Stories that made the news in Jan 1977
THE big news dominating the Bristol Post front pages in January 1977 was the Crown Court trial of once-respected Bristol solicitor David Atchley, a former partner in the city law firm Fryer, Bennett and Atchleys, which was closed down while a long investigation into its accounts was carried out by police and the Law Society. After admitting six charges of theft and one of deception, to a tune of £121,257,50-year-old Atchley, from Portbury - a former chairman of Long Ashton Rural Council and the South West Electricity Consultative Council - was sent down for three years. George Carman QC., defending Atchley, said that his client had become a lonely and isolated man who had received no personal profit from the offences which came out of a blurring of judgement and his desire to help his clients. Carman pleaded for a suspended sentence.
But Judge Main said: 'I am dealing here with dishonesty and breach of trust on a massive scale, and conduct of this kind by a solicitor can attract only one penalty ' There were some bad features in the case, he said, and he had to pass a jail sentence, although he realised that this would only be a small part of the total payment Atchley's folly, required him to pay.
The other big story, at the end of the week, was the news that overcrowded wards for mentally-handicapped children in the grounds of Stoke Park Hospital-known as Wells wards A and B and described by many people as Dickensian - were not to be replaced. A report said: 'These wards would make a disgraceful comparison with a Victorian workhouse and have been the subject of the council's utmost concern.'
The Health Service had been restructured with several administrative tiers and it was felt that the children were being used as pawns in some sort of buck-passing game. The chairman of Frenchay Community Health Council, Pam Armstrong, said: 'I am very concerned that children are housed in overcrowded second floor accommodation. 'The children in Wells wards are nursed expertly by staff, who in the past have had to work in exceptionally trying conditions.'
The Park Street explosion of December 29, which had ripped apart the lower end of the street and caused some £1 million worth of damage, was still in the news. By late January, and after three reports, it was decided that a build-up of gas had been the cause. But just why there should have been an explosion at all remained a mystery - the only leak that could be found being in a main which
had been damaged by falling masonry. Experts were also puzzled that no gas smell was reported until a few hours before the massive explosion. Questions still to be answered included where the gas had come from and just how it had ignited.
January proved a good month for speedway fans as Bristol Rovers directors, who had been bargaining hard with their landlords at Bristol Stadium, announced that the sport would soon return to the city, possibly in May. The pitch was to be reduced by two feet either side, although it would still, apparently, conform to the minimum pitch size required by FIFA.
Another project to get the go-ahead this month was that of a licenced floating restaurant for the Harbourside. Every other old port now had one, it seemed, and Bristol wasn't going to lag behind. After tenders had gone out, Courage's showed interest in putting an old ship in St Augustine's Reach and another company expressed a desire to put an old lightship in the Cumberland Basin. The following year residents and visitors to the city were able to enjoy a drink or two on board two 'floating pubs' - the Courage vessel Lochiel and the old lightship moored on Welsh Back. Here it achieved a measure of fame as an , attractive backdrop to the popular Bristol-made TV detective series Shoestring.
Plans for a Severn Barrage - an ambitious scheme to generate electricity by damming the River Severn were still at the study discussion level in 1977. The country's energy needs. Other benefits -apart from an everlasting pollution-free supply of power - would be deep water docks, land reclamation, including space for a big new airport, and a vast, safe, recreational area with crystal clear water for Clevedon, Weston-super-Mare and other coastal areas. Needless to say, we're still waiting.
The government still had a wages policy in 1977 and a report in the Bristol Post stated that Britain's pay packets had been squeezed yet again. Basic wage rates in the year to December had, wait for it, only risen by 11.7 per cent. But this was low compared with the year ending December 1975 when they had risen 27 per cent. According to the Employment Department wages were now rising more slowly than at any time in the last three years. Basic wages, we were told, were now lagging behind price rises. Chancellor Denis Healey said that working people would not be prepared to put up with cuts in their living standards for much longer.
So, without much money in our pockets, let's see what was on the telly. On Saturday afternoon you could sit down with a cup of tea and a piece of cake to watch, on BBC, Jimmy Saville making all those dreams come true in Jim 'II Fix it followed by Tom Baker in Dr Who. Later in the evening came entertainment from top class comedian Mike Yarwood, followed at 9pm by David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser in Starsky And Hutch and by Parkinson at 11pm with special guest PM Harold Wilson.
If that wasn't your thing then you could watch Sight And Sound In Concert with Santana on BBC2 followed by M.A.S.H. On Sunday there was the very popular That's Life with Esther Rantzen. Coming soon at the Colston Hall were Rory Gallagher, Todd Rundgren's Utopia, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Jethro Tull. The Bamboo Club in St Pauls' was featuring Skywale and the comedy band the Barron Knights were featuring at the All Saints St Hofbrauhaus. Welsh back's Granary Club - members and guests only, 8.30pm until lam - had been lucky enough to book Medicine Head for the following Thursday.
The Black and White Minstrel Show (you won't be seeing one of those again) was on at the Hippodrome, with Frankie Howerd starring in a Frank Maddox panto Jack And The Beanstalk at Bath's Theatre Royal. Bristol's Old Vic was showing the panto Aladdin with the Little Theatre putting on David Wood's The Plotters of Cabbage Patch Corner. Crowds were flocking to Bristol cinemas to see a spectacular new version of King Kong with Jessica Lange and Victory At Entebbe with Anthony Hopkins.
Cost of Living
Wages: Trainee rep: £2,860 rising to £3,000
Warehouse manager: £3,000
Temp secretary at the BBC £1,992
Property
New. three-bedroom house in Nailsea from £9,895
Consumer
Datsun Bluebird 1770cc motorcar £2,425
Hoover junior £25
Washing machine £80
