25 Years Ago

September 19, 1975

GOOD luck from Lowestoft, said the postcard.

The weather is lovely.

But when it dropped through 59-year-old Edie Walker's Carnforth letterbox she was puzzled.

For it opened: "Dear Aunty Edie and Uncle Reg."

But her husband Reg died several months ago and she thought all her relatives had been informed.

Then Mrs Walker, of The Drive, Crag Bank, Carnforth, noticed the stamp.

It was an old fourpenny one.

And on looking at the postmark she discovered that it had been posted by her niece, Margaret, on July 8, 1970.

It had taken five years to travel about 270 miles.

"The postcard upset me at first," said Mrs Walker.

"I lost my husband in April and to read 'to Aunty Edie and Uncle Reg' was upsetting.

I thought that somebody must have slipped up somewhere.

"It amused me in one sense though, but if it had been something important it could have been very annoying."

A former seamstress, Mrs Walker, as vice chairman of Crag Bank Village Hall Committee, is used to receiving postcards from people.

But this is the first time she has received one so late.

"I would like to know just where it has been all this time," she said.

50 Years Ago

September 23,1950

HOUSEWIVES of districts in Kendal unfortunate enough to suffer Monday morning electricity cuts have this week directed some uncomplimentary remarks against the national authority.

It seems that in these particular areas many of the homes are all-electric and among the essential appliances are the thermostat water heater and the washing machine.

Evidently, preparations were being made for the weekly 'wash' when off went the power, not for half-an-hour or an hour but for three-and-a-half hours.

Optimistic women switched to other household duties hoping the current would be restored after 30 minutes or so - as in the past - but they had to continue to hope, with the result that important Monday morning duties needing electrical aid were delayed until the afternoon.

As if this set back was not enough to try their patience, the Monday gloom was deepened for some living in a district where, without warning, the water supply ceased so that workmen could complete a local repair job.

There may be something to be said for the argument of those who have to submit always to the inconvenience of Monday morning electricity cuts.

They contend that a rota should operate whereby all districts share the washing day 'blues' when a morning saving in electricity is considered inevitable

100 Years Ago

September 22, 1900

THE newly-developed opposition to the proposed electric trams connecting Windermere, Bowness and Ambleside has had a speedy effect.

The scheme is abandoned.

The company are manifestly not prepared to face opponents with whom there can be no compromise; and their new opponents were undoubtedly of that description.

They are residential and influential.

Some of them are spoken of as uttering piteous cries lest at the approach of the threatened trams they should have to fly from their "restful homes."

Their cries strike one as rather artificial because it is not likely that a tram could interfere with restfulness more than wagons, coaches and char-a-bancs, and of these there is plenty in the Lake District.

The fact is that the trams, like some other distasteful things, are not so black as they are painted and it is not to be imagined that they can be kept out of the district for ever.

Only that their time is not yet.

150 Years Ago

September 21, 1850

A CONTEMPORARY gives the following account of the adventure of some valiant fishermen, from which it appears that Windermere has at present its serpent as well as the Irish seas.

On Friday last, as two veteran anglers, who had seen many summers on the banks of lake Windermere, were amusing themselves at midday with their favourite sport, they espied a snake, crossing the water.

Its dimensions they described as at least a yard in length, and its girth about the thickness of a person's wrist, and its vividly scaly hues as glittering beautifully in the sun.

They weighed anchor and gave chase, with the intention of seeing it.

On their near approach, however, it grinned - not "horribly, a ghastly smile" - but so menacingly fierce that they thought proper to desist, and let the reptile pass!

The lake, where it was crossing, is about a mile in width.