THE Eighties weren’t as weird as the Seventies or the Sixties, but you could still find men in gorilla suits on suburban rooftops.

Not to mention Terry Wogan in the front garden.

“Well it’s just a j-ape, Terry,” said the headline on a front page Adver picture story this week in 1981.

We explained: “Terry Wogan landed himself in a bit of monkey trouble when he opened Westbury Homes’ new estate in Covingham at the weekend.

“A gorilla took up residence on the roof of a house he was opening and for once the witty Irishman was temporarily lost for words.”

The man in the gorilla suit, we revealed, was Anthony Quinn – which is to say, Anthony Quinn the Westbury site manager rather than Anthony Quinn the star of Zorba the Greek and The Guns of Navarone.

We added: “Camels, donkeys, clowns and a helicopter pilot put on a show for an estimated crowd of five thousand.

“And it was a great day for newlyweds Paul and Christine Goodenough. They were whisked straight from their wedding at noon to be presented with the keys to their new home.”

Elsewhere in Swindon there were echoes of the Blues Brothers when a custom car fan decided to build his own highway patrol cruiser.

We wrote: “Mickie Binge has got himself a mighty odd wagon and the police don’t know what to make of it!

“They’ve even checked it out down at the Thamesdown bus depot where Mickie works, and they agree the Lousiana Highway Patrol travels in rather more style than they do.

“In fact, the 1970 Chevy Biscayne, which Mick bought for less than £1,000, is an impostor.

“It was never used by Old Smokie in New Orleans.

“The script on the side (New Orleans Police Department, 3rd Precinct), and the rig complete with shrieker on the roof were added by another custom car fan.

“And Mick and family, who live in Queen’s Drive, led the Can/Am Car Club’s Swindon to Bristol convoy – a mile long – for the annual hoedown there recently.”

The front page headline that same Wednesday was: “BLACK MAGIC BOY’S RITUAL.”

The story was about the son of an RAF Lyneham Squadron leader who’d been expelled from his Midlands public school for attempting to summon Satan – and possibly succeeding.

We won’t reveal the lad’s name 33 years on, as he’s probably in the midst of a respectable middle age these days, but he’d been boasting to friends that he could raise the Evil One in the form of a black pig.

We said: “Three boys called his bluff and they crept out of school on a moonless night to a lonely spot behind a factory estate for the eerie ceremony.

“It is claimed that [the boy] started shouting and then a grunting, pig-like sound was heard from the bushes and a scrabbling noise came from the ground.

“Two of the boys ran away and were caught on their way into the school. They spilled the beans to the headmaster.

“Three of them were expelled and one was suspended.”

The week also saw the death-knell finally sound for Swindon’s most notorious eyesores.

Thamesdown Council’s policy committee agreed that the time had finally come to get rid of the sculpture know as The Cube, aka The Thing, aka That Monstrosity.

An object of almost universal derision since being put up in the late 1960s, it had long since fallen into a state of filthy disrepair. Some councillors suggested the demolition as an unusual wedding present for Prince Charles and Princess Diana, but all were agreed that The Cube had to go.

As veteran councillor Mike Bawden put it: “Send in the wreckers.”

A story about another council meeting proves that 1981, although well within living memory for many Adver readers, was a different world in many respects – and sometimes a very nasty world.

In a debate about the possibility of setting up a women’s hostel near Faringdon Road Park, Coun Peter Furkins spoke of the area being a haven for “queers.”

Rather than condemning his language, we simply headlined the story by corrupting a Larry Grayson catchphrase: “What a gay park.”

For good measure we added: “Area is a queer’s paradise, claims Peter.”

In other news...

MONDAY, JUNE 22, 1981: “A SWINDON policewoman was injured in a series of town centre clashes between rioting hooligans. She was one of a dozen officers rushed out to handle what police today called ‘quite a large public order incident.’ It started on Saturday when a group of Bristol youths left the Brunel Rooms and clashed with a Swindon crowd. The policewoman was struck on the head as she and her colleagues intervened to stop running fights. She was later treated by a police doctor.”

TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 1981: “THE thing which 81-year-old bachelor Alf Brown wants most in life is a tricycle. A grown up sized one. He says he needs it to nip about the highways and byways of Wroughton. Alf, who lives at Langton House, the Wiltshire County Council old people’s home, had a stroke 10 years ago – which left him with a gammy right arm and leg. And he reckons a trike would help him go where leg-irons and a four-pronged walking stick won’t take him.”

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 1981: “A GIANT flagpole supporting an enormous American flag rises from the centre of Swindon. The stars and stripes flap in a wind of investment that blows healthily across the Atlantic. It tells a nation’s businessmen (and their dollars) that the Yanks are comin’ – and the Yanks are here. The star-spangled banner over Swindon is the enterprising creation of Thamesdown Council’s advertising people. Their eye-catching drawing appears in the American Wall Street Journal. It appears about three times a month and the present advertising campaign has been running since January.”

THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 1981: “MYSTERY still surrounds the alleged visit of the Canadian Mounties to Swindon recently. Pakistan’s plans to manufacture a nuclear bomb are thought to be at the centre of the secret visit. Authoritative sources claim detectives from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had a meeting in Swindon’s Emerson Electric Factory. But a company spokesman today refused to comment, and would not confirm or deny the meeting took place. It is still not clear what the Canadian Mounties wanted in Swindon, or what was discussed. Yet there is a link between the Swindon factory and a court case in Montreal, as both are concerned with Pakistan’s attempts to buy the equipment to enrich uranium.”

FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 1981: “IT’S full steam ahead for a plan to bring an old Swindon steam engine chugging back to the town. Members of the Swindon GWR Steam Locomotive Fund want the council to buy an engine for them to renovate. They had their eye on a 56XX Class loco at Birmingham – but it would cost too much to repair. The fund wanted to run the £8,000 machine on the Swindon to Cricklade Railway.”