THIS week 37 years ago, Swindon people found themselves in the midst of a gold rush.

They weren’t panning for the precious metal in streams or digging for nuggets in their gardens, though.

The urban gold hunters of January 1980 preferred to mine their cupboards, their jewellery boxes and their ornament shelves.

Thanks to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and ongoing political turmoil in post-revolutionary Iran, a lot of wealthy people in the Middle East feared for the value of their stocks, shares and currency holdings.

They resorted to precious metals instead, and the result was spiralling prices which had people across the world wanting a piece of the action. In the space of a few months, gold more than tripled in price, and early that month it had reached nearly £300 an ounce.

By way of comparison, nearly 40 years later it hovers at around £970.

In early 1980, just as would happen following the global economic meltdown of 2008, rising gold prices saw jewellers swamped by people hoping to trade in trinkets, and new gold-trading businesses popping up at a startling rate.

Swindon was no exception, as we learned when we visited a Bridge Street dealership called Goldfinger.

Boss Don Bennet and his assistant, Stephanie Clarke, said they’d sent several batches of gold, worth thousands of pounds, to be scrapped.

“It’s madness,” said Mr Bennet. “People are selling off really beautiful and rare pieces.”

One woman, he said, had sold an exquisite 18-carat Victorian gold chain, while another brought in a six-ounce charm bracelet she had assembled over 20 years.

Not even wedding rings were safe from gold fever according to Mr Bennet.

“One lady sold me a 22-carat ring and said she would buy a nine-carat ring and use the difference in price to pay her electricity bill.”

The latest stage in the ongoing growth of Swindon saw property firm Barratt open a show house at Westlea Down on Lydiard Road, where they planned a 250-home estate.

Barrett brought in a major celebrity to help drum up interest.

In his role as Coronation Street’s Len Fairclough, Peter Adamson was one of the country’s most familiar faces.

He cut the ribbon to open the showhouse and invited the assembled press, public and staff inside.

“After that,” we said, “he sat in the show house and signed autographs – hundreds of them.

“He spent nearly an hour at it, while they queued up outside in the cold, mums, dads and kids, waiting their turn.”

A little over three years later, the actor’s career would lie in ruins. Long troubled by alcohol addiction, in 1983 he was accused and acquitted of indecently assaulting two children. The court of public opinion delivered a different verdict.

Adamson was soon fired from Coronation Street for revealing secrets about the soap and fellow cast members. He died in relative obscurity in 2002, aged 71.

The cold we mentioned included plenty of snow and frost, which was all the excuse the Adver needed to send photographers out in search of the picturesque and quirky.

The images they captured included one of Swindon Town ground supervisor Phil Webb dragging a scraper behind a mini-tractor to uncover the green beneath the white at the County Ground.

Another was taken at Parsonage Farm in Chiseldon, where it was so cold that stockman Richard Poole issued two newborn lambs with plastic coats.

In property news, a homebuyer in Old Town was dealing with the sensitive matter of 35 people buried in his garden.

The former Baptist Chapel in South Street had been established in 1845, and the last burial in its cemetery had taken place in 1945.

When the property was turned into a private home, we revealed that the new owner planned to arrange the relocation of the bodies to Purton Cemetery at his own expense. The £2,000 operation, we said, was to be supervised by undertakers and a minister.

Crews from RAF Lyneham were in action in Rhodesia.

The nation, which would become independent Zimbabwe that spring, was in the throes of factional conflict.

Hercules from Lyneham were sent to help equip and resupply Patriotic Front guerrillas who were coming out of hiding in the bush following their long fight for independence.

One of the crewmembers we spoke to was Flight Lieutenant Harry Burgoyne from Wootton Bassett, who travelled with a mascot for the operation, a toy parrot called Flying Officer Zimbabwe.

The Hercules flew at 250 feet over hot zones in a bid to avoid being tracked by anti-aircraft fire, and swooped as low as 50 feet to make freefall equipment drops.

Other items were dropped by parachute in an operation which comprised 153 sorties, ferried 2m pounds of freight and carried 1,600 passengers.