THIS week The Gazette launched the new nostalgia page, giving news across the decades.

Here are some highlights of what we found through the archive from 1965 - 1975.

1965


A new look Black Horse Inn opened in Thornbury in April 1965, replacing its elderly predecessor of the same name.
Special guests at the inn’s official opening were director of West Country Breweries Ltd, Brigadier McKeekan, and Jim Davies, a regular customer of the former Black Horse Inn for 70 of his 82 years.

A criminal who had escaped from prison three times was arrested in a cottage at Culverhay, Wotton-under-Edge while on the run again.
Albert Augustus King, 36, was serving 12 years at Parkhurst when he escaped by worming his way through a ventilation shaft into a courtyard and climbing down a wall. He was one of only two people in the 20th century to escape from a prison cell in Dartmoor.

Plans for a £7,900 face-lift for Dursley’s Market House were finalised by trustees, with an order placed for work to be carried out, such as renewed guttering, soil pipe removal and the demolition of a chimney.

 

1975


Pupils from Winterbourne Ridings High School were struck down with what was believed to be food poisoning after a trip to Italy during their Easter holiday.


About half of the 40 pupils aged between 11 and 16 were ill on a long train journey from Venice to Rome leading to the school starting an investigation.

A fire broke out in a cleaner’s cupboard at the public conveniences in Yate Shopping Centre car park, destroying a small quantity of cleaning materials and damaging some timber shelving.

The Olveston Methodist Church, which was 152 years old at the time of publication in April 1975, was badly hit by gales and snow and found to be in need of £700 worth of urgent repairs during this month.


The bad weather resulted in tiles being blown off and rain coming through onto the church organ, causing £150 worth of damage to the instrument.


A Gift Day was due to be organised to start to raise money for the repairs to the church and the musical instrument.