SWINDON

1952: A party of 50 boys from Cotswold School, Ashton Keynes, with members of their school staff were entertained to tea by the Swindon Central Townswomen’s Guild, at the Baptist Tabernacle School Room in Temple Street, Swindon. The boys had spent the afternoons visiting the railway factory where they saw work being carried out in the carriage and locomotive departments.

1952: About 65 boys from Swindon,Wroughton, Wootton Bassett, Marlborough and Burbage took part in a training camp at Newquay. On the return train home, a 16-year-old member of the 9th Batt Wiltshire Army Cadet Force, pulled the communication chord when his beret blew out of the window. For a soldier to lose his equipment was just not done! The Express shuddered to a halt, cadets, officers and railwaymen all piled out expecting some sort of disaster. The resulting dialogue was not printable but the cadet was not allowed to retrieve his beret a mile down the track!

1962: A Swindon Gretna Green couple have returned home as man and wife - and all is forgiven! Sonia Witt, 19, of Mulberry Grove, was married to Melvyn Sanford, 20, a fitter and turner of Dryden Street at Gretna Green in Scotland. Sonia’s mother said that after the initial shock she was quite happy about the affair. The guest house where the couple stayed had laid on a reception for them and the daughter of the house acted as bridesmaid.

1962: Called to number 10 Drakes Way, Swindon when a large black snake with white spots was found in the garden, Inspector S Bellingham of the RSPCA Chippenham, discovered a grass snake. He took it away in a sock and released it in a wood in Chippenham.

1972: Two Swindon boys spent their summer holidays being murdered in Italian amphitheatres. Tony Higgs, 10, and Nicholas Ringham, nine, went on a five-week tour with an American repertory theatre company - a group of drama students who visit Europe every summer. The Swindon boys played the two murdered sons of Medea in the Greek tragedy based on Jason and the Argonauts. Wilton Morley, box office manager at the Wyvern Theatre, was stage manager with the tour and he found the boys through Mollie Tanner and the Tanwood Dancing Studio in Swindon.

1972: A 56-year-old Canadian scrambled up Pewsey Hill only to have his dreams shattered as the White Horse he had remembered for the last 34 years was eaten by weeds. George Algen Petersson spent time in Wiltshire at the end of 1938, and one of his special memories was of the White Horse of Pewsey. He had finally returned to show his wife the white horse. He said that he could have wept because he had kept that vision for years.

THE WORLD

1819: Troops broke up a meeting to demand Parliamentary reforms on St Peter’s Field, Manchester. Eleven died in what became known as the Peterloo Massacre.

1888: TE Lawrence - Lawrence of Arabia - was born in Tremadoc, Caernarvonshire.

1927: Wembley Stadium was sold for use as a greyhound racing track.

1948: Legendary baseball player George Herman “Babe” Ruth died in New York at the age of 53.

1949: Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With The Wind, died after being knocked down by a car two days earlier.

1956: Bela Lugosi, the horror actor who became a drug addict later in his life, died. He was buried (as he had stipulated) in his famous Dracula cape.

1959: Archbishop Makarios voted the first president of the future republic of Cyprus.

1962: Pete Best, original drummer with The Beatles, was fired by Brian Epstein and replaced by Ringo Starr.

1977: The king of rock ‘n’ roll Elvis Presley died in the bathroom of his home in Memphis, Tennessee, though he was actually pronounced dead at 3.30pm in the emergency room of the Baptist Hospital, Memphis.

2004: The Boscastle flood hit Cornwall - 440 million gallons of water swept through the town leaving millions of pounds worth of damage.

2008: Usain Bolt set a new 100 metres world record of 9.69 seconds at the Beijing Summer Olympics.

2017: A global ice age known as ‘Snowball Earth’ triggered the development of complex life 650 million years ago, new evidence suggested.

BIRTHDAYS

John Standing, actor, 84; Sir Trevor McDonald, newscaster, 79; Bruce Beresford, film director, 78; John Craven, TV presenter, 78; John Challis, actor (Only Fools And Horses), 76; Lesley Ann Warren, actress, 72; Katharine Hamnett, fashion designer, 71; James Cameron, director, 64; Madonna, pop singer, 60; Timothy Hutton, actor, 58; Barry Venison, footballer turned pundit, 54; Ulrika Jonsson, TV presenter, 51.