BY our calculations the little boy in this photograph is at least 43 years old now.

He is Simon Adams and he lived in Cricklade Road.

With him is the woman who was Swindon’s first star and is probably still its greatest and most glamorous.

The image was captured in a shop on an industrial estate, and appeared in the Adver on Wednesday, February 20, 1974.

We wrote: “Swindon-born actress Diana Dors visited her home town today for the first time in ’more years than I care to remember’.

“Accompanied by her husband, actor Alan Lake, Miss Dors officially opened a new showroom belonging to Kennedy’s, the builders’ merchants, in Elgin Drive.

“A crowd of autograph hunters, including many young children, greeted Miss Dors as she came out into the chilly February sunshine again to answer questions from the Press.”

One of those questions was about her thoughts on Swindon.

She told us: “It will always be home to me. Wherever one is born, no matter where you go and what rich, beautiful homes you have, you always look on here as home.

“Apart from the fact that I have been working and haven’t lived here since I was 14, I haven’t visited Swindon basically because I have no relations living here any more.

“I have always wanted to come back. It has taken Swindon half a century to decide I have made something of myself. The last place you are really recognised is the place you come from.”

It wasn’t quite half a century; at 42 years old, Diana was emerging from her old, limiting image as a purely glamorous figure and becoming a respected character actress. Another showbusiness incarnation – darling of the chat show circuit – would come later.

She revealed that on her way to her public appearance she’d driven along Marlborough Road and found it familiar because she once lived there, but a few hundred yards further along there was nothing she recognised. Diana Dors died in 1984, and her despairing widower took his own life a few months later.