June 11 1966

BURY Corporation's new mental health training centre which cost £68,000 was opened just 14 months after the project was inaugurated.

First into the modern single story building were 24 adults and 14 children from the Alston Street Occupation Centre which was made redundant.

The centre provided training facilities for up to 40 adults and 30 children.

It was built on the same lines as a school and was equipped with classrooms, a hall and dining room, and staff accommodation.

Bury's part-time soldiers, men of the 5th Battalion The Lancashire Fusiliers, were joined at their annual camp at Barrybudden, near Carnoustie, by a Recce Plantoon of Regulars from the regiment's 1st Battalion at Weeton, near Blackpool.

The train which carried the Terriers from Bury broke down as it arrived at the Barrylinks Station.

A member of the battalion said: "It couldn't have happened at a better place."

During the week companies took it in turns to walk to the top of 3,000ft Ben Lawers.

A battalion spokesman said: "There's a magnificent view from the top, it's a good day's trip there and back."

The men were in the camp for a fortnight.

The sun brought out the crowds for Bury's Whit Walks as history was made as the Anglican and Free Churches took part in the joint procession of witness and service.

In previous years the Nonconformist procession and service only followed that of the Anglicans.

About 5,000 members of nearly 30 churches walked through the town centre in ideal conditions of brilliant, warm sunshine.

Fears that the age-old walks were becoming a dying tradition and that fewer people each year were watching the processions were dispelled with more people lining the routes than the years before.

Also happening 50 years, anxious mothers rushed from their homes at Sunny Bank on Wednesday thinking an explosion they heard had come from a nearby primary school.

But the big band was at the side of the new branch library and clinic which was being built on Sunny Bank Road.

It was caused by a gas cylinder which completely destroyed a workmen's hut and damaged part of the new building.

There was no serious damage to the new building but the workmen lost many of their tools and personal belongings that were kept in the hut.

Mrs Fish said: "There was a terrible bang and when I looked out of the front window I could see clouds of thick smoke coming from the direction of the school.

"People seemed to panic, and everybody ran out of their homes in the direction of the school. All we could see were clouds of black smoke and we thought it was the school on fire."