Mrs Birkett tries to see a funny side of the situation as children show their sooty hands and the offending chimney looms in the background.

Burnley's Chief Public Health Inspector has taken up the case of the smoky pit chimney. This follows complaints from residents in the Thursby Road area that they have been out with brushes two mornings this week to clear soot which has been falling on the road, walls, cars and gardens. Salvage operations are being carried out at Bank Hall Colliery, and they claim thick black smoke has been pouring out of the pit chimney with soot blowing about. Mr M. Stott, Public Health Inspector, told the Burnley Express: "We have had this problem for about two months and, although we have complained at local level, nothing has been done. After the complaints from residents on Wednesday, I telephoned the NCB's regional engineering headquarters at St Helens, and they promised to take the matter up immediately." But yesterday morning, 22nd July 1971, residents said they again found another scattering of soot.

Mrs Jean Birkett of Colbran Street said: "It is even more annoying because of the fact that we are supposed to live in a smokeless zone area, but this doesn't seem to stop the pit burning what they want." A spokesman at the colliery said: "The trouble was caused by a fault in the boiler plant, and this is in the process of being repaired." He added that the residents can expect the inconvenience to be over by the end of the weekend.