HAVING left for Australia at the age of sixteen, Mrs. Chris McGovern returned in 1977, and could not believe how much her town had changed, luckily, the Bracknell News had a rare chance to view her album of photos from the late 1950’s.
During a whistle stop tour of Bracknell, using her scrapbook “The history of The Destruction of Bracknell”, she revisited the site of her family home in Ralph’s Ride, where her father had a small-holding with pigs and chickens.
All three of the family homes were now demolished and whilst touring the area Mrs. McGovern was tight-lipped about her feelings, only commenting that the shops ‘are very good now’.
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A Scottish piper accompanied the visitors to the topping out ceremony at Bracknell Development Corporations newest seven-storey building in the towns High Street.
When completed, Enid Wood House would provide 127 self-contained flats for single people and it was hoped that WHSmiths would be taking up ground floor shopping space.
The ‘Wokingham Walk’ raised £5,000 for local charities 43 years ago, with some intrepid ‘walkers’ actually running the course. Two 18-year-old’s, Raymond Reader and Huw Jones, from Earley, set a new record time of two-and-a-half hours. Event organiser, Jean Davy, told the News: “It’s been a great success and we are grateful to all these people who took part.”
A sudden snow blizzard snarled up the roads around East Berkshire in January 1977, but despite many local businesses allowing their staff to leave early, many found they arrived home later than they would normally.
Two petrol tankers jack-knifed into a ditch on the Crowthorne Road and many vehicles could not negotiate the A329 Reading Road, failing to get up the hill.
Bracknell’s Met Office reported that the UK was under the influence of a northeasterly airflow that would bring widespread snowfalls, caused by a deepening depression over Scandinavia.
Twenty members of St. Paul’s Church, Harmans Water held a comic “Victorian Evening” by entertaining parishioners with songs, poems and dancing.
Dressed as “Peelers” (police officers), Jim Gould and John Mitchell, improvised for the News photographer by replacing police truncheons with rolling pins from the kitchen.
While Bracknell slept, members of the town’s two youth theatre groups engaged in a heroic bid to set a new world record for continuous drama.
Unfortunately, nobody had called the Guinness Book of Records to see if they recognised such ‘Thespian activities’.
Youth Theatre Director Sue Robertson told the News: “We rang them up but they didn’t want to know!”
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