November 1966 A CAR nosedived 60 feet over a cliff at Frocester Hill – and the driver survived. He was rushed to hospital where his condition was described as ‘only fair’.

The car, an American left-hand-drive station wagon, left the Stroud/Uley road, mounted a bank, demolished a safety fence and plunged into the disused quarry.

Trapped in the wrecked vehicle was a 32-year-old man married man with three young children of Shipton Moyne, Tetbury.

A THORNBURY man lost his life while surfing and bathing at Hayle Sands, near St Ives, Cornwall.

This was the second time that tragedy had struck the family. Four years ago his mother was fatally injured in a road accident at Morton when her pedal cycle was involved in a collision with a lorry.

When the Thornbury man got into difficulties while bathing in the sea off Hayle’s beach, a friend made an unsuccessful effort to save him.

At the inquest the coroner, recording a verdict of ‘accidental death’, praised the ‘gallant rescue efforts’ made by his friend.

LOVERS of vintage motor cycles – and those who remember them with a touch of nostalgia – had a field day when the Bristol section of the Vintage Motor Cycle Club held its fourth summer run through South Gloucestershire.

Twenty-two entries on solo and combination machines tackled the event which started from the Beaufort Hunt Inn at Downend and ranged as far afield as Tytherington.

November 1976 TEN of 16 new houses built on the Cherrymead Estate, Frenchay, were handed over to the occupiers without final inspections carried out to ensure all building regulations had been complied with, Northavon planners heard.

In most of the cases, solicitors acting for the occupiers had been notified by Northavon district council that all procedures had not been complied with.

DESPITE torrential rain, aching feet and a flat tyre, 22 energetic pupils and four staff members of Rednock School, Dursley, spent an enjoyable and successful autumn half-term walking in the Lake District.

A PATCHWAY youth who stole cash and cigarettes from Almondsbury Cricket Club changing rooms was given a 12-month conditional discharge when his father told Thornbury magistrates that he had learnt his lesson.

The sentence was passed when magistrates heard that the boy had already served six weeks in a detention centre for a previous offence and that he had “turned over a new leaf”.