THIS week in 1978 the Adver was the launch pad for a story that went around the world.

These days Derek Humphry heads the Oregon-based Euthanasia Research and Guidance organisation.

In the top left hand corner of the home page is an old New York Review of Books cartoon, showing him holding a scythe in one hand and a heap of pills in the other.

ERGO campaigns for terminally and ‘hopelessly’ ill people to have the right to assisted suicide.

Mr Humphry’s journey to where he is now began almost exactly 37 years ago.

We wrote: “A man has admitted to the Evening Advertiser that he helped to end his dying wife’s life – by giving her a lethal mixture of drugs and painkillers.

“And he has confessed that if his wife – the mother of his children – had survived the dose, he was ready to smother her with pillows.

“But that was not necessary. A 22-year marriage was ended by a death pact made long before. Now the husband has told the full story, even though this could lead to his prosecution under a law which could mean up to 14 years’ imprisonment.”

When he gave the interview, Mr Humphry was a 47-year-old author and former journalist.

He was about to publish a book called Jean’s Way, which detailed how in 1975 he had helped his wife, who had terminal cancer, to take her own life at 42. The couple had lived in Langley Burrell, near Chippenham.

The book would become an international bestseller, as would several further pro-euthanasia works. The police investigated Jean Humphry’s death, but there was no prosecution.

By March of 1978, Mr Humphry was living in London, and was married to an American, Ann Wickett.

Together they would resettle in America and campaign together for assisted suicide rights. They later helped Ann’s elderly parents to kill themselves with drug overdoses.

Ann, who suffered from depression, committed suicide in 1991, some time after she and Mr Humphry divorced.

There was only one bigger national story that week, and once again Swindon had a key role.

Operation Julie saw a gang of idealistic scientists and hippies sent to prison for up to 13 years. Between them they’d manufactured so much LSD that the street price was said to have rocketed from £1 to £5 a dose once their operation was shut down.

More than 800 police officers were involved in the operation, many of whom grew their hair and wore jeans to blend in with their targets. Some of those undercover officers were from Swindon.

“The truth is out about a married couple who shared a cottage in Wales,” we wrote.

“They weren’t married at all. They were police officers working on the Operation Julie drugs investigation.

“The ‘wife’ was Julie Taylor, a 28-year-old detective sergeant from Swindon who gave her name to the operation.

“Her ‘husband’ was childhood friend DS Vince Castle.

“The two called themselves Mr and Mrs Dale and – using a 75p ring from Woolworth’s – rented a cottage in Wales to watch the home of two of the main conspirators in the drugs plot.

“But they were really no more than good friends.”

Film star Diana Dors was promoting her latest book, a collection of occasionally risque showbiz anecdotes called For Adults only, and the publicity drive included an interview in her home town newspaper.

Earlier in her career Diana had voiced hostility toward Swindon after certain locals condemned her sexy image and involvement in scandals, but by 1978 she appeared to have mellowed.

The actress also regretted that the controversies had affected her late parents, Bert and Mary Fluck.

“As far as I was concerned,” she said, “these were just showbusiness stunts, and showbusiness people understood that.

“But people in this town – my parents included – took them for real.

“My mother would say to me, ‘What will people think? We’ve lived in this town all these years, and your father is a respected figure.’

“I knew it mattered to them. They had to live here – and I knew the kind of community they lived in. It hurt me that they were hurt.”

Diana wasn’t the only celebrity in the vicinity that week.

We said: “DJ Pete Murray last night backed a call for a popular BBC travelling radio show to visit Swindon.

“The star of radio’s Open House agreed with a dinner guest that the outside broadcast unit should come to the town.

“Pete was guest of honour at the annual dinner of North Wiltshire Rotary Club.”

Now 89, Pete Murray was one of the original Radio One presenters. Moving to Radio Two, he presented magazine show Open House from 1970 until the early 1980s.

Away from the celebrity world, we sent a photographer to the town’s highest vantage point for a poignant homecoming celebration: “There’s no place like home – although you can’t recognise it. So when Swindon-born Mrs Winifred McCarthy, 68, returned home after 30 years in Australia, her cousin Mr Jack Harris took her up to the top of the giant Murray john tower block in the Brunel Plaza to see how much the town had changed.

“Mrs McCarthy, or Mrs Mazonowizc as people will probably remember her, is staying with Mr Harris in Beatrice Street for nine months.”