Harold finds Chronicle from 1886

WHEN pensioner Harold Nield spotted a yellowing copy of the Evening Chronicle lying amid the rubbish bins near his home it grabbed his attention.

“I couldn’t get to it until after the bins were emptied. It was only then I realised just how valuable it was in terms of interest,” he said.

The copy dated back more than 120 years to Saturday, August 14, 1886.

“It was very delicate, but I managed to put it in the copier and feed it on to my laptop,” said the 78-year-old.

“By reducing the size of the copied pages, the print was much larger and I was able to read it.

“It was written in very flowery language — once I got into it I couldn’t put it down.”

Harold, who lives in a complex of retirement flats at Warburton Court, Uppermill, got such pleasure out of pouring over the newspaper’s contents he decided to make it available to his neighbours.

He reproduced more than 20 pages of the ancient newspaper, fastened them together, laminated them and left the finished result in the communal lounge.

“There are masses of interesting stories in it,” said Harold.

“There is a report about a shocking fatality on Werneth cricket ground when a 12-month old baby was crushed by a roller being drawn by a horse, one about a man with six wives, a poisoning case in Ashton and details of initial moves to build the two Hulme grammar schools.

“Another story tells of a farmer who bought a load of manure and spread it near some houses when he was fed up of people playing in his field.

“When asked where he got the manure from, he said Mossley Council,” he laughed. “It all makes good reading.”

Harold spent hours on the project. “I got lots of satisfaction out of doing it. My wife, Lily, was extremely tolerant,” he said.

The newspaper was thrown out by fellow resident Jean Moore, whose late husband Terry worked at the Chronicle as a maintenance electrician until he retired seven years ago.

She said: “I found it among Terry’s things. Every time I moved it, bits kept falling off so I threw it away.”

She didn’t realised it had fallen outside the bin in a lucky move for the inquisitive Harold.

He said: “It is in very poor condition, but I now have some excellent records of that time.”
Entitled “Read All About It,” the booklet is fronted by Harold’s words “A window into late Victorian times of Oldham and beyond.”

Jean has several other even older copies of the Chronicle which she insists she will now keep hold of, and has offered them to Harold to reproduce in the same manner.

He said: “I’ll do it if people read them and the comments I get are encouraging,”