THE Adver’s cuttings files contain many stories about visits made by Tony Benn, who died on Friday.

The most spectacular saw him don a flying suit and become the first passenger to travel at supersonic speed on Concorde.

As Minister of Technology, Benn championed the project, and on April 10, 1970 he was able to experience the feat of engineering for himself.

The venue was RAF Fairford, the machine was prototype 002, the pilot was Brian Trubshaw and the speed, achieved over the Irish Sea during a two-hour flight, was 750mph.

He said afterwards: “I enjoyed it very much indeed. It was a very quiet and smooth flight.

“When we went supersonic I felt nothing at all – but then I didn’t expect I would.”

Our first mention of him came in 1962, when he was still fighting to renounce the aristocratic title which prevented him from serving as an MP. Being the grandson of a baronet was no obstacle to his aim, but being the second Viscount Stansgate certainly was.

Before inheriting the title in 1960, he’d spent a decade representing a Bristol constituency. By 1962, when he opened the Stratton St Margaret Labour Party spring fair, he was known as ‘the reluctant peer’.

His speech highlighted NHS staff shortages; he said pay was inadequate and queues long, “...whereas you will find new bingo halls, betting shops and bowling alleys.”

By 1963 he’d shed the title and returned to Parliament, and the following year he was back in Stratton to rally the Labour troops for the upcoming General Election.

In 1969 he was at Swindon College for a public speech, and we reported: “He said that people, both inside and outside politics, were sick of the way political argument was being conducted in personal terms.”

Eight years later he joined the May Day Rally of Swindon TUC and called for profits from the North Sea oil boom to be ploughed into British Industry.

Other notable visits included one in 1984 to speak at Swindon College, when he was heckled from the floor by the late and legendary Beehive landlord Noel Reilly, who condemned him for closing mines during his time as Energy Minister.

Benn was back the following year to revive a doomed campaign to save the Railway Works, and in 1991 he joined anti-war protesters massed outside RAF Fairford during the first Gulf War. His presence failed to prevent a quartet of B52s setting off to bomb Iraq.

In 1999 he appeared in a broadcast of BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions from the Haydon Centre, alongside former Prime Minister Edward Heath, philosopher Roger Scruton and journalist max Hastings.

In later life his visits included a one-man show at the Wyvern Theatre and appearances at the Swindon Festival of Literature.