This is how Blackpool looked in 1976

Red alert at hospital over white coat men

Police cordoned off Blackpool Victoria Hospital and a full scale security operation swung into operation.

The red alert was sounded when a nurse became suspicious of two men.

The two were later found and at Blackpool Magistrates Court they were bound over for two years and fined.

Chairman of the magistrates Mr James Hessey said: “we are very concerned about this.

“You were outside the coronary care unit. They have enough problems at the hospital without people like you disturbing it.

The pair admitted conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace. Inspector Bert Stillings, prosecuting, said it was a particularly disturbing incident in that it involved the hospital.

A night porter at the hospital annexe saw two young men dressed in doctors’ white coats but assumed they were doctors or medical students.

They asked the porter where the duty pharmacist was and that was when a member of the nursing staff became suspicious.

The night sister was contacted and the two made their way out, took off the coats and ran off.

Demand for holiday rooms rockets

It was the dawn of a golden season for Blackpool.

Demand from would-be visitors for accommodation was so heavy that the Blackpool Hotel and Guest House Association put out an SOS for spare rooms.

“We are having great difficulty in coping and are appealing now to members who still have any vacancies to contact us,” Mr Ray Lawrence, association secretary said.

His office had a 24 hour telephone answering service.

The corporation’s promenade information bureau was also inundated with enquiries from people wanting to book.

“It looks liken being as busy as last weekend, or even busier,” commented Barry Morris, deputy Director of Attractions and Publicity, “we’ve backed a winner again.”

Raincoats ease bad weather work ban

Most of Blackpool’s binmen and street cleaners suspended their no work in the rain action after being issued with ex-Transport Department raincoats.

The men had banned wet weather working because they claimed they had not been issued with satisfactory protective clothing and had to find shelter during a cloudburst.

However, 100 former busmen’s coats had been circulated and they started to work normally again.

National Union of Public Employers said that they had agreed to give the coats a fair trial but if they started leaking water, the men would resume their action. They said those who had not been issued with raincoats, namely the street cleaners, would continue to down tools during rainy weather.

Newspapers still top choice for daily news

Television was not an alternative to newspapers, according to the Royal Commission on the press.

If anything, the millions who watch the news on BBC and ITV were more likely to read newspapers such as the Evening Gazette, every day as well.

The survey of the general public found that although TV and national newspapers emerged as the most important sources of news, news about sport, local and regional was generally provided for most people by the press. The nationals were read by a narrower range of people than those who read the provincial press and they were also seen as more partisan than the provincial papers, but on the other hand to make more interesting comments on the stories. Provincial evening papers were thought more sensational, more likely to get their facts wrong and to carry too much advertising.