Dominating Bristol's front pages over 40 years ago were stories concerning that immensely popular Irish chart topping trio The Bachelors, who were appearing in a crisis-hit Puss In Boots - along with comedian Joe Baker - at the Hippodrome (popular tickets cost five shillings each, or 25p). Firstly, one of the trio, John Stokes, had ended up in a Bristol hospital for an emergency operation and so couldn't appear in the show.
His wife Celine had given birth to their second son in a Bristol nursing home just three weeks previously. Then one of the two guitar-playing brothers, Declan Cluskey, was injured in an early morning road accident as, on his way to London to pick up a new motor, his white sports car left the road at Pewsham, crashed through a metal fence and overturned in a field. But the singer's manager, who drove to Chippenham hospital to see him, insisted that, even with 14 stitches in his head and a black eye, he would be still appearing on stage that night.
'He is the luckiest fellow in the world to be alive in view of what happened,' he told a Bristol Post reporter. 'He thinks that he must have had a blowout or something. But he's feeling fine; the show will go on tonight, and he will be in it.' Then, after finally getting the two invalids back to the Hippodrome, came criticism of their behaviour. A Miss Jones got in touch with the Post to say that she had very much enjoyed the show, but was surprised to see one of the Bachelors talking and making 'funny remarks' to the person next to him during the playing of the National Anthem. She went on: 'I have heard from other people,' she added, 'that this is not an isolated case. These young men owe a great deal to this country for the fame and fortune they have achieved, and I suggest the very least they can do is to save their boorish insults for a less public place.'
A spokesman for the group replied: 'This must have been an isolated incident. The Bachelors respect the National Anthem and would regret this complaint very much. They are British subjects and they pay very high taxes.'
If The Bachelors in panto weren't your cup of tea then there was a bit of excitement coming up on March 15, when there was to be a Colston Hall concert by the trouser-splitting, pigtail-wearing P J Proby (and orchestra) along with his special guests, the popular Merseyside band, The Searchers. Billed as Proby's 'farewell appearance', tickets, starting at 25p, went all the way upto a grand 62p. Failing that, you could save up your pennies to see the legendary Bob Dylan on May 10 at the same venue. His final public gig in the city, ever, the best tickets would set you back a princely £1.
The 1960s were, of course, a time of great change, and in 1966 three major projects dominated the news in our part of the country. One, the first Severn Bridge, spanning the river from Aust to Beachley, was completed in early March, although it wasn't officially opened by the Queen until August. After weathermen had hinted of a freshening 12-knot wind, the bridge engineers decided to bring their finalising dates forward - and the 88th final deck section, weighing 130 tons and some 120 feet above the water, was slotted into place on the Beachley side by a six- man crew. As the section rose into place - complete with Union Jack and Welsh Dragon flags fluttering in the wind - office girls working for the contractors, Associated Bridge Builders, lined the jetty rails to raise a cheer and wave. It was a centuries-old dream come true.
Later in the day, two men, Thomas Stott, a works inspector on a bicycle, and Kenneth Brunto, a foreman welder on foot, made history as the first men to cross the bridge from shore to shore. Said Mr Stott, who set off during his lunch break: 'I was determined to bring the first vehicle across. It's not much of one but at least it's got wheels.'
Yet another big project - lagging very much behind, but still seen as vital to the prosperity of Bristol - was the new, massive dock planned for Portbury. Twenty Tory MPs were so upset that Labour's Transport Minister, Barbara Castle, was refusing to make an announcement about its progress, that they threatened to sign a censure motion. With a general election in the offing it was felt by many that the South Wales ports - and their electors - would be favoured with extra aid at the expense of Bristol's shipping and trading interests.
The third major project was the M5 motorway, which, strange as it may seem today, was officially planned to end at East Brent in Somerset. Now, plans were afoot to continue it to a link with the A38 at Edithmead, an extra two-and-a-half miles. And for some months, the story had got around, Somerset county engineers had been carrying out an intensive survey of a route from here to the Somerset/Devon border. Stephen Swingler, parliamentary secretary to the Transport Ministry, hinted that the road might go even further, saying: 'A further extension, or the provision of a dual carriageway all-purpose road from Edithmead to Exeter is under examination.'
