1978

The Gazette was published on a Saturday, costing 8p. There were five editions - the Dursley edition, Northavon Gazette, covering Sodbury and Yate, Northavon Edition covering Filton, Patchway, Winterbourne and Frampton, Avon County Gazette, Kingswood district edition

January

7 - DURSLEY Rugby and football clubs are forced to pay for a cleaner to keep the building in the Recreation Ground tidy.

7 - THE NIGHT PORTER at the Ship Post House Hotel, Alveston, has been recovering this week after he was attacked and tied up by two men armed with a shotgun.

14 - A 50-YEAR link with Dursley that has taken the Lister name to many parts of the world could end this summer with the disposal of the woodcraft section of the business.

14- NORTHAVON district council are to be asked by Yate town council to consider providing a skateboard rink in the Phase II development at Southwold sports and social care, Yate, work on which has just started.

14 - INTERVIEWS are due to take place on Monday for the appointment of a warden for the official gipsy site at the end of the old Filton by-pass at Patchway.

21 - A BARKING DOG saved two lives when fire broke out in a cottage at Frampton-on-Severn early on Tuesday morning.

A new Skoda 105-S will cost you as little as £1664 on the road. A three bedroom "attractively situated" modern linked detached house in Chipping Sodbury will cost you £12,950

21- 'Horrifying' orgy of burglaries. THREE TEENAGERS who embarked on a 'horrifying' orgy of burglaries, broke into schools, clubs and churches throughout Kingswood District, a court heard.

28 - THE STRENGTH of local opposition against the recent gassing of badgers was revealed last week when it was 'standing room only' for those who did not arrive early at Dursley Town Hall to hear Ministry of Agriculture officials defend their action against the badgers.

28 - The mutli-million dollar, long awaited, 'out of this world' spectacular - Star Wars - graces the Bristol screen this weekend providing instant escapism and Flash Gordon-like entertainment, which puts Doctor Who, lost in Space and Star Trek in another orbit.

28 - AN INDIAN teacher who claimed he was discriminated against because of his colour has lost his action against Filton Technical College.

February

4 - PUBS IN THE Berkeley petty sessional division will be allowed to stay open until 11p.m on weekdays during British Summer Time, Berkeley magistrates decided at the general annual licensing session held in Dursley this week.

11 - STROUD DISTRICT COUNCIL on Monday night decided to oppose any moves to add fluoride to public water supplies.

11 - HERON homesteads are to be allowed to alter the phasing on part of their big housing development inn North Yate, Northavon planners have decided.

18- FRAMPTON Cotteral parish council are asked for an estimate for a skateboard ring after hearing that it could cost up to £50,000 or £70,000 to instal, supervise and insure a local rink.

25 - A MASSIVE £25 million expansion and modernisation programme for R.A Lister and Co. Ltd. Will not rocket the company to the top of the tree in diesel engine production. Because that, says production director Mr. David Esse, is where they are already.

March

4- RECENT criticism of the condition of Wotton-under-Edge toilets had not meant any criticism of the work of cleaner, Mr. Bill Hemming. In fact there was a great deal of praise for him at last week's meeting of the Town Council and condemnation of the vandals who ruin his work.

4 - THE PARENTS of 16 year old Paul Ashwood suspended form Patchway High School after refusing to be caned, were due to meet headmaster Mr. Peter Isaac yesterday to discuss their son's future.

11 - MEMBERS OF Pilning and Severn Beach parish council complained this week of an "appalling" smell from properties not connected to the main drainage system.

25 - STAFF at Hortham Hospital, Almondsbury got a shock when they removed the wrapping from a loaf of bread because they found a packet of cigarettes had been baked and sliced in the loaf, Thornbury magistrates heard this week.

April

1 - THORNBURY Town Council are to make investigations about the cinema in the High Street, Thornbury, which has been derelict for 18 years and is an "eyesore".

8 - SWIMMING WITHOUT making a splash - that's Stroud District Council's recreation and amenities committee's recommendation for Dursley's proposed new swimming pool at Rednock School.

8- THE FIRST civic lottery in the area has been brought to an abrupt halt after it flopped first time out.

