August 17, 1968

HOYLE Playing Fields were the target of "senseless destruction" on Sunday night after vandals trashed flower beds.

When the night-watchman clocked off at 9pm on Sunday all was well, but by the time head gardener Mr James Howarth arrived at 7.30am on Monday the damage had been done.

Scores of blooms had been ripped from their beds and strewn on the grass at the Bell Lane end of the gardens.

Another bed had been completely wrecked as flowers still in the soil were trampled underfoot.

Mr Howarth said: "It is just senseless destruction. It is not only the actual cost of the damage it is the work involved in putting everything to rights afterwards.

"We can try to replant some of the flowers but when they are in full bloom, as they are at the present, it is the worst time of all for them to be uprooted."

ONE month ahead of schedule the first shops in Bury's new £3 million town centre development will open for business this week.

Among the new tenants are Health Food Stores, N. Hesketh sewing and ancillary goods and W. Bowker jewellers ­— all formerly of Princess Street.

Work on the next phase of the development at Haymarket Street and Garden Street is due to start on October 1.

A 52-year-old Bury man who has never held a driving license in his life was the winner of the Mini de-luxe car offered as the top prize in a Radcliffe Carnival competition on Saturday.

Mr Arthur Brown, of Garston Street, Bury, an accounts clerk at Manchester Victoria Railway Station, became the proud owner of the vehicle after triumphing in a challenge to guess the distance the Mini would cover on one gallon of fuel on a test run later that day.

His estimate of 45 miles, 35 years and three inches was just four and three quarter inches short of the correct figure.

Mr Brown had attended the carnival with his his wife and six-year-old granddaughter Gillian Black but left shortly before the competition winner was announced.

After returning from a family trip to Morecambe on Sunday Mr Brown received a card pushed through his door and phone call telling him he was the lucky winner.

"Now I shall have to learn to drive," Mr Brown said.

YOUNG autograph hunters descended on the sports ground of Transparent Paper Ltd, in Heap Bridge, on Sunday seeking the signatures of the personalities taking part in a charity football match being played.

The match was contested between England and Burnley star Colin McDonald's XI and TV All Stars, with the former winning by seven goals to six.

The match was organised by the Bury Round Table in aid of an electro-cardiograph machine for the intensive care unit at Fairfield General Hospital.

THE giant combine Imperial Chemical Industries are set to start work on their £1 million plus major project at Pilsworth.

It is expected that up to 500 people will be employed at the new supply base which will cover around 40 acres on Moss Hall Road.

The site's main warehouse will cover almost half a million square feet and the plant will also include outside storage, changing facilities, a canteen and a car park ­— leaving room for future expansion.

Work on the project is due to be completed in the middle of 1970.