From Our Files

MILITANT Cumbria firemen are 100 per cent behind the call for a national strike over hours and pay.

The 250 full-time firemen backed by about 30 of the 40 senior officers and all control room staff will refuse to report for work from the morning shift next Monday.

Instead, they will picket fire stations.

Local leaders of the Fire Brigade Union also claim they have the support of 200 of the county's 300 part-time firemen.

It means that, unless the Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees, can come up with a solution, Cumbria's homes, shops, and schools will be left without fire cover.

Some factories already have their own fire-fighting teams or are hurriedly organising them.

The decision for Cumbria firemen to back the national strike, the first in the union's 60-year history, was taken at a meeting in Kendal on Tuesday.

A leading fireman with 13 years experience takes home £47 at the moment and many of the wives have to work, while other families are on supplementary benefit.

Leading fireman Colin Fawcett, secretary of the Cumbria branch of the firemen's union, explained that negotiations and the threat of a strike has dragged on since May.

50 Years Ago-November 8, 1952

THE increased cost of maintenance and repair work is becoming a serious drain on the housing repair account, states the medical officer for north Westmorland (Dr T.F.

Madge) in his annual report.

Many of the houses are now reaching the age when an increased amount of repair work is necessary, and the question of increasing the present contribution to the housing repair account will soon require consideration.

The report states that severe difficulty has been experienced in recent years in securing the services of contractors to carry the work out.

The council has set up a direct labour staff to deal with this responsibility which, Dr Madge writes, will steadily increase as the housing estate grows.

Dr Madge also writes that 640 new houses are required, 300 of them being to replace asylum dwellings.

During the year, 34 houses were completed.

100 Years Ago-November 8, 1902

A CUMBERLAND farmer has been fined £5 at Whitehaven for not reporting an outbreak of anthrax on his premises.

The melancholy part of the affair is that the outbreak involved not only the death of two beasts but of a man, who was set to skin the carcass of one of the affected cows.

In this operation he took the disease and died.

Such an incident affords the strongest possible reasons for the precautions, which the police insist on in regard to anthrax.

As a rule they are supposed to act merely for the protection of cattle in their district.

It is forgotten that human beings are equally exposed to danger.

A farmer cannot escape responsibility by saying he does not know what anthrax is.

This Cumberland farmer did not know what his cattle died of; his real offence was not finding out.

150 Years Ago-November 6, 1892

ON Monday last, a young man named Atkinson, employed at one of the Lindal Moor Iron Ore pits, foolishly attempted to ascend the pit by means of the woodwork instead of by the bucket.

When he had proceeded about 11 yards, he missed his footing and fell to the bottom.

Mr Barton, Surgeon of Ulverston, was immediately sent for when it was found that the lad had suffered concussion of the brain and dislocation of one of his shoulders.

The case at first was pronounced very serious, but we are glad to pronounce he is now likely to recover.

A MOST unlikely contretemps occurred in Lancaster on Thursday week.

A young man, known by cognomen as 'Trowler', should that morning have been united in wedlock to a fair Lancastrian.

The bridesmaids and the groom's man were all in readiness, but no bridegroom was forthcoming.

An express messenger was dispatched to Poulton in search of him but there no tidings could be obtained.

His predilection for 'heavy wet' being well known, all the public houses in the neighbourhood were searched, but in vain and the wedding party had to break up.

On the following day, PC Copeland on taking his rounds found the happy bridegroom in a state of oblivion in a public house in Heysham and, rousing him up, recalled to his mind the business, which should have been transacted the previous day.

Our hero immediately set off for Lancaster and it appears that he made peace with the fair lady for the marriage was solemnised on Sunday.