Keynsham was also undergoing something of a 'highway' revolution with the construction of its much-needed by-pass. Rapidly taking shape, and of much interest to residents, was the associated new, high-level bridge over the river Chew. Meanwhile, back in Bristol, the fledgling conservation groups - fed up with an increasingly authoritarian Corporation - were beginning to flex their muscles. The folks who lived in Kingsdown's centuries-old Somerset Street, for instance, were soon up in arms when they discovered that the council wanted to lay a carpet of tar over their much- loved, time-worn cobbles.
Angry resident Mrs Geaney told a Post reporter: 'There was this great tar thing at the end of the road and a whole army of Corporation men advancing on us. They were going to ruin our lovely cobbles.' On being requested to move their cars, Mrs Geaney and her friends were soon on the phone to Jim Bennett, the city engineer. She was assured that the work would be stopped and that there would be further consultations before anything more was done. Councillor Wright, who arrived on the scene poste haste, told the Post: 'These people would rather bump along ye olde worlde cobbles instead of having a newfangled Tarmac surface - and I agree with them. It would spoil the whole atmosphere of the place.' A victorious Mrs Geaney had the last word. She said: 'After I had stumbled across this place (200-year-old Kingsdown) I thought it so beautiful that I decided to stay. Some people have spent thousands of pounds trying to preserve this bit of old Bristol.
Young speedsters have already tried to turn it into a Brands Hatch race track ... Tarmac would be the last straw.'
On a sad note, Bristol Zoo announced that Josephine, its famous gorilla, had died at the age of 14 after being ill for a fortnight. The zoo director, Mr Greed, told the Post: 'She had a bad cold but we thought that she was recovering. But on Tuesday she became lethargic and yesterday she had to be separated from her mate.' Head keeper Bert Jones, the last person to see her alive after taking her some bananas around midnight, had apparently brought her to the zoo from Paris some 12 years previously, after a trip to the Belgian Congo to fetch two gorillas.
Wages
Work study officer - £1,200 pa
Lab technician - £805 pa Nurse (qualified) - £595 pa
Ice cream salesman - £20 a week (summer only)
Motor mechanic - £16 a week
Waitress - £10 a week
Part-time salesgirls - five shillings an hour (25p)
Consumer
Twenty Park Drive cigarettes (plain) - four shillings and two pence (21p)
John Collier worsted suit - £13
Two-year-old Mini - £330
Day return by rail (any train) to see the Ideal Home Exhibition - £2
New World gas cooker - £33
New semi in Clevedon - £3,795
Victorian bay villa in St George - £1,975
Memories of 1967
January 1967 was cold - so cold in fact that 80 shivering workers at the Feeder Road works of Newman's Plant and Machinery Division walked out for two hours claiming that it was just too cold to work. One man told the Post: 'Our hands and feet were numb.' As the men drank hot canteen soup in the yard outside and warmed themselves up with a rousing chorus of Baby It's Cold Outside - complete with guitar accompaniment - union reps took up their case with the management.
The men warned their bosses that they would down tools again the following day if the works was not made any warmer. But after Gas Board engineers were called in to look at the company's recently-installed £12,000 heating plant, the walk-out ended.
The week's main front page story - and one which led to an inquiry - was a head-to-tail collision between two express trains outside the disused St Anne's station. Eight of the 600 passengers on board were injured, but only one - 29-year-old David Newman - was detained in hospital. He was said to be 'comfortable'. The accident happened when the Paddington to Swansea express ploughed into the rear of the Paddington to Bristol train which had stopped at a signal near St Anne's. The South Wales train had been diverted through here because of a goods derailment at Wapley Common, near Chipping Sodbury.
It had run into the back of the stationary train at 20mph, but luckily the luggage coach, which was hoisted high in the air and then crushed, had acted as a buffer and protected the rest of the train from the full impact of the collision.
