THIS week in 1979, the Adver told tales of two buildings, one new and one a little older.

The new one seemed to be having problems even before its paint and plaster were dry, while the old one was home to an enigma.

“Large cracks have appeared in the walls of luxury flats in Swindon’s prestige Murray John Tower block,” we said.

“And a big row has broken out over who is to blame.

“The worst cracks are in flats above the 15th floor of the 22-storey, multi-million pound building.

“Tenants – who pay up to £41.49 a week for the flats – have been assured that the cracks are not serious.”

Fortunately for the residents, the diagonal cracks were far less serious than they seemed.

We added: “The diagonal cracks are not structural and have appeared on walls that are not major supports of the building.”

A wrangle duly broke out between the architects and builders.

Over in Moredon, a council home in Abbey View Road was the centre of a mystery, as its tenant was a phantom.

No, it wasn’t an Amityville situation, just a case of her seemingly never having lived there in spite of paying rent on the three-bedroom flat since 1965.

“From the outside,” we said, “it even looks like someone is living there.

“Plastic flowers and faded red curtains decorate the kitchen window. The curtains to the living room, again faded, are closed.

“But it’s easy to see the windows have not been cleaned for years and the kitchen is thick with dust.

“The only visitors to the flat are the gas and electricity men, who get the door key from the council to read the meters.

“Until last year neighbours say a woman came to the house and collected the mail.”

Neighbours thought the tenant to be aged about 90, and that she spent most of her time elsewhere with loved ones because of poor health.

Thamesdown Borough Council confirmed that the woman was indeed the legal tenant.

In news from Old Town, meanwhile, the announcement came that Swindon’s last public slaughterhouse was to close in April.

Older readers will remember the abattoir in Marlborough Lane, while younger ones may be relieved to learn that “public slaughterhouse” didn’t mean what it sounded like.

Rather, it was a slaughterhouse with no exclusive business ties, making it readily accessible to farmers and smallholders from throughout the area.

It wasn’t unknown for some of the doomed animals to make a run for it when the end loomed. On one occasion an unhappy bullock took refuge in an Old Town department store.

The impending closure, we said, meant problems.

“Shoppers will face soaring meat prices and Wiltshire’s farmers plummeting livestock prices when the British Beef Abattoir is shut down.

“Thamesdown Council are throwing British Beef off their site near Burmah House because they are not happy with the premises.”

The following day, it emerged that the abattoir planned to relocate to Gloucester.

We’ve always been eager to interview visitors with interesting stories to tell, and a man called Major Iain Graham fit the bill.

The retired Army officer had become a wildfowl farmer on the Suffolk-Essex border. He was in town to talk about his trade at a Cancer Campaign charity lunch, but he wasn’t averse to answering questions about Idi Amin.

The brutal Ugandan dictator was fighting vainly against his own people and Tanzanian mercenaries to maintain his position.

In the 1950s, when Uganda was still a British protectorate, Amin had been an NCO in the King’s African Rifles. One of his officers had been Iain Grahame.

“He was just one of many African soldiers I got to know very well in those days,” said Major Grahame.

“I found him a likeable man with an ebullient sense of humour, and I certainly regarded myself as his close friend.”

The two remained in touch, and in 1975 Major Grahame had been called on to help plead for the life of Dennis Hills, a British lecturer in Uganda who was sentenced to death for describing Amin as a village tyrant. Hills was spared. Major Grahame recalled that Amin had not been an especially intelligent man, although he was very charismatic. He dismissed the popular view that Amin, already being referred to in some quarters as Africa’s Hitler, was insane.

“In fact, I think he’s very shrewd – but obviously he’s quite ruthless. Any dictator who’s going to stay in power has to be.

“Number one lesson he learned when he came to power eight years ago was that if you’re going to survive, you have to eliminate the opposition.

“I’m always being asked about the state of his health, but it’s unlikely that anyone who has damaged his health as he’s supposed to have done could sire children as often as he has. He told me four years ago that he had 37.”

Idi Amin was deposed shortly afterwards, and died in exile in Saudi Arabia in 2003.