Monday April 25

1949: Children on the hunt for sweets on the outskirts of Swindon found that most shops had already exhausted their stocks. Youngsters from Rodbourne Cheney, Moredon and other districts were so keen to buy their first sweets off points that they walked to Haydon Wick where a confectioner was open. Mrs M C Read, the confectioner, sold his entire supply of four cwt of sweets before the end of the day.

1959: Hot dogs with onion, iced lemonade with a jazz band all contributed to a lively evening for more than 100 people at Dowling Street Scout Hall, Swindon, during a dance organised by the 5th Swindon (St Paul's) Boy Scout Troop. Music was played by the Ray River Jazz Band.

1979: Pollyann Tanner is retiring at 16 - from the Swindon Festival. She won four cups and five gold meals in one day at this year's event, so now Pollyann has won every available trophy in the festival during her years of entering. She is now going to further her professional dancing career by dancing with the Great Koviari, a magician and illusionist. The show opened in the West End and will now tour the UK including a date at the Wyvern in Swindon when Pollyann can visit mum, dance teacher Mollie Tanner.

Tuesday, April 26

1949: Members of the Swindon Housing Committee will visit Moredon Park before further steps are taken in its proposed conversion into a housing site. The decision was announced when a deputation of six, representing more than 1,700 Moredon petitioners, met the committee.

1959: Canadian Ray Jepson, who was badly wounded in the 1939-45 war and left disabled, had an eight year spell in England from 1944. Then he met his wife Rubyne who was a nurse at Stratton St Margaret Hospital and they had a baby daughter. She was only four months old when the family emigrated to Canada where they had a built-to-order home, but a nagging longing for the old country brought them back to live in Swindon. Migration in reverse, said Ray.

1979: The vital Post Office telephone operator service in the UK was being strangled by a devastating strike of 13 key workers in Swindon. This serious increase in the strike by supply workers is threatening to put vital life and death services out of action. This could be catastrophic for fire, police, ambulance and life guard services.

Wednesday April 27

1949: Sir Megford Watkins a Swindon man, has been appointed by the Ministry of Education to chairman of the Council for the Royal College of Art. He succeeds the Hon Josiah Wedgwood, who has resigned owing to increase of work due to his appointment to the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Commission. Sir Megford who was knighted in 1947, is son of William Watkins of Clifton Street, Swindon.

1949: About 50 members of Swindon and District Ironmongers Assistants Association were given a talk on the history of roofing felts, at their monthly meeting in the GWR Hotel in Swindon. The speaker Mr H A Duriev was accompanied by Mr D P Anderson, sales manager of a manufacturing firm.

1959: A powder box made from Savernake wood by Mr F Biggs was presented by Brian Mabbutt to Mrs A E Howlett of Downham Market, Norfolk who opened Marlborough Methodist Fair. Held in the town hall the target of the fair was to raise £250 towards the ultimate goal of £1,000 to redecorate and renovate the church in readiness for the Golden Jubilee celebrations.

1959: Leader of Rodbourne Cheney Methodist Youth Club in Swindon, Peter Symons, got the surprise of his life when the committee secretly arranged for a This Is Your Life-type item should be included in the youth club show focussing on Peter himself.

1979: Lucky Jackie Marsh was flying high when she won £1,358. Jackie of Beechcroft Road, Stratton, Swindon was presented with the cheque by Red Arrows Sqd Ldr Brian Hoskins at RAF Kemble. He and his team jetted in for the occasion. Jackie won the cash in a Cancer and Polio Research Fund competition.

1979: Companies in the Swindon area are to be invited to play the Management Game. The competition organised by Swindon branch of the British Institute of Management is a chance for managers to try out ideas which they would normally be wary of. Teams taking part on the two day game become a fictitious company and have to overcome simulated problems. It is held at the David Murray John building.

Thursday, April 28

1949: Swindon art students are forming a club which will arranged sketching, painting and various other functions. Members will get in contact with similar organisations or art schools to exchange visits with the new Swindon Art Students Club.

1949: About 200 attended a concert at St Augustine's Church Hall, Rodbourne, given by the Sweet Harmony concert party for Sunday School funds. The programme included nursery rhymes by The Tinies, whose ages ranged from four to seven, duets, dances, sketches and solos. Mrs A Day was accompanist.

1959: Training on a home-made trampoline and coached by the staff of Headlands Grammar School, J Boddington of Swindon, finished third in the National Amateur Gymnastic Association Trampoline Championships, junior section, at Stanmore Park. He had never used a trampoline before January of this year.

