New Years Eve a time for celebration, happiness and making resolutions, which are never kept or as the good people of Eccles used to do on New Years Eve, congregate on Patricroft Bridge to listen to the bells and hooters from the nearby docks ringing in the new year. However it was not all hearts and flowers as was told when, William Hamilton who lived in Aldred Street appeared at Eccles Magistrate Court summoned by Lilian Chadwick for assaulting her on New Years Eve, 1922. Mr F.W. Ogden appearing for Lilian told the Court that up to six months ago the parties were "keeping company" but the relationship was broken off by her and this is what probably accounts for the events of New Years Eve. Lilian who lived in Bridgewater Street told the court that she and a lady friend who was with her husband went to Patricroft Bridge to join in the celebrations and decided to call into The Packet House Inn to wish Mr and Mrs Wickens - possibly the Licencees - a Happy New Year. She saw Mr Hamilton and went to leave by a side door when she received a violent blow to the face which knocked her through a glass door and rendered her unconscious, she did deny knocking a plate of cakes out of his hands before the incident. P.C. Coe arrived on the scene and asked Hamilton if he had anything to say, he replied that there had been a "bit of bother" but no mention was made of cakes... He told the Magistrate that he had been keeping company with Lilian but she broke it off and said she never wanted to see him again, but she would call to the house where he was staying three or four times a week, and on the night in question he had been out carol singing with friends and decided to carry on the reverie in the Packet House Inn. In the pub he said that Lilian knocked a plate of cakes out of his hands on purpose and to make matters worse, somebody had put their feet through his new hat and when he saw her laughing, this angered him and he admitted striking her once in the face which he regretted straight away but pleaded that it wasn't a heavy blow as Lilian was at another party a few hours later. Under further examination he said that one of his friends who went to the pub with was so disgusted that he struck him in the face knocking him to the floor and finally he admitted that he should have wrote to her apologised for his actions. Mr G. Holland the Chairman of the Bench said this was a serious offence and should consider himself lucky that he was being fined only one guinea instead of imprisonment.
