swindon

1952: A blacksmith’s shop with forge, shoeing house, wash shop and dwelling house was sold at Avebury for £1,150. The sale was conducted by Messrs Hooper, Pinnegar and Co, auctioneers of Marlborough, who were acting on instructions of Mr Douglas Paradise who is the last of many generations of his family to have carried on the business in the village.

1952: P B H May, the 22-year-old Cambridge University batsman whose winning form had been one of the features of the new season, had accepted an invitation to play for Wiltshire against the Duke of Edinburgh X1, in aid of the National Playing Fields Association, in the British Rail Ground in Swindon.

1962: The classrooms and corridors of Park Grammar School bustled with activity when parents and pupils converged on the school in their hundreds for the second annual open evening. Pupils acting as guides conducted the visitors round the exhibition of the pupils’ work. The exhibition showed the links between the various aspects of the pupils studies.

1962: Nine-year-old Timothy Whiteword of York Road, Swindon, had success at the Cheltenham Music and Drama Festival. Timothy was placed third in the Verse Speaking Class for boys and girls aged nine. He gained 88 marks and there were 28 entries.

1972: 27 wives took to the canals when members of the Wootton Bassett Methodist Wives Group had a two hour trip on the Kennet and Avon canal, on board the Jane Austen. They travelled to Bath by coach for the trip. The event was organised by Mrs Pauline Hyde and Mrs Beryl Taylor.

1972: Children at Cherhill School near Calne really had a very lively model for their art class. Skippy the five-week-old lamb had made a couple of appearances in the art class at school but he was getting a bit too old and has now been retired.

the world

1510: Florentine painter Sandro Botticelli, whose work included The Birth Of Venus, died.

1836: Sir Norman Lockyer, British astronomer who discovered helium, was born in Rugby.

1861: A group of holidaymakers set off from London for Paris on the first package trip arranged by Thomas Cook.

1890: The first weekly comic, Comic Cuts, was published in London by Alfred Harmsworth.

1899: Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

1900: Mafeking was relieved by British Forces in the Boer War after 217 days.

1960: The Kariba Dam on the Zambesi River was opened by the Queen Mother.

1969: Dubliner Tom McClean completed the first solo transatlantic crossing in a rowing boat.

1978: Compact discs were created by Philips.

1978: Charlie Chaplin’s coffin was found 10 miles from the Swiss cemetery where he had been buried, after it was stolen on March 2.

1990: The General Assembly of the World Health Organisation (WHO) eliminated homosexuality from the list of psychiatric diseases.

2004: The first legal same-sex marriages in the U.S. were performed in the state of Massachusetts.

BIRTHDAYS

Sugar Ray Leonard, boxer, 62; Enya, singer, 57; Trent Reznor, singer (Nine Inch Nails), 53; Jeremy Vine, journalist/presenter, 53; Andrea Corr, singer, 44.