could happen if you didn’t do it. Some would be frightened by such a letter. “There were six or seven references to people who had not passed it on. In one instance it said the husband had died six days later and in another that the daughter had died. “I am not particularly superstitous and put it in the place I thought best, which was the bin, but I thought old people should be warned.”

Police and residents objected to an application for Birkenshaw Working Men’s Club to be granted a licence for a public house. The police said there was a lack of parking space and that proximity to a nearby football ground could make it difficult for ambulances to pass through in an emergency.

Good neighbours in Ravensthorpe rallied round to care for a six-year-old boy after a fall at Brimham Rocks left his mother paralysed from the waist down. Neighbours took responsility and helped to take care of the boy while his mother was in hospital.

In this week 50 years ago:

Vandals were causing a headache for the owners of mill in Heckmondwike. Four windows were smashed at Providence Mills, in Wormald Street. A company spokesman said: “This sort of thing has happened on at least four other occasions this year. “We have decided to fix the wire netting to all ground floor windows at the premises. This will cost us £5 on top of repairing the four broken windows, which were worth 26s each.”

After unemployment in Batley reached its lowest level nearly two years it steadily rose again over the previous two months. In total, 190 people were unemployed, 138 men and 52 women. This meant that the percentage of adults out of work had risen from 0.8 per cent to 1.6 per cent. It was suggested that young people waiting for work swelled the figures.

A Mirfield woman had a massive shock when she returned from shopping to find her house had caught fire. About £200 worth of damage had been done as firefighters from Cleckheaton and Mirfield arrived to tackle the blaze. A fire brigade spokesman said the fire had been cause by the contents of a chip pan boiling over on to an electric hotplate.

In this week 75 years ago:

A Batley doctor helped in the rescue of a man who had slipped down a cliff in Whitby. Dr RW Rutter abandoned a game of bowls he had just begun when word reached him that a man had slipped down the side of a cliff and was in urgent need of medical attention due to a broken leg and other injuries. A motorboat was used to deliver the doctor to the victim. An eyewitness, also from Batley, said that the sea had been calm on the day and the party encountered very little difficulty reaching the location, even though rocks meant the boat had to land 200 yards from the victim. Dr Rutter improvised a splint while the coastguard managed to fashion a stretcher from driftwood, but ground swell hindered efforts to move the stetcher more than a few yards at a time. But eventually the stretcher and its passenger reached the boat, which travelled toward Robin Hood’s Bay.

A Dewsbury man who smashed or damaged 41 glasses by sweeping them off a bar of a Batley pub at closing time said he did not know why he had done it. He was fined 10s and ordered to pay £1 and 1s damages and 5s costs.

Around 400 people attended the annual ambulance service at Battyeford Parish Church, Mirfield, including 110 representatives of the St John’s Ambulance Brigade.