December 1966
Isle of Wight Times:-
Dec 1st 1966: ‘GO A BUNDLE’ – A G.P.O. “Do it yourself” campaign is being mounted in the Ryde area to encourage the public to speed the handling of Christmas mails by bundling their own correspondence before posting, on an experimental basis. When letters arrive at the Post Office they have to be segregated into two groups, large and small, at the same time they all have to be made to face the same way with the stamp in the top right hand corner, ready to go through the date-stamp machine.
Dec 1st 1966: MUSIC – With the inscription “Music Salon, 1855” only recently erased from the cornice of the building, TEAGUES, of Union Street, Ryde, can justly claim to be one of the town’s oldest businesses. Certainly where music is concerned they have no peer, not only in Ryde, but throughout the Island.
Dec 1st 1966: SWEET SHOP – The recent death in Australia of Miss Lily WARREN, formerly of Ryde will have been noted. Many local residents will remember the little sweet shop and general stores run by Miss WARREN in Bettesworth Road where they spent their ha’pennies and even farthings. The shop sold ‘everything’ tiger nuts, gob-stoppers, paraffin! When the district was developed Miss WARREN had a bungalow and new shop erected in the garden of her house, allowing more room than the tiny premises.
Dec 1st 1966: HOVERCRAFT – Two months after the idea of using the British Railways “Seaspeed” hovercraft service to take dangerously ill patients to the mainland was agreed on, the SRN-6 on Thursday proved itself highly suited to the role. On Thursday when poor visibility halted the steamer service the hovercraft met the ambulance at Cowes and, using radar, sped the stretcher-borne patient across the Solent where another ambulance was waiting.
Dec 1st 1966: FACTORY CLOSURE – When a Ryde soft drinks factory closes at the end of the year, there will be a few redundancy problems. A number of full-time staff at the Corona Soft Drinks firm, whose production and sales branch has operated at Bennett Steet since they acquired the premises in 1957, are to be employed in similar work at Newport.
Dec 8th 1966: ‘TURKISH BATH’ – Melville Street, Ryde, mysteriously developed a turkish-bath look on Monday evening as steam began rising from the pavement, and the highway felt warm to the touch. The Southern Electricity Board went to work with picks and shovels and found that a cable which had developed a fault was creating so much heat that it was causing steam to rise from the rain-soaked paving stones.
Dec 8th 1966: SCOUT FAYRE – “Scouting is one of the most commendable and worthwhile pursuits available to the youth of today,” Southern TV personality Peter Clark told parents, friends and supporters of 5th Ryde Scout Group at Ryde Town Hall on Saturday. He was opening the group’s annual Christmas Fayre. Numerous stalls were manned by the usual band of stalwarts, competitions were much in evidence.
Dec 8th 1966: NO LICENCE – A sequel to the recent TV detector van sweep of the North-East Wight was a list of summonses before Ryde Borough Magistrates, against viewers who used sets without licences. There were 8 people from the Ryde area, all pleaded guilty and each fined £7.
Dec 8th 1966: EX-RAILWAYMEN’S PARTY – About 150 people attended the third annual Christmas party of the Railway Retirement Association, held at the Oasis, on Tuesday afternoon. Among those present were representatives of similar associations in Havant and Bognor.
Dec 8th 1966: AMONG THE BROTHERS – Beginning what he hoped would be “a spell of rest and meditation” at a Benedictine monastery near Ryde, pop singer Scott ENGEL, one of the WALKER brothers, was besieged by teen-age girls on Sunday. A few days earlier the 22 year-old Hollywood born singer, one of the WALKER brothers, took a room with 300 other brothers—monks at Quarr Abbey.