Swindon

1951: All politicians spoke with their tongues in their cheeks and dared not tell the whole truth, said Canon CF Harman, vicar of South Marston, in parish magazine article reflecting on the forthcoming General Election. He added that it was impossible to exaggerate the gravity of the national situation, and that whichever party was elected, the country faced a struggle. At the time, Britain was still feeling the economic effects of the Second World War.

1951: Joan Origan, who had moved from Swindon to Cardiff with her parents in 1946, was a rising star in roller skating,which was enjoying surging popularity. She had just won the National Skating Association’s bronze medal for roller skate dancing, and earlier in the year had been judged Queen Of The Rink at a competition in Cardiff and won the Thompson Baker cup for skate dancing.

1961: The Walcot estate had its own gardening club, founded by neighbourhood council workers following repeated requests from local people. Members were promised the opportunity to buy garden tools, seeds and fertilisers at discount prices as well as being able to swap advice and ideas.

1951: Swindon MP Francis Noel-Baker, pictured, met the Penhill branch of the Amalgamated Engineering Union to discuss a recent dispute at the Pressed Steel plant in Stratton St Margaret. The meeting was called when Mr Noel-Baker responded to an unofficial strike by calling on workers to beware of the activities of small groups of Communist agitators.

1971 The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra played to a packed house at the new Wyvern Theatre. The programme included works by Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, and won praise from an Adver reviewer who said the horizontal spread of sound in the new theatre was preferable to the vertical one at the Methodist Central Hall, where the orchestra had previously played while visiting the town.

1971: Swindon woman Helen Thomas had her hair shampooed and set for the first time in her life, two days before her 100th birthday. A resident of the Westlecott Home For The Blind for the past two years, Mrs Thomas had previously lived in Marlborough and worked as a dressmaker. She enjoyed a half-pint of home-brewed beer every day.

The world

1813: Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi was born in Le Roncole.

1877: Motoring pioneer William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, was born in Worcester.

1881: The Savoy Theatre, the first public building to be lit by electricity, opened with a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience.

1886: The dinner jacket made its first appearance in public when it was worn by its creator at a ball at the Tuxedo Park Country Club, New York.

1903: Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Women’s Social and Political Union to fight for female emancipation in Britain.

1935: Gershwin’s Porgy And Bess opened in New York. The opera was a financial failure though an artistic triumph.

1957: A major radiation leak was detected at the Windscale nuclear plant in Cumbria, after an accident three days earlier.

1961: A volcano erupted on the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha and the whole population was brought to Britain.

1975: After divorce in the early 1970s, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor remarried in a remote village in Botswana. They divorced again the following year.

BIRTHDAYS

Murray Walker, motor racing commentator, 94; Nicholas Parsons, radio and TV personality, 94; Judith Chalmers, TV presenter, 82; Charles Dance, actor, 71; Chris Tarrant, broadcaster, 71; Midge Ure, rock singer, 64; Fiona Fullerton, actress, 61.