Nostalgia

If only there had been a football cup for dogged determination, West Park United’s keen young players would have won it by a clear mile. 

A well known local businessman who started his engineering business in a row of converted cottages in Hyde with just £50 in the bank had landed a £40,000 contract with Shell Mex BP Ltd to design a safer hatch for petrol tankers.

Towering above the prize winners at Glossop and District Amateur Football League’s annual dinner in June 1950 is the man they called ‘Big Swifty’.

It was a full house at Dane Bank Primary School, Denton, for the first of two festival evenings involving every child in every class.

Even non-league football pitches look as good at the end of the season these days as they did at the beginning, but it wasn’t always the case. 

Passengers and their dogs were sent flying across a coach that overturned on a sharp bend on the Snake Pass three miles out of Glossop.

A young boy came across a scene of sickening and horrific brutality while out walking his dog.

A fancy dress parade deep in the heart of Audenshaw was among the main attractions at St. Stephen’s Church garden party, with cowboys and cowgirls sporting stetsons and feathers.

‘Parrots in peril’ may have been the theme for 1987’s National Zoo Month - but an Ashton family turning up for one of the special events at Chester Zoo were far from being an endangered species.

Clive Bennett - renowned snake expert and long-time Belle Vue Zoo reptile keeper made what was likely to be his last public appearance in Tameside with a visit to the 1st Hyde Boys Brigade. 

A stirring brass band march written by a Stalybridge soldier many years previously had finally been published as sheet music - after a long battle by his son.

Lovable mongrel Kelly preferred  horsepower to paw power as she hitched a ride in a pony and trap with her owner Eileen Pearson.

The powerful headline over a Glossop Chronicle front page story that revealed how up to 5,500 people could face mass evacuation from a deadly cloud of chlorine gas.

Smiling for the Glossop Chronicle photographer 39 years ago were (from left) Lynn Matthews, Wendy Marshall, Diane Bradbury and Karen Cameron.

Market trader Barbara Vaughan made out a cheque to a wholesaler - and without thinking wrote the number ‘707’ in the amount box. 

The year 1965 was the ‘breakthrough’ year for Tom Jones - the swivel-hipped singer from the Welsh valleys whose smash hit ‘It’s Not Unusual’ kick-started a massively successful showbusiness career still going strong 60 years on. 

A 15th Century silver chalice was the star exhibit at Denton’s famous black-and-white church in a fascinating display of the town’s past.

‘Miss Reporter’ Christine Lewis came close to winning a national title.