VOKES made the headlines today after the business announced it was to close its Abinger Street factory in Burnley, with the loss of more than 250 jobs.

The bombshell was dropped by the firm after five hours of talks between the management and union officials. Despite it, a ‘sit in’ which was in its sixth day, was to continue.

A mass meeting of all Vokes’ workers was called for the following day, when the union were to report the proposals to the men.

The closure meant the whole of the engineering side of the Burnley operation was to be wiped out, including the machine shop at Lodge Mill factory in Barden Lane.

A fortnight earlier 45 men were axed from the engineering section and the ‘sit in’ was staged in a bid to get better redundancy payments.

The shutdown meant a drop from a workforce of more than 500 in Burnley at the end of 1972, to one of just over 100.

Our front page picture today showed Cliff Richard giving the thumbs-up as he prepared to sing in the Eurovision Song Contest.

The latest betting showed that his song, Power To All Our Friends was among the favourites to win.

Cliff, the best and most experienced singer in the competition, was making his second appearance in Eurovision, after his first song, Congratulations was beaten by only one point.

There was also news that a Rishton building worker had been killed and two of his colleagues, from Nelson, seriously injured when they fell from a wooden cradle at the top of a seven-storey office building being built in Glasgow.

The three had been in the city for five weeks and the accident happened only hours before they were due to return home to east Lancashire.