THERE were two pools winners, a human cannonball and a woman who could smash stacks of roof tiles with her bare hands.

There was also somebody who may or may not have fallen nude from a cupboard on the Wyvern Theatre stage.

This week in 1977 the Queen’s Silver Jubilee celebrations were more or less finished, but there was no shortage of other news.

The nude person appeared for a short time in a production of Wait Until Dark, a thriller about a blind woman menaced by a killer. It’s best known for an excellent film version starring Audrey Hepburn.

We asked: “Is the mystery nude who appears onstage at Swindon’s Wyvern Theatre a dummy?

“During the intervals there were furious debates as to whether the fair-haired girl was partially or fully nude and even whether she was alive at all.

“The mystery nude flopped head-first from a cupboard twice during the opening scenes of the play, but neither time did the audience have a completely clear view.

“Director Tony Clayton is giving nothing away about her except to say that she was chosen from among 40 applicants. Last week’s appeal for a local girl to come forward and play the nude scene brought a flood of offers and phone calls – two of them obscene – to the Wyvern Theatre.”

As strange as it may seem to modern readers, in those days any form of on-stage nudity was enough to cause a major stir.

Indeed, just two days later the young woman put an end to her Wyvern appearances. Apparently our story had some of Fleet Street’s sleazier denizens slithering down the M4 in search of scandal, and probably toting concealed cameras.

We said: “The girl, who only took the job on condition of total secrecy, refused to talk and later her father telephoned the theatre and said his daughter would not be coming back.”

In cheerier news, Park North couple John and Beryl Ingram celebrated a £115,000 win on the football pools.

The sum might not seem overly life changing in 2015, but 38 years ago it was easily enough to buy a short street of terraced houses, a small estate of executive homes or a fleet of Rolls-Royces.

“Spend, spend, spend... that’s not the style of Swindon pools winner John Ingram,” we said.

That first paragraph referred to infamous pools winner Viv Nicholson, who vowed to “spend, spend, spend” the £152,000 she won in 1961, and was poverty-stricken a few years later.

Mr Ingram, 55, instead returned to his job at British Leyland and bought a £400 second hand mini for his wife, who was learning to drive.

In other words, the couple behaved exactly as modern day Lotto winners are advised by financial experts.

Mr Ingram said: “My family and friends are all over the moon but I still can’t believe it. It’ll be quite a shock when it finally does sink in.”

The cheque was presented by Swindon Town player John Trollope.

Another Adver story that week was about a visitor who was rather more used to experiences most of us would find shocking.

Gerry Cottle’s Circus raised its big top on land off Marlborough Road, and the performers included one Cris Munoz, aka Captain Universe the Human Cannonball.

Remarkably, we managed not to joke about him having the only job that involved being fired every day.

Originally from Spain, Cris told us he’d started in the trade at 14, having become the family breadwinner following his father’s death. His father had also been a human cannonball, although Cris, 23, didn’t say how the older man had died.

“After 14 years in America,” he said, “ we were in Spain with a very important circus. We had no money, a big family – and a cannon.

“The best way to keep the family going was for me to start.”

Even as a small boy, Cris had become skilled in disciplines such as trapeze and high wire, but the cannon was more dangerous.

We said: “It means being fired by compressed air, set off by an explosive charge, at 75 miles an hour up to 250 feet across the arena.

“Because Gerry Cottle’s big top isn’t so large as some, his flight path here has been only 120 feet. This, however, only adds to the danger.

“At the end of it he’s caught in a net which measures just 18 feet by 12 feet.”

Another person showing off an unusual ability that week was 21-year-old Judi Simon, who lived in Sandown Avenue.

The young Kung Fu expert was a member of Fei Lung Kwan, otherwise known as the Flying Dragon Society, and planned to set up a self defence course for women.

Judi worked at a tiling factory, and judging from our photos the firm didn’t mind giving her spares to practice her strikes on.

She and fellow martial artist Denise Roberts promised to teach the kicks and holds necessary to give aggressors a nasty surprise.

Judi said: “I don’t think it matters whether it is lady-like or not. You are fighting for your life.”