Monday August 29

1950: Twenty-seven entries have been received for the Adver Football Cup which is open to clubs in membership of the Premiere and First Division of the Swindon and District Football League. Prospect are the current holders of the trophy.

1960: The first methodist church built in Swindon after 26 years is the Queen's Drive Methodist Church. The Park South church was dedicated and opened in front of a 400 congregation. The corner stone was laid last year and the church will serve five of the new neighbourhoods. The minister is Rev Paul Kimber and the ceremony was attended by the architect Mr W H Cripps.

1970: The popularity of Marlborough British Legion club is growing in leaps and bounds. two years ago the membership was under 200, last year the figure rose to 321 and now stands at more than 450. Members are currently making a determined effort to raise £2,700 the debt left on their hall. Already this year the deb has been reduced by about £1,700.

Tuesday August 30

1950: Nancy Pollard Grose, daughter of a former bank manager and Rotarian, has been awarded the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship for research in English Literature, in America for 1950-51. She sailed on the Queen Mary and is attached to the first Yale University Graduate School.

1960: North Wiltshire Group of the Invalid Tricycle Association held at Abbey Stadium, in Blunsdon, by kind permission of the Swindon Speedway directors. Representatives from Banbury, Bournemouth, Oxford, Southampton, Northampton, London, Essex and Gloucester all attended. Members of the 3rd Penhill Scouts troop from St Mark’s Swindon Youth Club 1970: The Olive Love Singers sang and formed a guard of honour at Christ Church, Swindon for the wedding of one of their members. Hazel Maunden of Lincolnshire was married to John Metcalfe of Parklands, Swindon. The groom works for the GPO and will be returning to Bath University for his post graduate course.

Wednesday, August 31

1950: Jill Morse, aged 17, and Zena Rawlins, aged 16, are two Swindon ballerinas who are studying at the Legat School of ballet in Tunbridge Wells. They are among those who perform at a matinee in aid of the NSPCC at the Empire Theatre in Swindon this autumn.

1950: One of the most elaborate weddings in Swindon was between Yvonne Sutton and Gordon West at St Mark’s Church. More than 1,000 people surrounded the church and besieged the doors. So dense was the crowd that some of the 150 guests never reached the church to see the ceremony. The reception was a variety, music hall entertainment including two puppets, exact images of the bride and groom.

1960: A party of 14 Austrian refugees children from Graz and the leader Fraulein Elfriende Dohen were guests of the Mayor of Swindon Coun Miss E C M Millin at the Mayor’s Parlour, Civic offices, Swindon. The children are holidaying in Swindon staying with different families.

1960: A man with a growing problem is Harry Mills, 32, of Great Bedwyn who has a menagerie in the heart of Savernake Forest. He has an African Green Monkey, snakes, lizards, terrapins, turtles, frogs, toads, bush babies, an alligator and a crocodile both more than 5ft long and still growing. Harry is devoted to his unusual hobby and wants to have a go at breeding monkeys but he needs more room.

1970: At a special presentation in the Polish Community Centre, Swindon, John Zarczynski became the first Polish person to be accepted in to the Institute of Sales Engineers for the West of England. Mr Zarczynski, 21, from Covingham, is trainee assistant manager with JJR Industries.

1970: The annual Nagger and Bragger Flower Show held at the White Horse Inn, Compton Bassett, attracted a record 200 entries from 26 exhibitors. The award for highest number of points scored in the show went to Walter Smith with 65 pints. The judges were Ted Pontin and Reg Rumming.

Thursday September 1

1950: Members of the Welsh Guards, in bearskins and scarlet tunics, were waved off at the airport by Swindon actress Diana Dors when they boarded the plane at Northolt Airport bound for Brussels. They were attending the Premiere at the Beaux Arts Cinema of the film They Were Not Divided, the story of the Guards Armoured Division in the Western European Campaign of 1944-45.

1950: Swindon Sketch Club members are again busily preparing an open air exhibition of paintings, which they are holding at Regent Circus. It will be opened by the Mayor of Swindon Ald J Bond. This is the third exhibition and the second this year. A collection for the blind will be taken.

1960: There was one of the largest gatherings for many years at South Marston Village School Hall. It was jammed with pupils, ex pupils, friends and associates of Mrs G L Baker, headmistress of the school, who has retired after 26 years as head. Several presentation were made including a food mixer from her own pupils, a bouquet of flowers, a table lamp, embroidered cushion covers and a cheque.

