Nostalgia: LOOKING BACK - August 20

August 16, 2007

A Daventry woman reflected on her experience after she returned from a three-week expedition in Uganda. District councillor Annette Dunn, of Lang Farm, spent time in Iganga - the town Daventry is unofficially twinned with - where she visited primary schools and orphanages, and also helped build a dam and a water pump. The trip was the culmination of a decade of correspondence between Annette and primary school teachers in Iganga. She said her main aim when arriving in Uganda was to meet as many people as possible and help out wherever and however she could.

August 13, 1992

A Chipping Warden family almost lost their home after lightning struck the house’s chimney, sparking an electrical fire. Owners of the Old Coach House, Jane and Paul Brook-Nolan, were in Norfolk at the time. Were it not for Jane’s brother Duncan, who was in the house looking after the cats, the family home may have completely burned down. The lightning strike had set the alarm system on fire, blown the transformer for the mobile phone out of the wall, and knocked a dry flowers bowl on top of the television feet away. The house’s chimney ended up falling through the roof and into the loft.

August 19, 1977

Daventry earth mover Maurice Masters unearthed his best work to date at the Water Gipsy site in Weedon. Maurice was clearing the village site when he unearthed three ale bottles, two of them of pot and the other made from heavy glass, which were all used in the bottling of local beers. Somehow all were in perfect condition. The glass bottle was stamped ‘Wood Bros., The Brewery, Daventry’. The ginger beer bottle bore the name E. Gross, Daventry, while the third jar came from Walker and Soames of Towcester. Maurice believed he had disturbed an old Victorian tipping ground.

Also appearing in the August 19 edition in 1977 was a story about Reg Bird, who has a peculiar gardening method. It read: Many gardeners believe talking to plants helps them grow, but 80-year-old Reg Bird has discovered a more effective method of producing giant vegetation. He swears at his produce - and he swears this has resulted in his massive cabbage that measures nearly five feet across. Knowing what to do with the enormous plant presented Reg and his wife Jessie with a few problems. "I'll probably let it go to see," said Reg, defying his wife's plans to cook the plant a leaf at a time, because he said "I don't like cabbage".