swindon

1952: Soap bubbles floated over the heads of the dancers nearest to the band during the autumn ball presented by Vickers Armstrong Sports Club at the main canteen, South Marston. Nat Temple’s Orchestra was playing I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles at the time! The singers were Diana Coupland and Frankie Vaughan. The dancers also enjoyed music from local band led by Johnnie Moss. Among 900 present were Mr S P Woodley the superintendent and Mrs Woodley. Mr Harry Brooks was the MC.

1962: Nine hundred boys and masters of Marlborough College heard Sir John Hunt, who had climbed with Sherpa Tensing, give a lecture on the 1959 joint Anglo Russian expedition. A theme of the lecture, which was illustrated by slides, was that racial and political differences became insignificant when joint mountaineering climbs of this kind were attempted. At the end of the lecture the boys were told of the annual half day holiday marking Everest Day at the college.

1972: About 160 people watched a Swindon dress show, which in the words of Mr W Crockett, Wiltshire Dorset and Somerset Regional Organiser of Oxfam, would help pay for seeds, fertilisers and wells in undeveloped country. The dress show was organised by Swindon Oxfam Committee, which runs the Oxfam Shop in Swindon. The show was held in the Goddard Arms ballroom.

the world

1399: The Order of the Bath was constituted.

1521: Pope Leo X conferred the title of Defender of the Faith on Henry VIII.

Twelve years later Henry broke with Rome to marry Anne Boleyn.

1844: Baked beans magnate HJ Heinz was born of German parents in Pittsburgh.

1899: The Boer War began between the British Empire and the Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.

1919: The first airline meals were served on a Handley-Page flight from London to Paris. They were pre-packed lunch boxes at three shillings each (15p).

1957: The Radio telescope at Jodrell Bank, Cheshire, planned by Sir Bernard

Lovell, went into operation.

1958: The BBC TV sports programme Grandstand was first transmitted.

1973: The start of the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East.

1986: Nuclear weapons negotiations between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev opened in a summit in Reykjavik. They ended in failure.

2017: A “worrying” fall in the number of nurses

working in the NHS had come about, analysis from an influential think tank found.

BIRTHDAYS

Sir Bobby Charlton, former footballer, 81; John Nettles, actor, 75;

Alan Pascoe, former athlete, 71; David Morse, actor, 65; Dawn French, actress

and comedienne, 61; Joan Cusack, actress, 56; Stephen Moyer, actor, 49; Emily

Deschanel, actress, 42; Michelle Wie, golfer, 29.