1959: Mr E H Gleed of Lydiard Green Purton, a boiler chargeman at British Rail claims to have invented a device which will take away black smoke from the fire box of a boiler, making it vanish completely. The device, Secondary Air Injector, is made of iron but weighs no more than half a cwt. The purpose is to inject air into the firebox. The gases given off by burning fuel carbon can not burn away without sufficient oxygen, which without the extra air causes the black smoke 1979: Airman from RAF Lyneham have exercised their right to march through the town with banners flying, drums beating and bayonets fixed. The Freedom of the Borough - the highest accolade Swindon can confer - was awarded to Lyneham and the Duke of Edinburgh Regiment, 15 years ago. Crowds lined the streets to watch the parade marking the anniversary. In 70 years it has only been awarded 15 times. The airmen shared the parade with Alf Bown, a former alderman and spiritual architect of the Swindon expansion who was also has the Freedom of the Borough.

1979: Swindon Town goal keeper Chris Ogden got the bird when he drew a raffle - for the winner was a budgie. Joyful Joey won £50 in the raffle after his owner Jane Bristow, 16, of Gladstone Street, Swindon bought him a ticket. The draw was organised by Commonweal School and raised £400 towards the school mini bus.

Friday, April 29

1949: A Royal Airforce mobile exhibition will cover the complete history of flight in a series of drawings, photographs, models and dioramas in such a way as to be easily understood by all. It will be opened by the Mayor of Swindon and it is called Man Takes Wings.

1949: Swindon Silver Threads, which was in danger of having to discontinue its activities when Community House closed down, now has a new headquarters at Dowling Street Church Hall, Swindon. Pensioners attend weekly meetings and the first had entertainment from Mrs Townsend's Juniors and Mrs Williams.

1959: Vera Bennett has been provisionally cast as the heroine, Nettie Forbush, in Swindon Amateur Light Operatic Society production of South Pacific, which will be presented at Swindon Playhouse. Enid Hogden has been chosen as understudy.

1959: Four new combatants in the lists for the coming local elections are women. Ada Topple, Edna Todd, Mary Silverlock, and Margaret Leckie believe the Swindon Corporation needs the advice of women. If all four are successful, which is unlikely, and Kathleen Tomkins was returned again, eight out of the blue plush chairs in the civic chambers would be women's.

1979: The new look XTC from Swindon, with the extra attraction of the twin lead guitar ingredient, are well on the way into their first British tour since Dave Gregory joined. The band are plying audiences with a mix of old and new. The band played in London after a short stint in Ireland but Reading is the closest they will get to Swindon. The band will be cutting their third album in the summer before a tour to the USA and Australia.

1979: Swindon firemen finally squashed a bomb threat after dicing with death for more than three hours. Their enemy was a large oxycetylene cylinder which caught fire in a Swindon garage. It threatened to blow Techno Car Sales apart and was a serious risk to surrounding properties. The cause of the blaze remains a mystery.

Saturday April 30

1949: Mr A J E Beck, chairman of the Swindon and Chippenham District of the War Pensioners Committee, will present ex serviceman, Arthur Large, who lost both his legs during the last war, with a car, under the Ministry of Pensions Welfare Service. The car, the first to be presented in Wiltshire, has been modified so Arthur, 35, can drive himself.

1949: Rhymes For All Times is the title of a small book of poems by Miss Marjorie Bailey of Wills Avenue, Swindon which she had just had published. She composed the verses when she was a small child and they include such tales as The Naughty Elf and Candyland. She came to Wiltshire as a teacher at Marlborough boarding school but is now a shorthand typist for a Swindon firm in Station Road.

1959: The experiment in setting up the South West Arts Association has proved a complete success, says the annual report. The Swindon collection of paintings which toured the south west for nearly two years has proved the Association capable of circulating a first class exhibition, and bringing its costs within the organisations narrow financial limits. Another successful innovation has been the serving of meals before concerts, film shows and lectures. The SWAA has taken up the challenge of television and proved that live entertainment can always win an audience away from their TV.

1959: A chance meeting with an American school teacher on a cross channel steamer brought Terry Crabbe, 11, the holiday of a lifetime. Terry is emigrating to Canada with his parents of Surrey Road, Swindon and his brother Daniel seven. He is also being taken on an eight week tour of the USA by Mr R L Cherry who met Terry while on holiday in Belgium.

1979: Former Labour Minister of Transport Sir Richard Marsh has switched to the Tories. The son of a Swindon rail worker, who rose to the head of British Rail finally became a conservative at a meeting of supporters in Essex. He was made an honourary member of the Chelmsford Constituency Party.

1979: Swindon's water babies, four tiny tots, left the big fish behind by becoming the town's first six-year-olds to pass a tough survival test course at Dorcan School. The course included swimming in pyjamas, undressing in water, swimming eight circuits of the pool and getting out of the deep end. They are Jason Price, Mark Holden, Jonathan Russ and Daniel Pope.