LOOKING back on some of the stories the Gazette has reported through the years...

January 1978

A NEW telephone trolley was being wheeled around the wards of Frenchay Hospital in January 1978, following a special presentation by South West Telephones.

Members of the WRVS (now the Royal Voluntary Service) took the trolley round to patients.

The gift saved the hospital the cost of replacing the trolley themselves and the Post Office gave its coin box rent-free, for as long as it remained in service.

Frenchay was chosen as the most suitable hospital in the South West Telephones area for the presentation, because so many patients came from other areas and depended on the trolley phone boxes for news and reassurance from home.

January 1988

IN JANUARY 1988, residents of what they had been led to believe was called The Willows, Yate, but which some thought should be called Turret Close, were upset about the apparent change of name.

The site was a new housing development, owned by JJ Homes.

People who lived at The Willows/Turret Close were so incensed that they sent one of their number, Jack Ward, to speak to Yate Town Council.

Mr Ward said he not only spoke for those who had already moved in, but also for some still to arrive.

“I, for one, if I had known it was going to be called Turret Close would not have bought my house,” he claimed.

Mr Ward said the house owners had been informed that Northavon District Council were set to approve the name Turret Close.

“We would like to keep it as The Willows, as the developers told us,” he said.

Cllr Chris Willmore said that if the decision had yet to taken, she would support the residents’ wishes.