SWINDON...

1947: Advocating the principles of correct sex instruction for young children, the Vicar of St Augustine’s Swindon, Rev James Evans, in his parish magazine, named several books which parents should read in order to prepare themselves to answer their children’s questions. “Ignorance is not purity,’’ he said. “We must not let our children have drops of information about sex from dirty sources, like raindrops in puddles.”

1957: Highworth Rural Council was to offer houses for sale at less than £2,000 each. The scheme, open to tenants and prospective tenants, had the added attraction of people being able to buy houses with small deposits. A start would be made by building 18 houses at Dockle Way, Upper Stratton.

1977: Model Jennie Baker, 11, from Park South, was waiting for the phone to ring, following her eight-week course at the London Academy of Modelling. She appeared in a fashion show to which the capital’s top agents were invited in her final week and was hoping she would be snapped up for an assignment.

2013: Around 250 amateur actors took up the challenge of producing a full scale musical in just 10 days. Swindon’s Wyvern Theatre was buzzing as rehearsals get underway for Our House - Madness The Musical. The nineteenth Summer Youth Project gave aspiring young actors, singers and dancers a taste of working for a professional theatrical production.

THE WORLD...

1624: The French king Louis XIII appointed Cardinal Richelieu as prime minister.

1913: First production in the UK of stainless steel by Harry Brearley.

1942: Walt Disney’s 5th full-length animated film, Bambi, was released to cinemas.

1964: Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans are hanged for the murder of John Alan West, becoming the last people executed in the United Kingdom.

BORN...

1860: Annie Oakley, American target shooter (d. 1926)
1888: John Logie Baird, Scottish engineer, invented the television (d. 1946).
1913: Makarios III, Greek archbishop and politician, 1st President of Cyprus (d. 1977).

DIED...

1863: Eugène Delacroix, French painter (b. 1798).
1910: Florence Nightingale, Italian-English nurse (b. 1820).
1946: H. G. Wells, English journalist and author (b. 1866).
1984: Tigran Petrosian, Georgian-Armenian chess player (b. 1929).