A MEMBER of perhaps the biggest band in the world played for a 200-strong Arts Centre audience this week in 1977.

Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts joined a scratch ensemble for an evening of boogie woogie and blues at the Devizes Road venue.

As if that were not remarkable enough, he also granted the Adver an interview.

Charlie told us: “This is just a one-off thing. I have never really played with this sort of band before, although I used to play with bluesmen like Alexis Korner in the early days.

“I have always liked this type of music. I listen to jazz and blues records – especially Charlie Parker – when I am at home.”

He also mentioned that the Stones were putting the finishing touches to a live album. Released that September, Love You Live would go gold on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Swindon gig had been arranged by pianist and occasional Stone Ian Stewart, who assembled the group and had the idea of having a three-ton mobile studio on the scene to preserve every note for posterity.

The studio was borrowed from Wings member Denny Laine, formerly of the Moody Blues.

We wrote: “The concert was the farewell gig of Swindon pianist Bob Hall, who will soon be leaving the town.

“The Stone played drums at the show, which also featured Europe’s top boogie woogie pianist George Green and premier session trumpeter Colin Smith.

“The other members of the top quality band were Johnny Picard on trombone, Al Gay on tenor sax and local musician Nick Dean on bass.”

In other Swindon-centric celebrity news, we revealed that the town was to appear in a series which has since attained legendary status among connoisseurs of 1970s television.

With ITV’s The Sweeney winning millions of viewers, the BBC realised there was plenty of mileage to be had from cop shows featuring punch-ups, swearing, denim leisurewear, Ford Granadas and the odd flash of nudity.

The result was Target, which ran for two series and saw Patrick Mower deliver a gung-ho but fine performance as Detective Superintendent Steve Hackett.

The Adver announced: “The BBC is ‘taking over’ Swindon’s Wiltshire Hotel later this month. “It has booked 30 hotel rooms, a bar and reception area for work on an episode in a new police-gangster series, ‘Target.’ “Filming of episode six, called Kingfisher, will be in the hotel and also in Wroughton between June 27-30.”

The episode, retitled Big Elephant, was eventually screened as the third of 17 episodes spread over two series. It featured Katy Manning – former Dr Who companion Jo Grant – as a very poorly drug addict.

We also printed an announcement involving another Swindon landmark, although the news was sad: “Swindon’s Baptist Tabernacle, once referred to as ‘the cathedral of the Wiltshire and East Somerset Baptist Association,’ will be open for the last time for services on July 3.

“The 90-year-old church is to be demolished and a new complex built for the five Central Churches, Tabernacle, Methodist Central Hall, Church of Christ, Trinity United Reformed and Sanford Street United Reformed, who will continue to worship as one congregation.”

Demolition followed, and later the shunting of the gorgeous frontage to various locations. When we caught up with the pieces last year, they were on a former runway at the Science Museum site in Wroughton.

On a rather more inspiring note, we also interviewed a Penhill woman called Cheryl Cook, who at 30 had done more travelling than most of us might even now hope to manage in a lifetime.

Her most recent adventure had seen her return overland from a five-year stint in Australia.

The four-month trip included visits to 22 countries across three continents, a trek in the Himalayas and a crossing of the Khyber Pass between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

She said: “The Afghans are an impressive race. Almost everyone goes around with a rifle and a string of bullets strapped over their shoulders.”

Cheryl’s itinerary, which would be difficult to say the least in 2014, included Iran, Iraq, Israel and Egpyt.

She also found time for a trek about the base of Everest, a brush with ravenous mosquitoes in Nepal and a visit to the opium-smoking Chiangmai people of northern Thailand.

“It was an incredible trip,” she said. “It really made me value my freedom.”

IN OTHER NEWS...

MONDAY, JUNE 13, 1977: “A WILTSHIRE couple’s marriage got off to a fiery start on Saturday. Minutes before Melvyn Wright and Elizabeth Knott were married at Wootton Bassett Parish Church, fire broke out in the church boiler room, beneath the vestry. The vicar, the Rev Bede Cooper, went to investigate and found the boiler house filled with smoke and flames around the electric motor. ‘I told the organist to carry on playing and I dashed across the road to dial 999 from the kiosk opposite,’ said Mr Cooper. Within two or three minutes the Wootton Bassett unit of Wiltshire Fire Brigade had arrived at the back of the church, unseen by many of the people assembling, and they quickly had the emergency under control.”
TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 1977: “A FORMER Evening Advertiser reporter has won a fellowship at Harvard University, to do a year’s research into new energy sources. Raymond Dafter, 33-year-old energy correspondent on the Financial Times, will go to America in September 1978, where his particular interest will be the environmental impact of alternative energies. Mr Dafter was born in Swindon, went to school at Marlborough Grammar School and later Swindon College before doing his three years’ journalistic training on the Evening Advertiser.”
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 1977: “BRITISH Leyland today signed contracts worth more than £20m in connection with plans for the new Mini [Metro]. By putting their cash where their convictions are, the company has confirmed earlier Evening Advertiser predictions that it will mean boom-time for the Swindon Body Plant at Stratton St Margaret, for the Swindon plant is to produce well over half the body pressings for the new hatchback to be assembled in a brand new plant at Longbridge.”
THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 1977: “SWINDON’S Foster-a-Fido scheme has made a grrreat start. Six people have already offered to turn their home into a dog’s house. But the town’s RSPCA inspector, Paul Coldicutt, is still looking for more volunteers. The idea is to complete a register of people who can look after dogs at short notice while permanent homes are found for them.”
FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 1977: “ANGRY Plessey Hydraulics shop stewards today denied that two of their AUEW members had been playing chess instead of doing their normal night shift work. The incident has led to a strike by night shift workers that cannot be resolved until Monday night at the earliest when they hold a mass meeting to discuss the situation. Both the stewards and the men involved in the ‘kings and queens’ affair say that the game was started in the men’s own time 15 minutes before an overtime period began.”