A NEW venture for Swindon’s greatest football legend was highlighted in the Adver this week in 1977.

“The career of former Swindon Town star Don Rogers has taken an ironic twist,” we said.

“For the man who used to receive trophies for his talent on the football field is now making them.

“He has teamed up with Ron Soesman, a Swindon cobbler, to form DR Trophies, who will make, engrave and present cups, shields and badges to anybody from pigeon fanciers to polo players.

“They work above Don’s sports shop in Faringdon Road, Swindon.”

We added: “And there is a bonus for customers who order any silverware from Don – he turns up to present the trophies himself.” Another local businessman, John Holmes, was also in the news.

“From £8 to a million in 12 years,” we said, “that’s John Holmes’ amazing score in the music business.

“His Swindon-based firm, John Holmes Music and Organ Centres, is a fantastic success story.

“Its three superb showrooms have been called a credit to the music industry and in two weeks a fourth will open in Banbury Road, Oxford.

“The first John Holmes showroom was in Morse Street, Swindon, and included the driving school John was running at the time.”

Much of the business’ success came because its founder anticipated the huge home organ boom of the era, with high-quality instruments being affordable for average families.

Holmes Music, based in Faringdon Road, remains one of Swindon’s best-known businesses.

Still in the world of music, we marked the retirement of a stalwart Swindon cellist called Reg Bennett.

A 50-year career had seen him play everywhere from McIlroy’s Ballroom to the old Empire Theatre, where he accompanied acts including Laurel and Hardy, a very young Julie Andrews and bawdy music hall legend Max Miller.

He also had a stint as a fill-in double bassist for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra but turned down an invitation to stay on as his wife, Margaret, was about to have a baby in Swindon. “It all started when Reg was 14,” we said. “He sold his Meccano set for 11 shillings [55p] and persuaded his mum to give him the extra he needed to buy his first cello…which cost 50 shillings [£2.50].

“Now 69, he has just retired from giving regular lessons in Thamesdown schools. But he still continues to give private lessons and spends much of his time repairing cellos and giving young players advice at his home in Cumberland Road.”

His youngest pupil was three years old. “She has a child’s miniature cello which she swings about like a tennis racquet. Of course, she hasn’t enough power in her fingers to play it very well, but she’s ever so enthusiastic.”

We wonder what became of that little girl, who would now be 42.

Another branch of the arts was in evidence at Penhill Library, where pupils from the Penhill and Headlands schools had completed the 22ft tall mural which would be admired by countless library users in the decades to come.

The young artists chose a montage of Wiltshire scenes including a White Horse, Salisbury Cathedral, Stonehenge, Silbury Hill, the old chapel at the Lawns, and the Swindon-built North Star locomotive.

Creation was in the news that week but so, sadly was destruction.

A little over a month earlier the country had marked the Queen’s Silver Jubilee with street parties, official commemorations and street parties.

In Swindon’s Queen’s Park a large Silver Jubilee flower bed had been created – only to be vandalised little over a month after Jubilee Day.

Plants were strewn, concrete pots smashed and benches thrown into the lake. Thamesdown arts and recreation director Denys Hodson said: “It’s a classical piece of childish vandalism. We hope to repair the damage done.”

Head gardener Bill Wicks, who had created the flower bed with his team, was rather more blunt. “Give me a 12-bore and I know what I would do to them,” he said.

It was generally assumed that the culprits were young people, which might have been unfair but was hardly surprising. After all, the summer of ’77 was also the summer of Punk, the youth movement which frightened older generations even more than the free-loving, dope-smoking, anti-war hippies of a decade or so earlier.

The Old Town venue later renamed Longs was one of several venues to experience the phenomenon at first hand.

“Punk rock has been banned from a Swindon venue after a night of disturbances at a New Wave gig last weekend,” we said.

“A group of punk bashers caused trouble with the safety pin boys during the Urban Disturbances set at the Belle Vue’s Stage Bar on Friday night.

“While punks – some with nooses around their necks and wearing chains – jumped up and down to the frenetic music, other anti-punks started a near-riot.

“Some started taking their clothes off and spitting beer over the barman and the band’s equipment.”