100 years ago

Our Darlington correspondent wrote: “With regard to reports that have been published as to the introduction by the NER Company of express trains formed of carriages entirely built of steel as a precaution against the risks of fire, I learn on official authority that the Company’s intentions have been much over-stated.

"It is proposed that only the “kitchen” coaches of the expresses, in which the use of gas is a necessity, shall be so constructed as to be as near as possible fireproof. Where the use of wood is imperative the material employed will be absolutely non-inflammable.

"The kitchen department of the trains will consist of self-contained coaches, and will be disconnected from the ordinary part of the train except by the usual means of communication. The ordinary coaches it is proposed to light by electricity.”


50 years ago

The National Federation of Old Age Pensions Associations, in conference at Scarborough, had passed a resolution calling on the National Executive Committee to press for an immediate increase in the basic pension to £4 a week per person, without a means test.

It rejected an amendment which had demanded an increase to £5 a week in the basic pension.

Mr J Sutcliffe, aged 86, the senior vice-president of the Federation, said they must be under no misapprehension.

The current claim was for £4 a week but under the Federation’s charter they were campaigning for a pension representing half of the average weekly earnings in industry.

The current average wage was about £16 a week.


25 years ago

Evening Press relief telephonist Miss Bertha Hardcastle had finally pulled the plug on her switchboard duties – after an amazing 62 years with the company.

She had first started work for the paper way back in 1927 when, as a 14-year-old school-leaver, she received a letter saying she could start work as a junior assistant for the wage of 10 shillings a week.

Bertha began her career on the switchboard, but in a varied working life she went on to work in virtually every department in the company.

She had retired in 1972 after a 20-year stint as librarian.

But she just couldn’t stay away, and soon she was back in her old familiar surroundings working two days a week as relief switchboard operator.

Now, at the age of 76, Bertha had decided it was time to say goodbye to the tiny third-floor switchboard office with its window looking onto the tourist hordes packing Coney Street.

Friends and colleagues had raised one of the biggest collections ever taken up at the Evening Press.