REWIND: Boutique grooviness as Stewpot signed an anorak...

We said: “With the Carnaby Street clothes and dim lighting in dark decor of The Attic boutique in The Parade came Ed Stewart, the disc jockey, formerly Stewpot of Radio London, to make it an occasion.

“After he had cut the ribbon across the door, with sparkling comments, crowds swept after him up the stairs into the boutique. Then he disappeared for half an hour or so into a mob of girls while he autographed everything in sight for them.

“Some students had him autograph the figure they were making for a puppet theatre performance of The Tempest at The College. Ferdinand is now labelled Ed Stewart.

“But the prize goes to a youth who has an autographed anorak.

“Mr Stewart took it all in his stride. He has lived through the Radio London siege, and the capitulation and return home, when 2,000 teenagers mobbed the jockeys and he lost his luggage in the scrum on the station.”

We wonder whether Ferdinand the puppet survives in an attic somewhere - and the same goes for the autographed anorak.

Ed Stewart went on to enjoy many years in radio and as a TV presenter, including a long stint on fondly-remembered children’s variety show Crackerjack.

He died in 2016, aged 74.

Perhaps the most striking photograph to appear in the Adver that week 51 years ago showed an actor dressed as Christ and bearing a heavy wooden cross on his back.

It was taken during rehearsals for what at the time must have ranked as one of the town’s most ambitious theatrical productions.

The story it accompanied began: “The Just Vengeance, which was written by Dorothy L Sayers for the 750th anniversary of Lichfield Cathedral, is performed by the Adastrians in St Luke’s Church, Swindon, beginning tonight.”

The theatre group, which was founded after World War Two and lasted until the 1980s, was highly respected, and at its height had about 200 members.

We added: “The play, a modern revival of the centuries-old genre of church plays, recalls a panorama of human existence, from the earliest family and Original Sin to the Blitz and deaths numbered in the millions.

“The play is presented on a series of platforms soaring high into the nave at the west end of St Luke’s.”

Animal stories were as popular a draw more than half a century ago as they are now, so we jumped at an invitation to visit one of Swindon and District Canine Society’s training sessions at All Saints’ Church Hall in Southbrook Street.

We reported: “Training a dog requires repetition and patience, but too many owners expect to achieve instant training when they buy their pets, and so the pets end up only partly trained.

The trainer was a Miss Molly Webb, who said: “I teach adults and they teach dogs.

“The whole trouble is that people come along one day and don’t bother with their dogs until they come back next time.

“You cannot train a dog by coming here once a week - you must practice every day.”

These days Miss Webb’s kindly but no-nonsense approach would probably win her a thriving Youtube following.

Another invitation to the Adver was also accepted enthusiastically.

This one was from the RAF, which wondered whether we would care to send a reporter and photographer to fly 8,000 miles on a VC 10 to Singapore.

They were to accompany a party of entertainers whose mission was to cheer up the British personnel who helped to guard the country - and plenty of Britain’s oil interests.

The reporter and photographer duly sent back several dispatches.

The concert party included Swindon pianist Paul Maguire and jazz musician and comedian Stan Stennett, a national celebrity.

Their stops included a British base on a Gan, a remote Maldives atoll five hours distant by air from Singapore.

Our reporter wrote: “Gan itself is a tropical paradise island with a sleepy lagoon and palm trees lining golden sands.

“But as I was informed, most firmly, a posting there is not all bread and honey.

“There are no women in the island and social life is confined to the four walls of the mess. Everything possible is done to provide recreation, but all the time the fight is on against boredom.

“Although my time on the island was only short, I did learn that already the men were starting on a competition to build the best Christmas bar.”

The RAF personnel on far-off Gan enjoyed better working conditions than school children in Avebury if some of the evidence given at a rural council meeting was anything to go by.

Avebury School, according to local vicar and councillor Rev RA Robbins, was the only one in Wiltshire whose pupils and staff were still obliged to use what he termed bucket sanitation, and he demanded action.