25 years ago – 1996
Penrith
Auctioneers Penrith Farmers’ and Kidd’s plan to sell their antiques and furniture saleroom in Castlegate, Penrith, before the end of the year.
Speaking at the company’s annual meeting, chairman Andy Holliday said they hoped to attract a developer willing to purchase the site.
He said that money from the sale would be used to finance the building of a new furniture saleroom on spare land at the Skirsgill mart outside Penrith.
Appleby
A financial adviser from Appleby grappled with and disarmed a man who attempted to rob his office.
What later turned out to have been a blank shot was fired during the struggle, but financial adviser Ronnie McAllister was not hurt.
Mr. McAllister chased the would-be robber on foot, but the man escaped. The attempted robbery occurred when a man entered the Keswick office of Cairn Independent Financial, who run the agency for the Bradford and Bingley Building Society.
Patterdale
An operation mounted to assist a teenager on the Ullswater fells at the weekend marked a milestone in the history of a Lakeland mountain rescue team.
The rescue of the 15-year-old boy, from Blowick, near Howtown, was the 1,000th performed by Patterdale mountain rescue team since their formation in 1964.
A dozen members were in the original team, started by Dr. James Ogilvie not long after he took over the medical practice at Patterdale.
Caldbeck
Caldbeck-based goldsmith Mark Heeley-Creed is in the middle of a mammoth commission — the creation of 14 tiny elephants from the gold contained in a set of false teeth.
A qualified craftsman for 10 years, Mark was asked to make the miniature golden herd by an Essex woman whose mother wanted to leave each of her female relatives a keepsake after she died.
Murton
The traditional enmity between cat and dog was forgotten on a fellside farm when a collie bitch decided that two kittens were in need of a mother.
When Jeff Wharton, of Keisley Farm, between Dufton and Murton, entered one of his barns on Monday morning he found the two kittens, seemingly forsaken by their natural feline mother, had found canine comfort of collie bitch Jill who had decided to adopt the two orphans.
Now Jill, who is five years old and has mothered three litters of puppies, looks set for full-time surrogate motherhood of the kittens.
50 years ago – 1971
Sleagill
Last year, 20-year-old Margaret Hall, Ash Tree Farm, Sleagill, put studies before pleasure when asked to stand for the office of National Band of Hope Queen.
This year, studies behind her, she allowed the Vale of Eden Band of Hope to put her name forward and she was chosen at Westminster, London. It is one of the highest honours in the movement and Margaret was not only the first girl from the Vale of Eden Band of Hope but also the first from the North to be National Queen.
Southwaite
Work began on Monday building the restaurant and petrol filling station at the motorway service area at Southwaite. Only four days after the Penrith to Carlisle section of the M.6 was opened, workmen of the Eden Construction Company moved on to the site to start of the £300,000 project which is due to be completed in twelve months.
Penrith
Engine troubles and weather troubles provided problems and thrills for a Penrith man and his Scots companion, who flew 1,700 miles across France and the Mediterranean to attend the Malta international air rally in their four-seater single engine plane – but for consolation they were placed third overall.
They were former Penrith Rugby skipper Mr. Nicholas Birkett, Beacon Edge, a director of the Penrith bakery firm, J. R. Birkett and Sons, who has held a private pilot’s licence for six years, and Mr. John McKay, from Kippford, Kirkcudbrightshire.
Blencowe
A chapter was added this week to the farm livestock records of Cumberland when for the first time the champion Charolais bull was exhibited from the county at the Royal Show.
The exhibitor was Mr. Lawrence Shuttleworth, Mount Pleasant Farm,Blencowe.
His stock bull, Charogal Ecossais, won the Lloyd Perpetual Silver Challenge Cup for the best Charolais of the opposite sex to the champion, which was a female.
100 years ago – 1926
Keswick
The recently-formed Keswick Ladies’ Football Club appointed Mrs. Edwards as chairman, Miss G. Temple secretary and the Misses D. Mattinson, M. Sewell, D. Dodgson, M. McCade, S. Thompson, A. Pepper, E. Sparks, S. Scoon, D. Birkett and J. King as the committee pro tem, at the first annual meeting.
It was agreed to play in the town’s colours of cherry and white. Proceeds from matches played on the town’s ground will be given to charity.
Warcop
During an afternoon service a swarm of bees entered the Wesleyan Chapel, Bleatarn, near Warcop, by a ventilator and remained there for the rest of the day.
The afternoon and evening services proceeded to the constant humming of the bees overhead, where they had lodged themselves in the rafters.
Kirkby Stephen
After 38 years’ service, P.C. William Irving retired on a pension. He had five years’ duty at Workington, 15 at Tebay and 18 at Kirkby Stephen, and holds the King’s Coronation Medal for devotion to duty.
He was presented with an oak barometer and silver-mounted walking stick by Supt. Dickinson, Appleby.
