Backtracking: Dispatch headlines from March 1964

Amongst the stories to be making the news was a 51-year-old man being killed by a fire in Bulwell

The top stories for 20th March 164 included: A 51-year-old man loses his life and two other people are injured when FIRE ravages an apartment house on Coventry Road, Bulwell.

The dead man, MIKOLAJ BUTER, was employed as a mechanic by Bulwell haulage firm K&M Motors.

The first-floor bedroom was GUTTED and part of the floor collapsed into the room below. The cause of the blaze is being investigated.

When a 17-year-old Hucknall girl was walking home late one night, a 20-year-old man attacked her and STABBED her in the back, a court hears.

The man is said to have told police: “It was me. I had a small SCREWDRIVER. I don’t know what came over me.”

A charge of careless driving against a Hucknall AMBULANCE driver is dismissed by Nottingham magistrates, due to a lack of evidence.

The court hears that the ambulance knocked down a SCHOOL sign on Hucknall Lane, Builwell, and then completely destroyed a telephone kiosk before it came to a standstill on the opposite side of the road.

The ambulance driver claims he had to swerve to avoid a MOTORCYCLIST who was in his path.

Peter Fry, Hucknall and Bulwell’s prospective Parliamentary Conservative candidate, says the forthcoming GENERAL ELECTION will be like the FA Cup final, with the winning party needing teamwork, courage and confidence in its own ability.

An indecent anonymous TELEPHONE CALL so affected a 68-year-old Bulwell widow that she took her own life, an inquest hears.

Nora Mitchell was found dead with her head in a GAS COOKER at her home on Laxton Avenue, Highbury Vale Estate.

The Ministry of Transport announce that they finance three-quarters of the cost of a £95,000 improvement to ANNESLEY ROAD, Hucknall, at its junction with Wighay Road.

The town’s Labour MP, William Whitlock, has stressed in Parliament that the site is a major DANGER SPOT.

Lack of experience in the retail trade is blamed for the business failings of a Bulwell man who ran a COAL AND COKE company and fell into serious debt.

Although he was off duty when the theft of a VAN was reported at Hucknall police station, Pc Philip Thornton jumped into his car and tracked down the vehicle, magistrates hear.

A 17-year-old YOUTH is fined £5 for taking and driving away the van without consent.

Children in Calverton are persistently picking up stones from a new FLOWER BED and throwing them all over St Wilfrid’s Square, the parish council hears.

Hucknall Urban Council plan to demolish 48 houses on Orchard Street, Byron Street and Watnall Road as part of a SLUM CLEARANCE programme.

Rehearsals for a production of Shakespeare’s traditionally unlucky play, ‘MACBETH’, at Padstow Bilateral School, Bestwood Estate are dogged by misfortune.

The stage is FLOODED by a leaking radiator, the girl playing Lady Macbeth sprains her ankle, and a smoke cartridge goes off too vigorously, covering the three ‘witches’ in soot.

WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE -- a widespread use of sex and glamour in advertising, the freedom of love scenes in films and on TV and the status value to the modern girl of having a ‘steady’ boyfriend are among the reasons why Britain’s youngsters are so PROMISCUOUS, says the Southwell Dioscesan Youth Officer, Herbert Marks, speaking in Hucknall.

Bulwell vicar the Rev Charles Younge says a large percentage of people today are IGNORANT of Christian ways and are therefore unable to instruct their children.

The BEATLES have shown how youthful energy can be channelled into constructive activity, says Sam Mason, of the Churches of Christ, in a talk to Hucknall Free Church Federal Council.

A full-page advertisement is published in the Dispatch for BINGO sessions at the Adelphi Cinema in Bulwell.

The public are invited to become members of the GOLDMINE Bingo and Social Club, based at the Adelphi.

BLIND people should be encouraged to regard their disability as a challenge, says a speaker to Papplewick and Linby Village Institute Women’s Section.

People who say the River Leen is an OPEN SEWER should remember what an asset it has been to Bulwell, with industries successfully operating on its banks, says a letter-writer to the Dispatch.

Another letter states that a plan to extend the Linby Colliery tip will take SULPHUR FUMES closer to Hucknall’s National and Roman Catholic Schools.

Hucknall musical rhythm group The Meteors announce that they are changing their name to THE STRAYKATS.

A missionary exhibition entitled ‘Spotlight on INDIA’ is staged at the Central Methodist Church in Hucknall.

Bestwood Colliery Black Diamonds Band inherit a new instrument, an OPHICLIDE. The trouble is that none of the members can play it!

Five foxes are spotted but all escape during the SOUTH NOTTS HUNT, which starts from the Horse and Groom pub in Linby.

Bubbly Doris Day stars in a romantic comedy, ‘The Thrill Of It All’, showing at the BYRON CINEMA in Hucknall.

COURT -- a Hucknall man fined £2 for leaving his car without lights says he must have accidentally switched them off when he stopped to call at a FISH AND CHIP SHOP.

A Bulwell car driver involved in a police chase had drunk three pints of beer on top of TABLETS for depression, magistrates are told.

NAMES -- Hucknall man PETER BERRIDGE leaves for Cape Town, South Africa, where he is to take up an executive post with an advertising agency.

Bulwell district midwife BRENDA CAWTHORN is married at St Mary’s Church, Bulwell to JOHN WHITEHEAD.

SPORT -- 18-year-old Trevor Hunt, of Hucknall, wins £250 in a national Sunday newspaper football forecasting competition.tball forecasting competition.