IN the 1960s protesters against the Vietnam War were often falsely accused of being communists.
Swindon, never a town to do things by halves, had a Vietnam War protester who actually was one – and proud of it.
As if that failed to make the town distinctive enough, Ike Gradwell was no young hippy, but a veteran political and human rights campaigner, and a determined thorn in the Establishment’s side.
By this week in 1968 he was in his 60s and showed no sign of slowing down. 
We wrote: “A ban on the Communist Party’s Vietnam poster, which sparked off a demonstration in Bristol this week, has now spread to Swindon.
“The Swindon branch of the party have been told that the spaces they had booked for 30 Vietnam posters – which say ‘Stop America’s Brutal War in Vietnam’ – during the next fortnight had been cancelled.
“They were stopped by the Swindon Poster Advertising company on advice from the industry’s national advisory body, the British Poster Advertising Association.
“The BPAA ban was imposed because their censorship committee objected to the poster’s wording. ‘It’s nonsense – just lies,’ their spokesman told an Advertiser reporter. ‘It’s a brutal war, not a brutal American war.’”
Ike Gradwell, undaunted, responded by displaying the image outside Communist Party headquarters in Bridge Street, with a painted message saying: “The Banned Poster.”
He told us: “For a private firm to exercise censorship is absolutely outrageous.”
Mr Gradwell died in 1979, aged 72. His wife and fellow firebrand Angela lived until 1994 and the age of 88.
Another front page image was of a 21-year-old woman from Aldbourne called Gillian Eastoe, and was taken as she tended a flower arrangement at Littlecote House, the large mansion near Ramsbury.
Miss Eastoe, daughter of a head teacher, had once had a job showing day trippers around the historic pile, but was about to return under different circumstances. She would shortly marry its owner, David Seton Wills, a member of the Wills tobacco dynasty and heir to a baronetcy.
In later life he would generally be known simply as Sir Seton Wills, and was often in the news due to his years as owner of Swindon Town FC.
We said: “For the girl from a semi-detached house the wedding, on Saturday week, will not be at the parish church, but in the private Cromwellian chapel at Littlecote. Afterwards there will be a honeymoon in Kenya.”
Littlecote was sold to businessman Peter de Savary in the 1980s. It is now part of the Warner Holidays organisation, which specialises in catering to mature people.
Away from the world of centuries-old houses, in Swindon’s town centre a completely new building was taking shape and our photographer was there to capture a crucial stage.
“Viewed from above,” said our caption, “the circular conference room of the new divisional police HQ, now under construction, and the roundabout in Fleming Way complement each other with their smooth circular lines.”
The old police station, on Eastcott Hill, had proved inadequate for modern needs, and would be demolished in the early 1970s. The site later became a Stagecoach bus depot, and its next incarnation will probably be as housing.
The new building turned out to have a relatively short operational life, being replaced by Gablecross in the mid-2000s. It was demolished in 2006.
Another new building – admittedly still at the design stage – featured in the Adver that week was the forthcoming A&E unit at Princess Margaret Hospital.  Work was due to begin on it the following year. 
Next to a photo of a model of the £1m unit we wrote: “The department, which is to be built on three levels next to the existing main ward block, will have a main ward of 80 beds.
“There will also be an intensive care unit of eight beds and three beds in reception rooms.
“The new wing to deal with accident, emergency and orthopaedic cases will be connected to the main ward block by a corridor at ground floor level.
“The accident and emergency unit on the upper ground floor will include a casualty reception area for stretcher and walking patients, treatment rooms and a small operating theatre for minor surgery.
“The intensive care unit will be one of the main features of the lower ground floor. Also planned are two main orthopaedic theatres, together with all the ancillary services including scrub-up facilities and a transfer area.”
The unit and its staff would more than prove its worth in the years to come, with finely-tuned protocols saving lives after tragedies as diverse as motorway pile-ups and the Hungerford massacre.          
Its working life proved even shorter than that of the town centre police HQ, however. 
Only a little over three decades later Princess Margaret Hospital was replaced by Great Western Hospital. 
The site is now that of the Angel Ridge housing development.