25 years ago — 1995

Penrith

Penrith’s two senior schools must work together to offer real choice and diversity for students, said shadow education and employment Minister David Blunkett when he visited the town’s Ullswater Community College on Thursday.

Mr. Blunkett said that Labour would like to unify the education service and schools like Ullswater and the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School should be co-operating, rather than competing.

Over the years Cockermouth have snatched several late victories against Penrith, but, although they again staged a storming finish on Saturday, they were unable to overcome a gritty defence, and the Winters Park men held out to deservedly win by 21 pons to 18 and collect two further league points.

Another good start by the Penrithians, which threatened to overwhelm the visitors, gave both wingers an early run at their opponents.

The forwards provided the platform for some enterprising running through good rucking and the dominance of Glen Murray, Alan Armstrong and Alistair Grant at line-outs.

Tomorrow marks the end of an era at Penrith’s Wordsworth Street Methodist Church, which is to close for a major refurbishment which will take 12 months to carry out and cost £750,000.

Services during that time will be held at St. Andrew’s Church and the United Reformed Church in the town.

Keswick

An Eden councillor has launched a scathing attack on proposals to reopen the railway line between Penrith and Keswick.

Ullswater area member John Moffat described the plan as “pea-brained” and called for work on it to be stopped before any money is spent.

One of the main reasons he gave for his opposition to the reconstruction plan was that owners of some stretches of the old line had not been consulted.

Temple Sowerby

An action group’s pleas to the Sue Ryder Foundation to save the Acorn Bank nursing home, near Temple Sowerby, have failed.

Despite representations from the Acorn Bank Patients’ Support Group, the foundation are standing by their decision to close the home next year.

Kaber

More than 25 years of breeding Rhode Island Red bantams paid off for Gordon Dent, Kaberfold, Kaber, near Kirkby Stephen, when he took the overall championship at the breed society show held at Stanley, County Durham.

It was a doubly satisfying win for Mr. Dent, since it was his first championship and also coincided with the 25th anniversary of his joining the Rhode Island Red Club.

Maulds Meaburn

A network of farming families lost a senior member with the sudden death on Saturday of Dorothy Kindleysides, of Chestnuts, Maulds Meaburn, the wife of the late Bill Kindleysides.

Born in 1921, she was the seventh and youngest daughter of Sam and Annie Maria Wood, who farmed at Crosby Lodge, Crosby Ravensworth.

50 years ago — 1970

Tebay

Yesterday morning the Minister for Transport Industries, Mr. John Peyton, cut a tape at the Tebay interchange and put into commission another 34 miles of the M6, stretching from the end of the Lancaster by-pass to Thrimby at the southern end of the Penrith by-pass.

Built in two-and-a-half years at a cost of almost one million pounds a mile, the new section of road cuts through the fells by way of the Lune Gorge and replaces the notorious A6 over Shap Fell.

Penrith

Pickets were on duty yesterday at the Cumberland County Council’s depot at Skirsgill, near Penrith, where ninety workers were staging a one-day strike in support of the National Union of Public Employees’ claim for a £2 15s. wage increase.

Penrith’s Area Surveyor, Mr. D. F. W. Pantry, said: “Pickets were at the gates but there was no trouble. The only people at work were three masons and a mechanic — members of other unions — and the office staff.”

The 184-strong Penrith Civic Society has already contributed in no small measure to the modification of the original vast plans for an inner ring-road for the town, claimed the Chairman, Mrs. Stafford Howard, Greystoke Castle, at the organisation’s first annual meeting in the Ullswater Centre, Penrith, on Wednesday evening.

Mrs. Howard said the Society’s greatest priority had been to tackle “dithering ring-road” — she had nicknamed it the “sterilising octopus” and had been horrified by the apathetic fear about the project.

Keswick

Keswick Golf Club, after 10 years without a “home”, has now reached the stage where the committee can go ahead with the purchase of land and plan the conversion into a nine-hole course.

This was the essence of the officers’ reports, on Friday evening, at the annual meeting of the Club, at which the committee who have worked so long to bring the plan to fruition resigned and new officers and committee were elected to carry the program into the next phase.

Greystoke

Tomorrow, at St. Peter’s in Rome, forty English and Welsh martyrs will become saints in a ceremony of Canonisation.

One of them is Philip Howard who, by his marriage more than 400 years ago to Anne Dacre, became the first Howard to own Greystoke Castle and its estates.

The present owner, Mr. Stafford Howard, who is his direct descendant, represents the fourteenth generation of Howards to live at the castle.

100 years ago — 1920

Kirkoswald

The Hon. R. D. Denman, new owner of Staffield Hall, has had two expert Threlkeld quarrymen at work near the top waterfall in Nunnery Walks, with a view to securing electric power by means of the force of the water.

Twenty ladies met at The College to form a company of Girl Guides. Miss Chance, Crofton Hall, addressed the meeting and was introduced by Miss Mariotta Fetherstonhaugh, the Colonel’s younger daughter, who was appointed instructor.