ALMOST exactly 34 years ago, a Swindon Railway Works foundry team made a contribution to history.

It turned out to be a melancholy one in the end, but nobody was to know that at the time.

With a royal wedding due in the summer, we were always on the lookout for local angles, and the Works delivered.

We said: "Lady Diana Spencer was too hot to handle at Swindon's British Rail Works today.

"But only for a while. She was cooled off with a bucket of sand and then whisked off to the polishing shop for a brush-up!

"From there she was due to visit the paint shop - for a new coat.

"TV and press cameras whirred and clicked as Lady Di's nameplate was cast at the BR Foundry - which produces the names for all BR engines in the country.

"The nameplate, made of light alloy, is destined to go North of the Border, where it will be fixed to a Scottish-based diesel locomotive which at present has only a number, 47712."

The casting team were Graham Higgins, John Freeman, Jack Fleetwood, Bill Lee and Bob Devonshire.

According to enthusiasts' website railuk, 47712 was built in 1966 and bore its 'Lady Diana Spencer' plate until 1995, by which time the royal couple were not far from divorce.

Changes of ownership saw the loco successively renamed DickWhittington, Artemis and Pride of Carlisle, and it is now with Crewe Diesel Preservation Group.

The 'Lady Diana Spencer' nameplate turned up at an auction in 2011 and again in 2013.

The Swindon foundry team's work was also preserved in miniature on a popular Hornby model.

Another hard-working person was Sylvia Boulton, who hoped her efforts for a good cause would also earn her a place in the record books.

We said: "It was enough to make the average housewife flinch... a stack of un-ironed washing high enough to keep most families in sheets, pillow cases and 'smalls' for months.

"But at eight this morning, nurse Sylvia Boulton rolled up her sleeves and calmly started her attempt on the all-Britain marathon ironing record.

"By 9pm she reckons she'll have smoothed her way through mounds of hospital laundry and won a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

"She also hopes to have raised at least £500 in sponsor money towards a fund to buy new adjustable beds for St Margaret's Hospital, Stratton.

"Crowds of shoppers watched as Sylvia ironed away the morning in the window of the Southern Electricity Board's Brunel Plaza showroom in Swindon."

A follow-up story revealed that she did indeed earn her record after ironing 500 garments in 12 hours.

Swindon firefighters, meanwhile, faced an unusual task when a stag night prank went wrong.

"The old joke about the ball and chain took on a new dimension last nigh for bridegroom-to-be Bill Elliott," we said.

"While celebrating his last night of freedom, Bill's mates clapped him in irons. And then they lost the key...

"Shackled by a football full of cement and a 10in chain, Bill started feeling a bit desperate.

"'I thought they were joking at first, but as the evening went on I realised they really had lost the key,' said Bill, of Toothill.

"So in the early hours of today Bill, his ball and his seven mates arrived at Swindon Fire Station in Drove Road."

The crew took pity on 25-year-old Bill, broke out the bolt cutters and freed him.

A row over a man who wrote a cheque for a court fine on toilet paper was taken to the House of Commons by local MP David Stoddart.

As we've mentioned in a previous Rewind, driver Malcolm Hancock wrote the cheque to protest what he saw as an unfair fine for an illegal turn.

Although he broke no law by doing so, the court refused to accept the cheque, kept him locked up for almost a day and threatened to send in bailiffs.

Mr Stoddart demanded that the clerk of Swindon Magistrates Court be reprimanded, and described he official as "...a mountebank of the worst order."

The Establishment rapidly closed ranks. Even the aristocratic Old Etonian Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, weighed in by claiming that Swindon bus driver Mr Hancock had insulted the Queen by writing the cheque.

Mr Stoddart retorted that Mr Hancock was an ardent monarchist.

Swindon College marked its charity rag week with a series of stunts across the town, and our photographers captured several for posterity.

One included men and women pretending to be pregnant and parading past Mothercare in the town centre.

Another involved 'auctioning' people outside the Brunel Centre. The lots included a police officer and a student called Tracy Armitage.

Tracy was 'bought' by the Adver for a fiver, which she described as a good price.