The Stroud News and Journal has launched a new feature where we take a look back at news from bygone years. This week, Stroud Through the Years focused on the news in the SNJ from mid April in 1965, 75, 85, 95 and 2005. Reporter Jane Leigh delved into the archives.

LOOKING back over this week in recent history,the years, a couple of celebrity visits were talking points of their day.

The issue of Thursday April 24, in 1975, reported on a visit by BBC Radio 4 presenter and cricket commentator Brian Johnston who led the Down Your Way team on a visit to Painswick.

‘Johnners’ took time to admire the Falcon’s bowling green, then chatted to the vicar Canon Harold Heal, former rugby club captain Tony Smith, craftsman George Brotherton, former BBC Children’s Hour presenter May Jenkin, mill manager Jack Smythe and farmer Stan Slinger.

In 1995, the BBC’s gardening expert Geoff Hamilton visited Nailsworth to open the new Waterside Garden Centre on the Avening Road, and then went on to Gloucester to open a garden outside the maternity wing at the Royal Gloucestershire Hospital.

Meanwhile the TV pages from 1985 provide a snapshot of where people’s interests lay, focusing on two events which still draw huge viewing audiences.

The fourth London Marathon was being covered live on BBC1, with a highlights programme in the evening on BBC2, and there was a preview of the 30th Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in Gothenburg, in Sweden.

Just in case you’ve forgotten, this was the year when Norway’s Bobbysocks! won —Bobbysocks! were the winning artists — and the UK came fourth with Vikki singing Love Is.

News across the decades

  • 1965 BONFIRES were to be seen on local beacons at 9pm on Friday, April 23, as part of the National Trust’s Enterprise Neptune campaign to raise £2 million for the preservation of the coastline.

The 500 beacons nationwide included fires at Haresfield, Painswick, Minchinhampton, Sapperton and Stinchcombe.

Stroud chimney sweep Frank Dodson and his 12-year-old son Stephen had to be rescued by the Swanage lifeboat when they got into difficulties on holiday.

The pair, from Cashes Green, were out fishing when their engine failed.

They were towed back to port and returned home safely with a story to tell.

A new restaurant opened at the Hawthorns Hotel, at Amberley.

The family business was branching out into wedding receptions, and the owners threw a party for builders and staff to thank them for all their efforts while the building work was in progress.

  • 1975 NINE Stroud District Council members attended a private showing of the controversial film Oh! Calcutta — and decided that the film was not suitable viewing in the area.

Based on the controversial off-Broadway musical comedy revue, the film consisted of a series of musical numbers about sexual behaviour and sexual mores.

Churches in the Stroud area were bringing 50 elderly people from Belfast to the district for a holiday, in what was referred to as “a haven from the Belfast Terror”.

The report quoted Frank Longhurst, of the Stroud Valley Churches Project, as saying that there would be an equal number of Catholics and Protestants in the party.

The Spar Supermarket, in Old Market, Nailsworth, was advertising goods on special offer, including PG Tips and Typhoo tea at 8.5p per quarter, a 15-oz tin of Heinz beans for 11p, a large tin of Carnation milk for 11.5p, a tin of sliced peaches for 15.5p, a pound of English minced beef for 44p, and a box of Winalot for 22p.

  • 1985 MYSTERY surrounded the issue of the SNJ of April 25, of which there is no trace in Stroud library.

But We can reveal that the situations vacant around that time included evening cleaning jobs at Bowbridge, which paid £1.80 an hour, while the district council was offering a starting salary of £2,856 pa for a shorthand typist.

  • 1995 THERE was a happy ending to the story of George the singing collie, who had been reported missing.

It turned out that a local family had taken him in after thinking he was a stray, but George was reunited with his owner after a few days, ready to serenade Prinknash Abbey visitors once more.

Nailsworth Town Council turned down a bid for a circus featuring performing animals to come to town.

As the circus had sought permission to move on to council land, the councillors thought it was time to take a stand on the use of performing animals as entertainment.

  • 2005 THERE was outrage as four lime trees were cut down to make way for work on a roundabout near Bond’s Mill, in Stonehouse, and residents joined together to obtain a protection order for the remaining trees.

A Liberal Democrat candidate, canvassing in the run up to the general election, was savaged by a dog as he pushed a leaflet through a letterbox in Shortwood.

John Bowen needed medical treatment after the surprise attack.

Ray Davis, from Stonehouse, received a letter of thanks from Prince Charles for a poem he wrote commemorating the wedding of the prince and Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Ray said he felt "pleased and honoured" when he opened the envelope to find the letter on the day of the wedding, April 9.

Share your memories WE HOPE you are enjoying our new nostalgia page — if anyone has any memories they would like to share or any old photographs they would like us to print, please email Jamie Wiseman at jaw@stroudnewsandjournal.co.uk or call him on 01453 769422.