Swindon

1951: Mr John Holmes’ Band played at a social evening and dance held by former scholars of Commonweal. The third social, organised by the 5.30 Club, was held at the East Street Co-operative Hall in Swindon. The club was founded when members left school.

1951: Mr G E Beard, who for the past 16 years had been treasurer of Swindon Rotary Club, was installed as its new president. The retiring president, Mr G Hill, handed over to Mr Beard and then presented the club with an inscribed clock. The Rotary Club had a record membership of 64. Coincidently Mrs Beard was made president of the Inner Wheel.

1961: Swindonians in their hundreds left the town for Trip Wednesday and enjoyed excursions to different parts of the country. One of Swindon’s leading coach firms said that all its vehicles had been on the roads carrying 700 people out of Swindon. The coaches had travelled to Bournemouth, Cheddar, Weston Super-mare, Weymouth, Lynton, Lynmouth, Southsea, Brighton and Salisbury Races. An extra 1,000 went by rail.

1961: There was an enthusiastic response to the unusual competition, The Junior Town Criers’ Contest, staged in Marlborough alongside the annual garden party, in aid of the English Pestalozzi Village for Children. 21 boys took part in the preliminary rounds on the lawns of the rectory gardens and they were judged by the rector, Canon F B R Browne.

1971: Mr and Mrs Pat O’Sullivan-Hartnett, from Park North, left Swindon for a month’s holiday in Miami. The couple were better known as the mother and step father of pop star Gilbert O’Sullivan. They were visiting their daughter Marie, who emigrated to the United States when she married.

1971: Pupils of Park School, Swindon opened a room they had decorated at the Cheshire Home at Great Langley. Besides painting the room, the children supplied and made new curtains, new bed covers and a built-in wardrobe for residents.

The world

1307: Edward I, having conquered the Welsh, died on his way to Scotland to fight Robert the Bruce.

1814: The first authentic historical novel, Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley, was published.

1816: Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Irish-born playwright of School for Scandal (1777), died. He became manager of the Drury Lane Theatre as well as a politician but died in poverty.

1860: Composer Gustav Mahler was born in Kaliste, Bohemia.

1927: Christopher Stone became the first ‘’disc jockey’’ on British radio when he presented his Record Round-up from Savoy Hill.

1967: Using Sir Francis Drake’s sword, the Queen knighted Francis Chichester, who had sailed solo round the world in Gypsy Moth IV.

2005: A series of explosions ripped through London in co-ordinated terrorist strikes. Suicide attacks on three London Underground trains and a double-decker bus killed 56, including the bombers, and more than 700 were injured.

2013: Andy Murray made history as he became the first British man to take the Wimbledon singles title in 77 years.

BIRTHDAYS Ringo Starr, ex-Beatle, 77; Michael Howard, former Conservative Party leader, 76; Bill Oddie, comic actor/wildlife presenter, 76; Tony Jacklin, former golfer, 73; Michael Ancram, former MP, 72; Shelley Duvall, actress, 68; Rob Newman, comedian/author/political activist, 53.