10 years ago

HUNDREDS of trout were killed as sewage from homes contaminated an East Lancashire river.

The fish were found floating on the top of thick white foam at Whitewell Brook, between Albion Mill and Waterfoot.

National River Authority officers traced the spillage back to a water manhole that had over flowed into a fresh water drain and joined the water course.

25 years ago

A DARWEN man and his passenger had a miraculous escape when their van crashed through a stone wall and plunged 50ft into a remote moorland quarry.

The couple stepped calmly out of the van as it balanced precariously on the lip of the quarry.

Seconds later it slipped over the edge and and came to rest at the bottom of the steep cliff.

The driver, shopkeeper Richard Baron, of Blackburn Road, Darwen, said that he and his passenger, his son's girlfriend, were lucky to be alive.

50 years ago

THE popular idea that lightning never strikes in the same place twice was shattered when members of Withnell Cricket Club found their pavilion looking like a bomb had hit it following a thunderstorm.

Members at the ground, on Bolton Road, could not believe it - it had just undergone extensive and costly repairs as a result of being struck by lightning the previous July.