THIS week in 1977, Adver readers learned that Tom Jones once told Diana Dors he’d be afraid to sleep with her.

The reason?

He was worried she’d laugh at him.

As celebrity revelations go, it was more than enough to promote the actress’s new book, especially in her home town newspaper.

“Diana Dors,” we wrote, “began to reveal all today.

“Big Di – or Little Miss Fluck as she was known before she left Swindon to become a controversial thrice-married celebrity – has written a new book, For Adults Only.

“Appropriately, the book will be published on Valentine’s Day. For Diana massacres a few reputations as she wades her way through the steamy pages.”

Aside from her claim about Tom Jones, Diana was coy about precisely which celebrities were mentioned, although she hinted at further revelations regarding a romantic Queens Park boat trip with a fellow Swindonian, zoologist Desmond Morris, when the two were teenagers.

Original copies of the book can still be found for sale online.

Another major British celebrity of the era was Henry Cooper, the retired heavyweight boxer who in 1963 had become the only Briton to floor Muhammad Ali.

This week 39 years ago he was in Swindon to promote a lottery run by the Swindon Viewpoint community television station.

We said: “Henry Cooper drew the winners in the only lottery ever run to support a community television station.

“He splashed £5,500 all over Swindon in just a few minutes and gave some lucky winners the great smell of cash.”

As older Rewind readers will have spotted, our choice of words was a reference to the boxing legend’s high profile advertising contract with aftershave brand Brut. “The great smell of Brut” and “Splash it on All Over” became as instantly recognisable as the aroma of the product itself.

Another showbusiness story was about a local three-piece band who were about to appear on a pioneering TV show which was the Britain’s Got Talent of its day.

We wrote: “When Swindon pop group hear no evil appear on ITV’s New Faces on Saturday they will really be on their toes.

“For when the boys (Gerry Nixon, Ted Ludford and Don Gibbs) wanted pairs of white shoes for their act they couldn’t get any.

“Not one Swindon shop could produce the goods.

“So they turned to the world of ballet and visited Balleta in Granville Street, ballet and ballroom suppliers.

“They got out their measuring tapes and made special pairs of white shoes for the group in just two days, enabling them to leave for Birmingham to start rehearsals yesterday.”

Hear No Evil didn’t win, but that didn’t prevent them from carrying on as a popular draw on the local live music circuit.

Another man we featured that week wasn’t a performer but had rubbed shoulders with thousands of them.

George Price, 71, was stage door manager at the Wyvern Theatre and had also worked at the old Empire Theatre at the town centre end of Groundwell Road, which had been demolished many years earlier.

He had encountered and assisted a Who’s Who of stars including Laurel and Hardy, Vera Lynn, George Formby, Frankie Howerd, Stanley Holloway and Arthur ‘Old Mother Riley’ Lucan.

His most poignant story was about Gracie Fields, who by the 1930s was probably the most famous and beloved British star. Mr Price met her earlier, when his father worked at the Empire.

“One of my father’s jobs as baggageman was to take the artists’ personal luggage to their digs when it arrived with the scenery.

“I remember helping him push the handcart up Belgrave Street, where Gracie was staying, while she chatted to us.”

In a complete change of mood, we also had a report about the ongoing scourge of football hooliganism. Sadly, it had a local angle.

Under a headline reading ‘The Wreckers,’ we wrote: “Swindon Town fans went on the rampage last night and wrecked the soccer special taking them to Wrexham.

“And a policeman was hurt as fights broke out on the train.

“Three coaches of the train – specially laid on for 575 supporters – were smashed up on the way to the match.

“The train was forced to make three unscheduled stops – including one at Shrewsbury where the whole station was cordoned off by more than 30 policemen.

“Damage is estimated at hundreds of pounds.”

The destruction included eight tables torn from their mountings in one carriage, four ripped out and a door smashed in another and an apparent attempt to smash every light bulb on the train.

The trip had been organised by four unsuspecting supporters’ club members who were horrified by what happened and faced the prospect of paying for repairs.

One said: “I am really depressed that all the work we put in was thrown away by a few animals.”