AS we’ve mentioned before in Rewind, printing colour photographs in a newspaper in the 1970s was an expensive business.

It tended to be done only when a huge sales boost could be all but guaranteed.

An good example came this week in 1973, as the country prepared for the November 14 wedding of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips at Westminster Abbey.

The national excitement wasn’t as great as it would be when her elder brother married nearly eight years later, but it was easily the biggest story on the news agenda.

To mark the upcoming occasion, we ran an eight-page souvenir supplement whose front, back and centre spread were in rather loud colour.

Inside were articles about the venue, the TV coverage, the dress, the couple’s mutual love of horses and the fact that the groom’s family lived in Great Somerford, Wiltshire.

Later in the week we were able to reveal a more local connection to the wedding in the form of military bandsman John Winterflood, who lived in Wroughton and was assigned to play at the abbey.

We said: “John, a lance corporal in the Royal Scots, plays the euphonium with the band of the first battalion, and is attached to the Royal Military School of Music.”

A rather more famous musician with a strong Swindon connection was also in the news.

By late 1973 Gilbert O’Sullivan, who had done much of his growing up in the town, was one of the most famous performers in the world, having scored hits on both sides of the Atlantic.

The latest of many pictures of him we ran during the period showed him outside a venue with a glamorous young woman on each arm.

The location was the London Palladium, where the star was about to begin what would be a hugely successful week-long run, and the women were dancers Vonni Barnes and Denny Fone.

Still in the realm of famous folk, another of our pictures that week showed Wyvern Theatre public relations officer Mary Morgan with Henry Cooper, the country’s most famous and beloved boxer.

Spanish oranges, we said, had brought the two together: “They met at London’s Mermaid Theatre where Mary was among several PROs and Pressmen invited to Henry’s launching of a winter keep-fit campaign.

“Henry, ex-European and British heavyweight champion, owns a greengrocer’s shop. He devised a series of nine keep-fit exercises to launch the winter orange campaign which he demonstrated at the Mermaid.”

The boxer, who would later become known for promoting Brut aftershave, fronted publicity campaigns for Spanish oranges.

Mary talked with him about the campaign and also about a celebrity connection of her own. She was the aunt of footballer Bobby Gould, who would soon join West Ham and went on to manage clubs including Wimbledon.

Mary said: “Henry is hoping to get down to see our pantomime at the Wyvern this year if he can – and he may bring some oranges with him for the children!”

Henry Cooper visited Swindon on more than one occasion during the following years on various missions, including promoting a department store and fronting a Brut campaign.

In 2002, two years after being knighted, he was invited to switch on the Christmas lights at the Designer Outlet.

Sir Henry Cooper died in 2011.

The week began with Guy Fawkes’ Night, which meant the Adver, like all self-respecting newspapers of the era, had certain traditions to follow.

These included photographing at least one prominent local person with an effigy of the would-be destroyer of Parliament and polling readers regarding firework dangers.

The prominent local person we chose was that year’s Miss Swindon, Carol Fidges, who judged the 1st Stratton St Margaret Scout Group’s Guy Fawkes Competition at the headquarters in Hyde Road.

We pictured her with eight-year-old winner Stephen Brown and his Guy, whose face seems to have been an ingeniously repurposed Father Christmas mask.

We also asked a selection of readers for their views about whether home firework displays should be banned. At that time, the concept of firework safety was in its infancy, and so were regulations.

It was not uncommon, for example, for children to be sold dozens of bangers by unscrupulous shopkeepers, with catastrophic results.

The readers we spoke to advocated tolerance and common sense.

Typical was Kim Eggleston, 15, who lived in Frobisher Drive. “They shouldn’t sell them to little children,” she said.

Old Town sweetshop keeper Sylvia Thompson said: “I wouldn’t sell fireworks. I don’t think they should be sold so early.

“I’m not in favour of banning them altogether, but I think they should be controlled.”

Another of the era’s newspaper traditions we followed that week was that of showing readers photographs of unusually-shaped vegetables.

The vegetable in question was photographed by the man who grew it, Charles Burrows of Braydon, and bore a striking resemblance to a resting cormorant.