May

6 - TENANTS of a new council estate, faced with bills of up to £140 a quarter for their all-electric homes, said this week in a protest petition that the time was approaching when their could no longer afford to live in their homes.

6- IT WAS THE shopping expedition of the year at Patchway this week as thousands flocked to the Carrefour hypermarket which opened on Tuesday.

6 - THREE MORE Pilning firemen have become "disillusioned" with the brigade and are leaving the area for the oil rich Shetlands

20- PLANS to improve the corner of Bear Street and Gloucester Street in Wotton-under-Edge have had another setback - they have now been put back into the 1979/80 programme.

20 - A MAN who moved into a Winterbourne cottage he had bought was fined £10 by magistrates...because the property was the subject of a demolition order.

27 - AMID A SEA of flags and smiling faces, Princess Anne is escorted by Uley Parish Council chairman, Major Antony Goldingham, from the children's playground in the village after she performed the official opening ceremony on Wednesday.

June

3 - "SIZZLING SUCCESS" was the verdict on the new solar heating at Wotton-under-Edge swimming pool which raised the water temperature to 85 degrees this week.

3 - BRITISH AEROSPACE at Filton has won its first ever contract- - worth a cool £1m - from the United States Air Force.

10 - A MERCY FLIGHT was sent to France on Sunday morning to bring back a Dursley coach driver who was suffering from a mystery illness.

24 - CONCERN OVER the delay in completing the 86 dwellings at Wortley Road, Wotton-under-Edge, was expressed again at last week's meeting of Stroud District Council's housing services committee.

24 - A WICK lawn mower firm scored a rip roaring hat-trick last weekend when three of their machines sprinted home in the world's first ever 24-hour marathon lawn mower race at Holt, near Trowbridge.

July

1 - STROUD DISTRICT Council's environmental health department has had a rap on the knuckles for deliberately polluting a ditch in Slimbridge.

8 - A MULTI-THOUSAND-POUND centre where present and future generations of Kingswood District will go for sport, leisure and entertainment, is to be fully investigated.

8 - MANY RESIDENTS in Severn Beach are being woken up in the middle of the night with urgent messages from ICI, even though they do not work for the company. (Tannoy system too loud.)

15 - FIFTEEN YOUTHS involved in a gang warfare between local schools in March were sentenced this week by Staple Hill juvenile court magistrates.

22 - POLICE MADE door to door calls in the Chipping Sodbury-Yate area after a bomb scare involving local schoolchildren who had been on a weekend expedition on Dartmoor.

29 - HOOVES, Horse manure and hordes of cars are visions bedevilling the residents of Wotton-under-Edge's prestigious Parklands estate since a local woman applied to set up a riding stable just behind their houses at Tabernacle Fields.

August

5 - DURSLEY Police are currently investigating the discovery of a human skeleton, which was found on Saturday by Mr. Andrew Murdoch (20) at Longney Cribb, near Dursley.

12 - IF PRESENT PLANS materialise Sharpness Docks could benefit from a £500,000 boost, dock manager Mr. Daniel McNeill outlined the investment prospect on Friday on the day local M.P. Mr. John Cope toured the fast expanding port.

12 - FIREMEN warned this week that they may refuse to go inside the historic Over Court at Almondsbury to fight future blazes, because the building is so dangerous.

19 - WHO NEEDS TO GO TO SPAIN, Morocco, or the South of France when there are idyllic holiday spots right on the doorsteps such as Purton. If only it had the sunshine and the cloudless blue skies.....if only.....

26 - POLICE WITH tracker dogs searched the Stroudwater area, after an armed man tried to hold up a motorist late in Tuesday night.

26 - FEAR EXPRESSED about a possible delay in the construction of part of Yate's northern by-pass - the northern primary distributor road - have been allayed by the County Council this week.

26 - THORNBURY MAGISTRATES came in for criticism at Bristol Crown Court this week by judge Desmond Vowden Q.C. after he heard they had ordered a mother to pay £400 compensation for damage caused by her son.

September

2 - STAFF AND PUPILS will be moving into Yate's brand-new comprehensive school at the start of the Autumn term next week. (Brimsham Green School)

16 - IF ANY of the vandals who have been causing damage on Dursley Recreation Field were caught, they should be taken to court and prosecuted, Mr. Leonard Townsend told the Town Council.

