25 Years Ago.

January 2, 1976.

KENDAL will soon have its first "foot street" - after more than two years of talking.

Cumbria County Council is expecting confirmation at any time now of the Department of the Environment's authorisation of the sign telling the public that Finkle Street is traffic-free.

As soon as confirmation is received, the council's Highways and Transportation Department will issue public notices, posters and leaflets to allow the scheme to come into operation on Tuesday, January 13.

From then on traffic will be banned for an experimental period from Finkle Street from the junction with Kent Street and Branthwaite Brow for 110 yards in a westerly direction - that is along the narrow part but excluding the wide section at the Stricklandgate junction.

The restrictions will apply from 9am until 6pm, seven days a week.

Lorries loading and unloading and invalid cars will be exempt.

The first attempts to get the street pedestrianised were made back in 1973.

But delay has followed delay, the latest one pushing the implementation date back another month.

The scheme is expected to be welcomed by shoppers but Kendal and District Chamber of Trade is adopting a "wait and see" attitude.

50 Years Ago.

January 6, 1951.

AS TABLE talk about pork has not been entirely divorced from domestic discussions over the past week or two it is interesting to note, by way of an appetiser, that exactly a hundred years ago a 46-stone pig was killed at Bowness.

The scribe of a century ago described it as a splendid specimen of the porcine genus, which in its younger days - that is before it acquired the greater part of its weight - was presented to Mr Cloudesdale, of the Crown Hotel, Bowness, by a gentleman from Cheshire, as a token of his esteem.

What playful habits they must have had in those days in the way of Christmas gifts.

This year - or rather last, seeing that it is now 1951 - one would have had to be visited by a great deal of esteem to acquire a pork chop, never mind 46-stones of porcine grandeur or, alternatively, have an extensive knowledge of how such things are come by amongst all the technicalities with which one is hedged about in a more scientific if less productive age.

100 Years Ago.

January 5, 1901.

THE saying that every man has a double was verified at the Ulverston police court the other day in a manner very inconvenient - for the double.

A woman named Brocklebank, having been deserted by her husband, heard that he was at Nottingham.

The matter, with a portrait of the runaway, was put into the hands of the police.

They found a Brocklebank corresponding to the photograph and summoned him to Ulverston.

Surprised and protesting, the man appeared before the magistrates, where the deserted wife disowned him.

That, she said, was not her Brocklebank.

The resemblance was sufficiently close to confuse a policeman but not a woman with a proprietary interest at stake.

Brocklebank's double therefore was released, with an intimation that the Bench had nothing for him but sympathy.

His Christmas holiday had been spoiled, he had suffered in temper and in pocket because of his likeness to another man, and there was no remedy.

What is needed is a Society for Ventilating the Grievances of Doubles.

150 Years Ago.

January 4, 1851.

THREE brothers, bearing a remarkable resemblance to one another, are in the habit of shaving at a barber's shop in New Orleans.

A few days since, one of the brothers entered the shop early in the morning, and was duly shaven by a German who had been at work in the establishment for one or two days.

About 12 o'clock another brother came in, and underwent a similar operation at the hands of another person.

In the evening the third brother made his appearance when the German dropped his razor in astonishment and exclaimed: "Vell, mine godness! Dat man hash de fastest beard I ever saw.

I shaves him dis mornin', anoder shave him at dinner times, and he comes back now wit his beard so long as it never vas!"