WE held the Adver presses for a special edition this week in 1978.

The occasion was an early appearance in Swindon by a showbusiness personality who would become a local institution many years later.

Or to put it another way, future Wyvern panto stalwart Keith Chegwin was in town.

For the benefit of younger Rewind readers, especially if they’ve never seen one of those TV shows with titles such as Your Top 50 Memories of the Seventies, Keith worked on a Saturday morning programme called Multi-Coloured Swap Shop at the time.

One of the main features of the show was allowing children to swap toys and games they no longer wanted for toys and games they did.

They could swap things either by calling main presenter Noel Edmonds on 01 811 8055 or going to a live swap led by roving correspondent Keith.

On Saturday, September 30, 1978, it was Swindon’s turn for a visit.

An unnamed reporter who may have been nursing a hangover wrote a little grumpily: “Thousands of shrieking kids massed round a temporary stage in Swindon’s Coate Water Park to see teen star Keith Chegwin and make swaps galore.

“It must have been the worst kept secret ever. The news got round that cameras were at Coate, and combined with a broad hint in the Adver yesterday there was no problem adding two and two.

“Cars blocked the road up to the stage, and police were called in to direct traffic. Even bitterly cold winds and a spot of rain could not put the crowds off.”

Keith himself said: “It’s amazing. Usually if the weather’s bad the kids come, make a swap and clear off, but this lot are staying with us.”

Nine-year-old Lisa Martin from Wroughton said she’d enjoyed the morning very much. Lisa had swapped her Ker-Plunk set for anther 1970s toy cupboard classic, a plastic Jaws game.

Keith wasn’t the only celebrity in town that week.

“A VIP was in Swindon to hand over the keys of a very special car,” we said.

“She was Miss Great Britain, 18-year-old Pat Morgan.

“The car was an £8,000 black Rover 3500, specially commissioned for John Francome, the top National Hunt jockey.

“At a special ceremony at the Dutton Forshaw Dorcan Way showrooms, attended by Thamesdown’s mayor Ashley Roberts and Miss Thamesdown, Donna Gordon, the car was handed over.”

The Swindon-born jockey’s wife, Miriam, who received the car, said: “We chose a black Rover because we thought it would be original and look really good.”

Pat Morgan, who is from Gateshead, went on to open her own modelling agency, whose roster at one time included a child called Cheryl Tweedy.

Another visitor to Swindon was 80-year-old Town fan and retired lumberjack Roland Poulson, who had emigrated to Vancouver more than half a century earlier.

Mr Poulson said he kept in touch with his favourite club thanks to a fellow ex-pat who sent him copies of the Adver’s Football Pink.

He went back to Town’s ground, where he’d first cheered the side in 1910 or 1911, accompanied by a nephew and a friend, and was given VIP treatment.

Sadly Town suffered a 1-0 defeat by Blackpool.

One of our front page pictures during that final week of 1978 showed two people building a wall.

‘Girls in a Man’s World,’ said the headline beneath our photo of Mavis Gilby and Marion Bird, and 37 years ago that was no lie.

We wrote: “It all started a year ago when Mavis and Marion took a bricklaying course at The College, Swindon.

“When Mavis’ front garden wall in Morse Street almost fell down the pair decided to rebuild it themselves.

“She drafted in Marion, a research officer at The College, and the two of them set to work.

“They reckon they will save about £150 by rebuilding it themselves.”

Mavis told us: “We were the only women on the course so I naturally turned to Marion for help.”

On a sad note, over in Newcastle Street an era was ending for one of the town’s most prominent employers.

Hi-fi equipment manufacturer Garrard finally agreed terms with 1,250 workers it was making redundant. Little more than a skeleton staff was to remain, and the Blunsdon plant was to close altogether.

The redundant workers were to receive an average of £3,000, but that was little comfort with dole queues lengthening.

Local union leader Bill Baxter said: “We have got to be big enough and strong enough to face up to the facts. We have no chance of saving the jobs so we need the money to see us over a long, hard winter.”

Garrard shed the last of its Swindon workforce four years later, although the Garrard name was farmed out to various other organisations across the globe.

During the Swindon period, though, the company’s products never lost their reputation for excellence.

The Swindon operation was the victim of lower overseas manufacturing costs and – according to many local workers – chronic under-investment.