PANTOMIME season in 1972 gave the Swindon Advertiser an opportunity to picture four glamorous performers in principal boy outfits.

They were members of the cast of Cinderella, due to open at the Wyvern Theatre later in December of that year. It would be only the theatre’s second panto since opening.

If the 23-year-old would-be star on the left of the image seems familiar, it’s because she went on to become a very well-known face in one of Britain’s best-loved sitcoms.

Sue Holderness played Marlene, Boycie’s wife, in Only Fools and Horses for many years before she and screen husband John Challis were given their own show, The Green Green Grass, in 2005.

The second full week of that December 43 years ago saw our advertisers doing all they could to grab the attention of potential customers.

Easily the most eye-catching was the full-page shocking pink offering from Disco, a general store in Wood Street.

Business must have been good because the colour ad, complete with a photo of a groovily festive couple, would have cost the company dearly.

The range of items and prices was huge, with the store offering everything from Heinz baby food at three-and-a-half pence a can to Hotpoint 1504 automatic washing machines at £119.

A 56-pound bag of potatoes could be had for 68p and bottles of Haig whisky and Gordon’s gin were £2.58. A six-pound tin of Quality Street – the modern ones contain less than two pounds of sweets - was £1.99 and a Grundig Melody Boy transistor radio was £39.95.

Still in the world of commerce, we ran a story about a shop on High Street called Swindon Book Co. Although we’ve always been happy to promote local ventures, this one was nothing of the sort, as the High Street in question was in Kowloon, Hong Kong.

It had been brought to our attention by a reader lately back from military service in what was then still a British colony.

“Bad news for those who say the name Swindon sounds unattractive,” we wrote.

“On the other side of the world it’s a snooty Anglo-Saxon prestige symbol.”

Indeed, the book shop was merely the most prominent of several businesses with the word in their names. We added: “Traders say the name appeals both to Asian and European communities. Thomas Lee, who runs the Swindon Book Store, said his shop had been going for 30 years.

“He explained: ‘I wanted a name that sounded both English and Oriental. So I looked at the map and found Swindon. It was just right.’”

The business is still going strong, and its website is www.swindonbooks.com.

Early in the week we ran a photo which will interest any Rewind reader fascinated by the old streets of Swindon.

It showed part of a row of houses in Westcott Street, now long since replaced, which were under threat of demolition along with some in Westcott Place.

We had revealed the plan a couple of days before: ”Moves to demolish the homes of 75 Swindon old folk were today defended by the town’s Housing and Health Committee chairman, Miss Mavis Read.

“As fury mounted over the recommendation – that Westcott Street and part of Westcott Place should be bulldozed – Miss Read said the houses were unfit.”

The compulsory purchase and slum clearance plan was among thousands up and down the country, but within days another surveyor, acting on behalf of residents to value their homes, said the properties could be renovated and saved.

The surveyor, a Kenneth Hathaway from Maidenhead, suggested that £900 per house was all that would be needed, which was far less than the £7,000 apiece he said replacements would cost.

We added: “The houses, says the report, are simply in layout and well-constructed. All walls are structurally sound and rising damp is surprisingly absent.

“Mr Stanley Young, chairman of the residents’ association, said the report confirmed his view that the council ‘for unknown reasons were prepared to use any means to get the land as cheaply as possible’.” Many Swindon houses were improved in the way the surveyor suggested, but the ones in this instance were doomed to have an appointment with the wrecking ball. Today the location is unrecognisable from its previous incarnation.

Another vanished part of Swindon is the cattle market, whose 1972 Christmas show attracted plenty of attention from farmers and spectators.

The market was roughly at the rear of the Bell Hotel.

We said: “The quality of cattle was highly praised by the judges, Mr CH Palmer and Mr Eastcott Smith.

“The championship trophy for the best beef animal in the show, the EC Fielder Memorial Perpetual Challenge Trophy, was won by AJ Moffatt and Sons, and the reserve champion by SH Jones.”

The story came with a photograph showing two members of the Moffatt family, Tony and Steve, and their champion Aberdeen Angus.

The family farm, we said, was at Stanford-in-the-Vale.