IN THE PAST...

10 YEARS AGO

United Utilities, which looks after the county's power network for Electricity North West, was using helicopters to survey overhead lines at Millom, Broughton, Askam and Ulverston.

A ground floor flat at Chester Street, Barrow, was offered for sale at £49,950. A terraced house at Argyle Street, Barrow, was £57,000.

The first case of swine flu was confirmed in South Cumbria. It was a three-year-old shopworker from Barrow. The only other Cumbrian case was an American tourist staying in Carlisle.

Youngsters from the Happyy Tots Day Nursery in Barrow took part in the Barnardo's Big Toddle around the nursery garden and hoped to raise £200 for the national children's charity.

25 YEARS AGO

Cumbria's county councillors pocketed £429,013 in tax-free allowances and expenses in the year to April - £52,997 more than the previous year.

A terraced house at Clarence Road, Barrow, was offered for sale at £49,950. A detached house at Poplar Bank, Holbeck, Barrow, was £72,500.

Barrow was to get Britain's first youth counsellor for Relate, the organisation which offers relationship help and guidance.

Ulverston-born Oxford University lecturer Heidi Marriott was heading to Uganda to start a three-month project to direct work on fertility and mortality.

50 YEARS AGO

The BBC was considering an extension of its Radio 1 pop programme into Furness, MPs were told at the House of Commons.

The Barrow branch of the Post Office Engineering Union pledged its support for a planned national one-day strike in support of a 10 per cent pay claim.

More than 1,300 houses in the North Lonsdale rural district used private water supplies from streams rivers and wells, councillors were told.