ON Wednesday, August 26, 1981, the Swindon Advertiser made newspaper history. We printed a photograph of a cute miniature pony without making any puns about feeling a little horse...

As far as we can tell, no other publication in the history of the British media has achieved this before or since.

The elfin equine was called Dinkie, and stood two feet at shoulders. He was bought by Jim and Pat Maskell of Shelley Street to help raise money for the Autistic Association. Their son, John, had autism and was a Chalet School pupil.

Mrs Maskell said: “The school has done so much for him that we wanted to raise some money for them.”

The couple bought a black cab and planned to use it to transport Dinkie to make public appearances at shows and markets.

We added: “Dinkie, who is seven months old, cost them £500 and came from a herd of miniature horses in Essex.”

When it came to cute creatures, we had the bases well covered that week exactly 34 years ago. The next day we ran a story with a photo of a St Bernard and a cat – and that one was also for a good cause.

We said: “Poor old Bruce the St Bernard looks as though he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“The hefty hound is seen being weighed by pet shop owner Adrian Gosling. Admittedly, Bruce looks as though he’s leading a dog’s life and his friend, Tigger the kitten, doesn’t look too cheerful, either.

“But it’s all in a good cause. Landlord Malcolm Bryant, who owns Bruce, has come up with a splendid canine caper to raise money for the Adver’s Kidney Machine Appeal.

“He has challenged the public to guess the weight of his podgy pet. Malcolm and his wife, Dee, who run Swindon’s Royal Oak pub, will give a bottle of whisky to the person who comes nearest to Bruce’s weight.

“It will cost 20p per entry.”

We cannot find any record of a winner, but our £25,000 appeal to make dialysis more readily available in Swindon was a success.

Still in the fundraising realm, but moving from the cute to the unusual and rather painful, we also told the story of another Swindon person.

“Unicycling reaches the parts that ordinary cycling doesn’t,” we said.

“Steve Lewis, of Argyle Street, found this out the hard way. He unicycled 30 miles from Swindon to Stroud to raise money for a stroke support group.”

As if this were not enough of a challenge, he did so while dressed as Groucho Marx. At the end of 30 miles in the saddle of a one-wheeled bike, he presumably found it easier to mimic the old-time comedy star’s characteristic walk.

Steve, a 19-year-old Pressed Steel Fisher worker, aimed to raise £350 for Swindon Stroke Support Group. He said: “It took five and a half hours to get there. I was totally shattered at the end.”

Do Rewind readers agree that his disguise also made him look a little like a premonition of Michael McIntyre?

We also managed to bring a local angle to the major political story of the moment, thanks to former Swindon Labour MP Francis Noel-Baker, who had stepped down in 1968 and gone to tend his family’s estate in Greece.

By 1981, just as it is now, Labour was in the midst of an ideological battle between right and left wing elements. So deep was the schism that some on the right broke away and formed the Social Democratic Party, which would eventually merge with the Liberals and become the Libdems.

Mr Noel-Baker, who lived until 2009, was among those who jumped ship. He came to Swindon for the first time in 13 years with the idea of winning the seat for his new party.

He was photographed with Labour council leader Jim Masters and deputy Ashley Roberts, but insisted he had turned his back on Labour itself.

“Swindon’s very much a trade union town,” he said, “but I should think there are quite a lot of people who would be quite happy to be free of the Labour Party.

“Swindon is a working class town. The SDP is accused in certain circumstances of being middle class. But more and more of the working class consider themselves middle class anyway.”

By the next general election, in 1983, Mr Noel-Baker seems to have abandoned notions of candidacy. The seat was contested by SR Gordon for the SDP Liberal Alliance, but the winner was Tory Simon Coombs, who replaced longstanding Labour incumbent David Stoddart.

Our front page headline on the same day was: “Shock from Outer Space!”

A Swindon woman who asked not to be named in print told us she’d seen a mushroom-shaped UFO hovering near Wootton Bassett, followed about a fortnight later by three bright lights the size of footballs.

According to our report there were several witnesses to the first phenomenon but only one to the second.

The woman said: “I’ve had nightmares ever since and now I can’t sleep properly. I can’t take it any more.”

Her claims were among many made over the years by various locals. Military officials denied all knowledge, but rumours persist of classified aircraft testing over southern England.

Do any Rewind readers remember the mushroom-shaped UFO?