THIS week in the first month of 1967, Swindon played host to one of the decade’s biggest British bands.

The Tremeloes had scored four top 10 hits in 1963 and 1964, including a chart topper in Do You Love Me.

Lead singer Brian Poole had begun recording solo in 1966, and so had his former backing band.

The Tremeloes would go on to enjoy another stream of hits beginning later in 1967, including Silence is Golden and Here Comes My Baby.

On the live circuit, however, Brian Poole and the band were still very much together, and they took the stage at The Locarno Ballroom in Old Town to a rapturous reception.

An unnamed Swindon Advertiser reporter wrote: “As Brian Poole said to me as we sat on the edge of the stage on Saturday night: ‘Pop groups are not on the way out.’

“Later, Brian and his group The Tremeloes proved his point at The Locarno, Swindon.

“Not that I doubted his word for a minute. Many people have been trying to bury the groups prematurely, in favour of the individual singer.

“But the recent invasion of The Monkees put paid to that.”

Brian himself added: “Groups have to be very good on stage now.

“At one time, when the craze was at its height, a group could produce a load of noise and it would be a hit.”

The Tremeloes line-up at the time included Leonard Hawkes, father of Swindon-born early 1990s heartthrob Chesney, who topped the charts with The One and Only.

Another show business story was about a more local celebrity.

“Swindon beat group pianist Paul Maguire,” we said, flew out of RAF Lyneham with the Lorne Gibson Trio last night, to entertain the troops in Malta and Cyprus.

“Paul (23) was the pianist and organist with the Swindon beat group the Hummelflugs before it broke up about 18 months ago.

“With Paul and the trio went 18-year-old singer Lesley Dawson, two Northern comedians, Johnnie Ball and Jack Platt, and Scottish accordionist Gloria Anderson.”

Paul said he hoped to meet star pianist Russ Conway, who was holidaying on Malta at the time.

A glance at the bottom left of our photo reveals that young “Johnnie Ball” was in fact Johnny Ball, the future Playschool and Think of a Number presenter and father of Zoe.

The week saw us run a two-part supplement about the state of local industry, and with the Swindon area booming the tone was inevitably upbeat.

A photo of the shiny new £240,000 offices of mechanical and electrical components firm Brown Brothers in Greenbridge Road appeared above a story headlined: “More Factories Coming to Expanding Swindon.”

“Swindon’s major news during the past year,” we said, “has been the approval of a further expansion of the town to house another 75,000 people.

“In turn, more people mean more industry and the Corporation will be engaged again this year in an all-out effort to attract the right sort of factory, office and person to the town.”

Another photograph showed a lone Railway Works technician at the controls of a new engine testing rig, protected by thick glass against the risks of running machinery under extreme stresses.

The new building was constructed on the site of a shop once used for steam locomotive boiler repairs.

A rather more troubled local structure also made one of its frequent late 1960s appearances in our pages.

“It has been named,” we said.

“Yes, the £3,500 water feature on The Parade, Swindon, which has been the subject of so much controversy and abuse that by now, had it been a human, it would have walked away in contempt – or indignation – or shame – depending how you feel about it.

“Since its arrival last July the concrete cube has been the subject of debates in the council chamber, high-minded criticisms, occasional commendations and even an attack by washing powder.

“In fact, the concrete has become so near human in many minds that one really wishes it could only answer back from the middle of its pond.”

Accordingly, we hit on the idea of inviting readers to suggest names for the object, with a £2 2s prize – £2.10p in decimal money – for the one we chose.

The name seems to have carried no official weight; had it done so there’s every chance that Swindon people would have ended up calling a local leisure centre something entirely different.

For that matter, a certain world famous band of the 1990s would have been called something entirely different.

The prize went to a Mrs Catherine Trudgen of Kitchener Street, who suggested calling it The Oasis.

Other strong contenders suggested Aqua Stones and Happy Springs, while more mischievous people had a field day.

Entries fit for printing in a family newspaper included The Square Squirt, the Nymph’s Mausoleum and The Freak of Nature.

One reader wanted it to be called the Lyle as it looked a bit like a Tate and Lyle sugar cube.

They wrote: “Some love it, others find one lump more than enough.”

The water feature, as devotees of Swindon history will be aware, soldiered on until demolition in the late 1970s, by which time it had long become a magnet for litter, grime and drunks.