Luck came Eastville's way as Rovers were drawn at home to Arsenal in the third round of the FA Cup match of January 28. 'A great draw, ' commented manager Bert Tann. Arsenal had last played The Gas in the Cup in January 1936 when they had crushed the home team 5-1. The result this time? Three-nil to Arsenal before an excitable crowd of some 35,000.
Other news included city council approval to spend more than £1 million upgrading Lulsgate's Bristol Airport, despite ongoing controversy over whether it should move to Filton. The money included £750,000 to be spent on extending the main runway. Councillor Charlie Merrett urged the airport committee to stick with Lulsgate, saying: 'So far as the residents of Horfield, Southmead and Henbury are concerned, they don't want VC10s roaring over their heads hour after hour. The place for the airport is Lulsgate.' Councillor Bob Wall pointed out that this was already happening anyway. St Peter's - the bomb-damaged church lying in the heart of the old Wine Street/Castle Street. shopping area (now Castle Park) - was also in the news and causing not a little controversy.
In 1966 a row had broken out when it was revealed that £40,000 was to be spent preserving the gutted church and making the building safe. Although this figure had been reduced to £27,000, the Corporation decided to consult Sir Hugh Casson - who was already working on new museum and art gallery plans for the area - to see if he thought the spending was justified. Sir Hugh said it was, and that furthermore the church tower was an integral part of his scheme for redevelopment. To brick up the ground floors and windows, he added, would be 'visually disastrous'.
Many people were saddened to learn that Bristol Central Commercial School in Old Market's Redcross Street - which had provided shorthand, typing and bookkeeping courses for young people for some 25 years was to close in the summer. Remaining pupils were to be transferred to Rose Green High School. Two Severnside local landmarks were also going. The ship Vindacatrix, moored at Sharpness since 1939 and which had trained some 75,000 young men for a life in the Merchant Navy, was on her way to a Newport yard to be broken up. And the nearby Severn Railway bridge - badly damaged in a tanker disaster seven years previously - was to be demolished completely at a cost of some £100,000. It was planned for 14 of the trusses to be sent to South America and used on a new bridge there.
Some 4,000ft long, the structure - which once connected Severnside with the Forest of Dean - was opened in 1879. Described by Bristol's Chief Constable George Twist as a 'revolution' in crime, it was revealed that Bristol police were to recruit women traffic wardens for the very first time. Thirty extra wardens were to be appointed, with some taking over point duty from police and releasing them to get on with the job of fighting crime. Apparently the women were being introduced not in the interests of equality, but because of the difficulty of finding enough men for the job.
Everyone in January 1967 was going holiday mad, with page after page of the Post covered with ads for two-week package breaks. Going with Cooks, you could fly from Bristol to Palma for £55, or to the Austrian Tyrol or the Italian Riviera for £50. A nine-day 'panoramic' coach-tour would set you back a trifling £46 (spending money £41) or, a real bargain this, a 10-day coach trip through the Austrian Tyrol for just £23. Fancy something a bit more restful? Then a seven-day tour by coach through sleepy Irish towns and villages could be yours for just £37. Wallace Arnold Tours were offering even better deals - 32 guineas for 15 days on the Costa Brava, or 54 guineas for 15 days in southern Italy.
Bristol's very own travel agents Hourmont were begging you to fly with them - on the 'fastest Viscounts' - to Lido de Jessolo in Italy, Benidorm or Rimini for just £42. Staying at home? Then a trip to see the sights of London by Bristol Greyhound coach (via the motorway!) cost just 33 shillings. (There were 20 shillings to the pound in those good old days.) If you fancied seeing a panto then you could book (five shillings - 25p to 13 shillings) at the Hippodrome to see that popular Aussie folk group The Seekers along with comedian Ted Rogers in Humpty Dumpty. Bath Theatre Royal was putting on Goldilocks And The Three Bears, and Weston's Knightstone Theatre featured Aladdin with Arthur English.
Also on in Weston, at the Winter Gardens, was the exciting Alan Price Set. If you fancied something a little more highbrow, then Dickens' A Tale Of Two Cities was on at the Little Theatre. There wasn't much choice to be had at Bristol's cinemas that freezing January - they all seem to have been showing either Dr Zhivago or My Fair Lady.
