JOIN the Bury Times as we travel back 50 years to the headlines on May 3, 1969, when a huge rubber fire and Fairfield Hospital's TV debut were the talk of the town. BRAD MARSHALL takes a look back in the archives...

THICK black smoke covered the town on Saturday when 300 tons of scrap rubber caught fire.

The rubber was in a yard at the rear of the Swintex Ltd rubber manufacturers in Manchester Road.

A spokesman for the the firm estimated the damage could reach the £1,000 bracket, however no staff had to be evacuated because of the fire and there were no stoppages in production.

It is not known how the fire was started, but fire crews have said it was likely that a grass fire started by children could have spread to the works.

Bury Fire Brigade kept a watch on the rubber during Monday and checked it again yesterday morning to make sure the fire was out.

BURY'S own Fairfield Hospital is to become a TV star when it makes its small screen debut on the popular BBC 1 programme Tomorrow's World.

Millions of viewers will be able to see some of the ground breaking research being carried out at the hospital when the show airs.

A film unit visited Fairfield's pulmonary function laboratory and coronary care unit last week to shoot work being done on painkilling drugs used in post-heart attack treatment.

A team of doctors at the hospital studied 23 patients who had suffered heart attacks in the previous 24 to 48 hours, and four healthy volunteers.

Two drugs were used and comparisons made, and doctors say the results are very promising ­— although further work, soon to be carried out, is necessary.

The valuable work being done at Fairfield has also been reported in medical journals, including The Lancet, but is not available on the NHS.

The laboratory used for the research was built by Bury and Rossendale Hospital Management Committee, who also supplied some of the equipment, alongside a grant of £5,000 from the Manchester Regional Hospital Board.

Now, however, doctors are reliant on donations from the public to continue their work.

Other research carried out by the doctors has been done into the best type of oxygen mask used for treatment in the first three or four days after a heart attack ­— these findings have also been reported.