BINFIELD Carnival dominated the pages of the Bracknell News in 1963, with dozens of stories from the annual procession, fair, athletics meeting and a darts tournament.

The under-seven’s floats included a “Noddy in Toyland” fancy-dress entry from Binfield All Saints School, complete with a drummer boy character, acted out by Stephen Cox.

The Carnival Queen, Cora Blundell, was crowned before joining the procession alongside her “Royal Family” of attendants, Irene Bovingdon, Sandra Challis, Ann Rutherford and Denise Kettle.

The heavy rain seemed to upset one entrant to the fancy-dress competition, when William Bindle posed rather reluctantly for the Bracknell News photographer, with his sister Daphne.

The couple had just won a prize dressed as a monk and a nun in the seven and under pairs class, whilst several children had dressed up as “Great Train Robbers”, complete with suitcases bulging with ‘stolen’ cash.

Binfield’s popular Carnival athletics meeting suffered from torrential rain 57 years ago, but quite a large crowd stayed on despite this to watch the two-and-a-half-hour programme.

Reading Athletics Club (the organisers) won the men’s team contest for the Skedgel Cup, with Farnham AC scooping the ladies’ first prize.

Bracknell AC’s, Dave Tipper, suffered a double disappointment when he had his first place taken away for running on the inside of his lane at the Carnival Sports Ground.

He had suffered a ‘pellet wound’ to his head before the race, but carried on regardless, later Dave told the News:” It did not worry me too much during the race.”

A record entry of 17 teams took part in the Carnival’s Ladies Darts Tournament in 1963, and for the second successive year the winners were The Two Poplars from Wokingham.

In the semi-final they beat Gold Cup, Ascot, by two games to one, and in a rather long-winded final they finally triumphed over Bracknell’s Prince of Wales 2-0.

An obedience exhibition for dogs, and their owners, at Binfield Memorial Hall got off to a flying start after a few attempts to get a dog to do some tricks.

By the time the Bracknell News arrived they had a sheepdog leaping over a broom handle, which had been difficult minutes before, as the hound had run underneath on countless occasions.

A ‘blooming marvellous’ feature in the News shed some light on Winkfield’s “Carnation Factory” in 1963, who were turning out thousands of first-class blooms for London’s Covent Garden market.

In each of the nursery’s five-acre greenhouses there were 110,00 plants, planted in a mixture of sand and chemicals, to keep the ravages of greenfly and fungus at bay.

Manager John Thompson, said:” In the winter we water the plants once a week, but in summer it’s every other day.”