IT is 51 years since Princess Margaret visited Swindon to open a new educational centre for young women in Bath Road.

We can only wonder whether hearing the name of the building, Townsend House, gave her a jolt of melancholy, even though it was in no way connected to Group Captain Peter Townsend, the divorced war hero she had famously been discouraged from marrying in the early 1950s.

Other stories during the week included the Vickers engineering plant in South Marston developing robot technology and a new DIY class for women.