NEWSPAPER adverts, old and new, have always fascinated me! They can be serious, biographical, humorous or possibly tragic.

Being by nature an inquisitive soul, I often wonder what lies behind some of these ads – who put them in and why? But the chances are that we will never find out who, if anybody, answered them.

From the pages of the West Cumberland Times for July 2, 1881 we find, in the column entitled “Sales by Private Treaty” a For Sale ad: “Popular encyclopaedia, 14 volumes; cost £7, will sell for £2 15s. “J.F., West Cumberland Times Office, Cockermouth.”

Now £7 for 14 volumes – back in 1881 this was a lot of money. And many people would have thought twice before forking out £2 15s for a secondhand set.

In the same column we find that Henry Birkbeck, of Dovenby Mill, Cockermouth was selling “a well-bred BOAR, 12 months old, with thin hair and plenty of bone, and thoroughly useful”.

I know nothing about farming and I wonder why “plenty of bone” was worthy of mention in the ad. How much would it have cost you to buy the boar? The advert does not give this information.

You can scan the page of ads for prices – and very few are given. Annoying or what?

Almost the only prices quoted for any sale item was in a short ad put in by the West Cumberland Times, from its own office in Station Street, Cockermouth. Had you been short of any, they were selling off waste paper for one shilling and ninepence per stone Perhaps they hadn’t sold too many copies of the paper that month?

I wonder who J.F. was and if he ever got rid of his old encyclopaedia. He obviously didn’t want anyone to know who he was. But whenever you scan the pages of our old newspapers you come across “Letters to the Editor” signed by initials or pseudonyms. It was also quite customary for regular contributors to sign their articles with their pseudonyms – and how annoying is that!

And this, dear reader, is where you might be able to help: do you know of the identities of any of the pseudonyms used in these old papers?

Who produced the regular column in the Workington Star and Harrington Guardian which was entitled “Twinkles.” It covered all topics, local and national. An August 1909 column dealt, amongst other topics, with the Act of that year which prohibited boys under 16 smoking cigarettes in public.

Cigarettes were cheap – five for a penny. Lads with a few bob in their pockets could smoke cigars and puff on pipes quite legally. So when was the law changed to cover all tobacco smoking by the under-16s?

The piece ends with a question: why do some men spit when they smoke? Twinkles thought it a dirty habit. It was – and it still is.

The paper also ran a weekly Football Competition. That week eight correct coupons were received by the paper, and the winner was chosen by ballot. He was Oliver Dumigan, Senhouse Street. I don’t know how, what, or how much, he won but he had to go the newspaper office to collect it.

The Star Football Competition was eventually dropped by the paper. Anyone know when – and why?

Just a few more newspaper pseudonyms you might know: “Long Leg” from the Workington Star in about 1891 – who wrote cricket notes; “Sentinel” in the West Cumberland Times produced “Ramblers’ Column” in about 1934; and “Elfrede”, the contributor of the “Fashion & Things Feminine” column was writing in the “West Cumberland News” in the Thirties.

Just three queries – and I’ve got a lot more where they came from...