Last updated 15:54, Wednesday, 14 May 2008

DRUNK AND INCAPABLE: On Monday before the Rev F W Wicks, chairman, and John Spender, Esq. appeared one Mary Borrowdale, who was charged with having been found drunk and incapable of taking care of herself. Eight or nine weeks ago the prisoner was sent to gaol for six weeks for a similar offence, but resumed her course of bad conduct on being liberated; and was consequently now sent to gaol for two months. The prisoner very kindly thanked the magistrates.

– May 13, 1858

WHITSUNTIDE HIRINGS. Egremont: The customary half-yearly hiring was held on Saturday. The day was unfavourable; notwithstanding the rain, there was a good attendance of servants. The hiring was, however, not very brisk. The following were about the wages obtained: Boys, £3 10s to £4; grown-up youths £6 to £8; well-known adults (male servants) £10, £11, and £12; young girls, £4 to £5 10s, a few getting as much as £6 10s and £7; known good women servants, £7 10s to £9. There was the usual display of shows of various kinds.

– May 17, 1883

ANOTHER DEAD DONKEY AT GOSFORTH: Mr William Malkinson, of Wellington, has had the misfortune to lose another three-year-old donkey, which was out pasturing in the same park as the one he lost about three months ago. The owner looks upon this with suspicion.

IT will probably come as a surprise to the thousands of people who, every summer, spend many hours bathing on the Cumberland coast, that they have no right at all to do so.

Under existing law, bathers in the sea only have use of the foreshore subject to the permission of the landlord concerned which, in the case of the majority of Cumberland, is the Lowther Estates Ltd.

However, they have never interfered with the use of the foreshore.

THE milk war now raging at Workington looks like extending to Whitehaven.

The Whitehaven retailers, acting in concert, reduced the price from 6d per quart to 5d, but already a large firm is retailing bottled milk at 4d per quart.

THE dismantling of No 4 pit of the Brayston Domain Colliery, which was closed recently, has been completed with the filling up of the 99 fathoms deep shafts.

Twelve thousand tons of refuse from No 5 pit were dumped down the shaft.

WINDSCALE Works is to become the hub of the atomic energy industry not only in Great Britain but so far as other countries which build British-designed reactors are concerned.

Countries like Italy and Japan are examining the possibilities of buying British reactors and it is on one this country’s selling points that they are able to offer facilities at Windscale for the processing of irradiated fuel from abroad.

SEKERS’ fabrics, woven at the West Cumberland Silk Mills, Hensingham, which celebrate their 21st anniversary next year, are adding to the brilliance of two of the most lavish scenes in London’s most talked about stage production for many years, My Fair Lady.

A SECTION of the world’s largest hammer, a steel anvil block weighing 122 tons, passed through Whitehaven’s narrow streets on Friday afternoon on its way from the High Duty Alloys factory at Distington to Sheffield.

– May 22 1958.

PARENTS throughout the Whitehaven catchment area are likely to face Hobson’s Choice in educating their children at secondary level by sending them to a 2,000-place comprehensive school.

The implementation of the 11 to 19 age group comprehensive plan appears the likely option following the rejection by education secretary, Keith Joseph, of county council proposals for a Whitehaven-Workington based tertiary college for senior students.

WHITEHAVEN tax office is named on a list of 150 offices set for closure. It would mean transferring Whitehaven tax office to Workington as well as the 32 staff presently employed in the Whitehaven office at Mark House.

WHITEHAVEN’S giant Mirehouse estate may get its own mains gas supply if negotiations between the Gas Board and Copeland council are successful.

If the agreement can be reached, the first of the 1,500 houses could be connected by the end of the year.

– May 19 1983.