PEOPLE and events making the news in Dalton are the focus of today’s Memories Page.

Looking back almost 25 years, Dalton newsagent Harry Snell was on front page of the Evening Mail to mark his last day behind the counter.

He retired on Saturday, October 12, in 1991.

The Mail noted: “Several hundred tons of jelly-babies and newsprint have passed over the county of Harry Snell’s shop since it first opened 43 years ago.

“Now Harry, Dalton’s longest-serving shopkeeper, is about to put up his ‘closed’ sign for the last time.

“Harry, 73, will be handing over the keys of his Ulverston Road shop in Dalton tomorrow.

“Harry, who lives above the shop, is one of the two surviving Dalton war veterans who took part in the D-Day Normandy landings.

“He started work in the newsagents after demob from the Royal Engineers in 1948 and took over the shop 10 years later.”

Mr Snell was to move to Walker Street, Askam, where he was a member – and former president – of the Dunnerholme Golf Club.

At one time, the town had its own weekly newspapers such as the Dalton News and Dalton Guardian.

The town’s big stories also appeared in other papers which have long since vanished.

These snippets about Dalton are from the pages of the Barrow, Furness and North Western Daily Times in 1872.

On March 18 Dalton cemetery was consecrated by the Right Reverend Dr Harvey Goodwin who was the Bishop of Carlisle.

February 26 had seen a meeting of the Dalton-in-Furness Equitable Industrial Co-operative Society at its Co-operative Hall in Wellington Street.

It was agreed to use spare capital to build cottages on co-operative society land in Chapel Street.

On January 29 it was recorded that the society employed 30 people.

It was noted: “A reading room is attached to the society where the chief papers and periodicals of the day may be read by the members.

“There is also a splendid library containing many hundreds of volumes.”

The March 20 edition recorded the death of 17-year-old miner John Hewitson, of Welsh Row, Dalton.

He was killed at the iron ore pits of the Dalton Mining Company.

The miner got into a cage at the top of the shaft expecting to be lowered to the workings but the driver sent the cage upwards and over the pit head gear.

Mr Hewitson was thrown out of the cage and died 20 minutes later.

On April 23 there was a fire in a house and shop run by William Ferguson in Market Street.

It was on the gable end facing Wellington Street and had been started by sparks from a neighbouring chimney.

The paper noted: “The fire caused great alarm to the inmates of the house and a considerable crowd collected in the street.”