16 - MORE CASES OF HOMELESSNESS have arisen in Yate than in any other area in Northavon during the year.

16 - SEVERN BEACH, which is currently in a "shocking state", may eventually become the Clevedon of Northavon, local parish councillors were told last week.

23 - THE LAMB AND FLAG public house at Cribbs Causeway looked like a battle ground last weekend after landlady Patricia Baldwin barricaded the building against rioting gipsies and police mounted an all-night guard.

23 - THORNBURY RESTAURATEUR, Mr. Kenneth Bell's plans to convert a wing of Thornbury Castle into a small hotel have found favour with Northavon planners.

October

14 - FIFTY PARTS of formaldehyde to a million parts of water was responsible for the death of countless fish in the River Frome between Stroud and Framilode last week.

14 - A PETROL BOMB put under a car in Cogan Road, Staple Hill in a revenge bid against its owner, failed to explode, Bristol Crown Court heard.

28 - THE GAZETTE received the Royal Seal of Approval on Thursday when HRH Princess Anne visited the group's head office in Long Street, Dursley to mark the newspaper's centenary year.

November

4 - THE BOWATER Scott Group have had their proposals for warehouse development on Newman's sports ground at Yate turned down by Northavon planning committee.

4 - AN APPLICATION by Thornbury Town Council to change 67 High Street from an office to a shop has been rejected by Northavon planning committee.

11 - ABOUT 70 EWES in lamb were killed when a lorry overturned at West Kington, near Marshfield on Friday. Nearly 300 sheep had been in the three-tier lorry when it toppled over coming out of the entrance at Latimer Farm.

18 - ROSS, THE giant food and motorway services company, are to take over the Michaelwood services on the M5 motorway near Wotton-under-Edge, in a £1 million expansion and improvement scheme scheduled to start in the new year.

18 - A FILTON MAN broke his hand when he assaulted a detective constable called to help by the man's former girlfriend a court heard.

25 - A CALL WAS made this week by Gloucestershire and Northavon Farmers to form vigilante groups to protect their farms from rustlers.

25 - KINGSWOOD WAGES clerk, Mrs. Judy Canning, had a narrow escape on Tuesday when the calor gas heater in her office at the Warmley Clock Tower exploded and burst into flames.

December

2 - EIGHT FIRE engines with more than fifty firemen fought a huge blaze which caused thousands of pounds worth of damage at Piers Court Farm, Stinchcombe on Saturday night.

2 - VANDALISM AND indiscriminate rubbish dumping on a piece of land off Gazzards Road, Winterbourne, would be prevented if permission was given for homes, a public inquiry heard on Tuesday.

2 - TELEVISION entertainer Roy Castle gave a special show to patients at Hortham Hospital, Almondsbury, this week and later cut the first turf for a new community centre/chapel to be built on the campus.

9 - DOGS ARE to be totally banned from Dursley's recreation grounds at Kingshill and Highfields. This firm action was taken by the Town Council this week following a letter of complaint from the local Rugby Club.

9 - AVON County Council are to be asked to look into the possibility of providing mechanical equipment such as compactors and incinerators to help deal with its waste disposal problems.

16 - A GIFT OF £40,000 for community facilities on a Heron Homesteads development at Yate could be on the way to Northavon planners.

16 - THE POSSIBILITY of giant solar space power stations providing energy for domestic and industrial uses in earth was raised by British Aerospace engineer at an energy and aerospace conference held in London last week.

23 - A FORMER Wotton-under-Edge couple were this week safely back in Northavon after a nightmare ordeal in which they narrowly escaped death and lost their £60,000 ketch just after the start of a round the world trip.

30 - A THREE-YEAR dispute between the Wotton building firm of Woodward Brothers and Stroud District Council over payment for the controversial arch in Wotton's Market Street has been settled.

30 - During 1977 the population of Avon County increased by 1,300 persons. Although deaths exceeded births by about 200, some 1,500 people moved into the county.

30 - IT WAS a reasonably quiet Christmas weekend for local firemen. Am early morning blaze caused thousands of pounds worth of damage at British Moulded Fibre's works at Bitton and home owners at Hanham and Alveston raised the alarm in the nick of time to prevent more serious house fires.