1960: There will be a reunion at Swindon Citadel Salvation Army Corps for members of the Snook family. Visiting the Corps for Thanksgiving will be Commissioner A R Wiggins, until recently the chief editor of the Salvation Army. About 45 years ago he commanded the Old Town Corps and met George Snook. He dedicated him as a baby and many years later performed George's marriage ceremony and then dedicated his daughter, Sheila. The Big Brother Festival, attended by the commissioner, will also see George's brother Captain John Snook, and his other brother Harold, the deputy band master, coming to Swindon.

1970: Aldbourne's Sports Day, held in the village cricket ground, was only mildly disrupted by the cloudburst of rain, shortly after the opening. Competitors and spectators sprinted for cover and waited until the rain had passed, and then the events continued. The sports day was opened by Carnival Queen Linda Fox of Ramsbury. There were 25 track events, sideshows and even a stocks and pillory, followed by a barbecue in the evening.

1970: A record 247 entrants took part in the annual Wroughton Pony Show at Berkeley Farm. For the third year running the M4 Challenge Cup was won by Julia Pickford. She now gets to keep the cup. The President's Cup was won by Patricia Wilkins.

Friday September 2

1950: News which will be welcomed by the car owners and people living in the vicinity, is of a proposed resurface, light and drain of the canal site car park at a cost of £3,700, which will come before Swindon Town Council at the first meeting of the autumn session.

1950: The organisers of a TU exhibition, which was held at the Swindon Town Hall, were gratified by the interest shown by visitors. The Mayor and Mayoress of Swindon, Ald and Mrs J Bond, attended. Conducted tours of the exhibition were also taken by executives of local industries such as the British Railways, the Plessey Company Ltd, and Messrs Garrard Engineering and Manufacturing Co Ltd 1960: A colourful leaflet published by the Civic Trust is being distributed to Swindon traders and businessmen with a selection of before and after photos of a new experiment, which may change the face of shopping centres. The scheme that cost 80 shopkeepers £80 each included repainting shops, altering name boards, changing lamp standards into bracket lights on buildings and cutting traffic signs to the minimum. The idea has been catching on and Swindon traders were impressed and agreed that the scheme would work in Swindon.

1960: Two Swindon soldiers, Lionel Pretlove of William Street, and Sidney Browning of Penhill have been deep sea fishing round a privately owned treasure island in the Bahamas. The men, members of the 1st Battalion of the Duke of Edinburgh Berks and Wilts Regiment, are stationed on the island of Nassau. They provided a guard of honour for the new Governor, Sir Robert Stapeldon. For training they have been given the uninhabited Egg Island which has a jungle and two beaches.

1970: Production at the four Swindon factories of Plessey Co were crippled as 5,000 workers held their threatened 24-hour strike in support of a £8 a week pay claim. The company is also facing an immediate ban on overtime.

1970: For six weeks archeologists have been digging up Roman relics alongside the Stratton St Margaret to Wanborough Road. Before they leave the site batches of pieces of pottery and bone will be buried again. Keeping them company will be a number of 20th century cans, the diggers' own refuse. Director of the dig John Wacher, lecturer in Roman architecture at Leicester University, said the remains will be buried as they don't tell anymore than is already known.

Saturday September 3

1950: To restore Swindon’s non country roads as quickly as possible, the Street and Planning Committee of the Town Council has made recommendations for approval by the Finance Committee that the application should be made to the Ministry of Transport for consent to borrow sufficient money.

1950: Twenty five finalists from all parts of England including one from Swindon, competed in the Scout Soapbox Derby, being staged over part of the promenade in Brighton. Scouts were checking brakes and steering on their machines which had such names as Lysimachia Numilarin, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Tutankharman’s Sarcophagus.

1960: A collection of about 50 paintings and photos of Richard Jefferies county have been offered to Swindon by an American widow. The offer was made to Borough Librarian, Harold Jolliffe, by a retired school teacher Sylvia Tryon of Massachusetts. The paintings were created by her mother Kate Tryon.

1960: There were 11 finalists who took part in the Miss Garrard 1960 contest, which was held at a Garrard Athletic and Social Club dance in the McIlroys Ballroom in Swindon. Miss Rosemary Patterson was crowned the winner.

1970: The RAF is laying on a spectacular air display during the Gala Day of Swindon in the Seventies. Giant Hercules transporters will be performing stunts never attempted before, a Comet 1V will take part in a flypast with the Hercules, and the RAF aerobatic team, The Red Pelicans, will showcase their skills for Swindon.

1970: Andrew Williams of the Wool Lecture Service talked to the Electrical Association of Women on the craft of knitting, at their monthly meeting, in St Aldhelm's Hall, Swindon. He illustrated his talk with colour slides.