SWATHES of Swindonians were among millions of people in the grip of a cultural phenomenon this week in 1980.

As just about anybody beyond infancy in that year will recall, the world’s biggest soap opera was Dallas, the ongoing story of a Texan oil dynasty.

The main villain was scheming JR Ewing, played with glee by Larry Hagman, an actor whose main previous claim to fame was a leading role in 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie, about an ancient genie who falls for an astronaut.

On Monday, May 26, 1980, BBC1 broadcast one of the most notorious cliffhanger episodes in television history, with JR cut down by bullets from an unknown would-be assassin’s gun.

An estimated 20m fans were instantly thrown into a frenzy of speculation.

The following day we wrote: “That good-for-nothin’ evil schemin baddie JR has finally hit the Dallas dust.

“And what millions of anxious television viewers want to know now is - who pulled the trigger?

“The multi-million dollar question won’t be answered until the next series of Dallas in the autumn. But that didn’t deter Swindon punters from joining the craze.

“Dozens of them placed their bets in local shops without so much as a turn of hair. And they’ve got a good idea who did it.”

We spoke to bookmakers and also took to the streets to gauge public opinion.

According to local betting shops, popular choices included the villain’s own mother, Miss Ellie, his father, Jock Ewing, his tormented wife, Sue Ellen and a businessman with a grudge, Vaughn Leland.

A young fan, 10-year-old Joanna Wakeham from Wroughton, was the only person we spoke to who correctly guessed that the culprit was JR’s mistress, Kristin.

Back in the real world, a near future of 100-miles-per-gallon car travel seemed to beckon, and Swindon had a role.

Next to a photo of a small, streamlined hatchback with clear genetic traces of the Mini Metro, we wrote: “A revolutionary new Mighty Miser family car which can do 100 miles to the gallon was today unveiled by British Leyland.

“Superficially the experimental car - codenamed ECV 2 - seems to be based on the Mini Metro, which has more than half its body panels pressed in Swindon.

“But the difference is under the bonnet. It is believed the car has a three-cylinder, 1,000cc engine with a five-speed gearbox.

“Already the car has achieved 100mpg at 30mph, and 60mpg at 60mph round BL’s secret test track at Gayton in Warwickshire.”

Production was scheduled for 1987 according to the state-owned car firm, but various delays and complications put paid to the project.

Had it gone into production, the car would have brought super-economy motoring to the world 20 or more years before other manufacturers began making such cars widely available, and Swindon would almost certainly have had a major part to play in the project.

Another image of a small car in the Adver that week was slightly blurred and taken from a motorway bridge.

It showed a thoroughly ordinary Mini Clubman estate heading east on the M4 but the background, a large wrecked boat by the side of the road, was rather more interesting.

Our story enlightened any confused motorists who had passed the spot en route between Chippenham and Swindon.

“The boat,” we said, was cruising along on a trailer, towed by a truck,when it suddenly sailed off the trailer, and off the road too.

“Then the trailer parted company from the truck. Unaware, the truck driver went on.

“When the police arrived, they scratched their heads for the boat’s name had been painted out, and the trailer didn’t have any registration plates.

“But they soon traced the boat’s owner, a man in Chippenham, who explained he’d just sold it.”

In Old Town, the stage was set for major change on the site of the railway station, which had closed the best part of two decades earlier.

Thamesdown Borough Council announced that it had bought the site from British Rail, and planned to redevelop it.

Most of the land eventually became an industrial park, and the track bed is now a popular and tranquil route for walkers and cyclists.

Adverts in old newspapers are often interesting, and this week 38 years ago we ran one which surely counts as a piece of rock history.

Anybody with a £2.25 entry fee - and perhaps a couple of extra pounds for drinks - was invited to the Brunel Rooms that Friday, where an up-and-coming young metal band was the headline act.

They were promoting their recently released eponymous debut album, Iron Maiden.

Within a few years they’d be one of the biggest bands in the world.

Iron Maiden’s support act at the Brunel Rooms was Praying Mantis, another band from what came to be called the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.