THE official most beautiful woman in the world dropped into Swindon this week in 1974.

“Nineteen-year-old Marjorie Wallace,” we said, “was appearing at the Mecca Bingo and Social Club at the old Palace Cinema at Gorse Hill, where 500 excited members and guests saw her interviewed on stage by the club’s manager, Mr Anthony Nixon.”

It was far from unusual for Miss Worlds to make such appearances in the mid-1970s, or for them to answer all manner of press questions without a hovering PR person to act as gatekeeper.

We reported that one of those who interviewed her, not content with knowing her conventional vital statistics, also asked for her ankle, calf and thigh measurements.

Miss World, a former model from Indianapolis, said she didn’t know, but asked another reporter, from an RAF newspaper, to wish her fans at RAF Lyneham a happy new year.

There was bad news for would-be suitors among our readers, as Ms Wallace revealed that she had a boyfriend.

And her future career? “I refuse to predict the future. I change my mind daily.”

There were to be two sad postscripts to the story. Having won her title the previous November, the engaged beauty queen would be stripped of it in March after being seen kissing Tom Jones.

A little over a fortnight after that, her fiance, American racing driver Peter Revson, was killed in a crash as he prepared for the South African Grand Prix.

Marjorie Wallace went on to a career as a television presenter in her home country.

In the week that a major celebrity crossed the Atlantic to visit Swindon, a Swindonian was about to cross the Atlantic to see a major celebrity.

Ann Aldridge from Penhill, we said, was a member of two clubs, the Swindon Spitfires football squad and the Andy Williams Appreciation Society.

Williams, who died in 2012, was an easy listening crooner whose biggest hits included Born Free and Moon River.

He also released an album called Alone Again (Naturally), which included his version of the global hit written by Swindon’s Gilbert O’Sullivan.

Ann, 21, was among 70 Andy Williams fans heading for Los Angeles. They planned to see the singer in concert and support him at a pro-am golf tournament in San Diego.

Also getting ready for a trip was Eddie Griffiths, a 25-year-old Swindon-born teacher who sported a splendid hair and beard combination typical of the era.

His final destination was to be Zambia, but his route was to include France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Tanzania and Malawi.

Eddie planned to visit his sister, who was working for Voluntary Service Overseas in Ndola, Zambia.

We said: “Eddie will accomplish the trip – or attempt to – in a 1966 Volkswagen van worth £250, accompanied by his friend, Roland Morley, 25, from Jersey.”

Both Ann and Eddie must have been delighted to be heading for somewhere with decent weather, as storms were raging across Wiltshire.

Heavy rain and 90mph winds spelled misery.

We said: “Thousands of pounds worth of damage was caused as trees were uprooted, roofs blown from buildings and small buildings flattened. Electricity staff worked throughout the night to restore power to 1,500 blacked-out consumers.

“Power cables were down or damaged in 60 different places.”

Our photographers were sent to capture images of the destruction. One of the victims was George Easter from what is now Royal Wootton Bassett. The wind not only blew his garage away but flipped the new car which had been inside on to its roof.

In Walcot, the home of Mountford Manor Junior School caretaker Mr W MacKay had much of its roof blown off, and in Old Town the High Street branch of car dealer Skurrays had two large windows blown in.

The year would see great changes in local government, with the old Swindon borough being swept aside and overlaid by Thamesdown, which was widely decried as a made-up name for a made-up district which nobody wanted to be part of.

The last mayor of the old borough was Gladys Knapp, and we photographed her wearing the 47-year old robes which would be passed on to the first Thamesdown mayor, who had yet to be appointed.

“The gold chain for the new mayor,” we said, “has already been designed and is on order from a firm of jewellers.

“The old one, with Highworth’s chain and jewel of office, will join both authorities’ civic plate on display in the Civic Offices.

“New mayoral badges, costing about £1,000, are being donated by the Burmah Oil Company."

Thamesdown would last for 23 years before being replaced by the new unitary borough of Swindon.