July 29, 1953

Newark's town crier, Mr Bert Hall, was entered for the National Town Criers' Championship to be held at Hastings.

Apart from the prizes for the finest 'Oyez,' the winner gets £50 and a challenge cup, and there are three prizes for the best dressed criers.

The contest will be held in Alexandra Park and the contestants will proclaim their set piece across a lake.

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Complaints are being made by Newark television viewers in the Hawton Road, Albert Street, Vickers Estate area about sound and vision interference.

Messages heard on sets show that they came from local ambulance headquarters which is in radio communication with vehicles.

Instructions about proceeding to addresses and to hospitals are distinctly heard and, after the word over, presumably when a reply is being given, a tweedy pattern appears on screens and blots out the picture.

The interference was particularly noticeable and annoying during the Test match, the tweedy patterns destroying the picture and the messages to ambulances super-imposing the commentaries.

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A new drill hall is planned for Sherwood Avenue, Newark, it is announced. The War Office have not yet authorised an invitation for tenders.

The architect is Mr C. F. W. Haseldine of Nottingham. Disclosing plans for the expansion of Territorial Army centres in Nottingham and the county, a War Office spokesman said that two new drill halls were also planned for Nottingham.

In addition to the halls being completed at Triumph Road, Nottingham, after two years work, the War Office have approved another hall.

This hall is to be built at Wigman Road and the War Office have authorised the Nottinghamshire Territorial Association to ask for tenders.
 

July 22, 1953

There were smiles despite showers of rain which threatened to mar Sutton-on-Trent Conservative fete on Saturday. The fete takings amounted to £55.

The event was held in the ground of Tudor Court, the Sutton home of Mr and Mrs E. D. L. Walton.

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'Peggy' Gadsbury, a 74-year-old one-legged veteran who worked at Ransome and Marles, Newark, during the war, recently replaced his son Leslie in a high-diving act at Carlisle's holiday fair after Leslie was injured.

Though he is retired, this Royal Marine Command performer and trainer of high divers agreed to dive 75ft in flames into 5½ feet of water.

His son was taken to the Cumberland Infirmary with a double fracture of the arm, fractured fingers, and injuries to the head and chest.

Ironically, it was because he was jumping from a greatly reduced height that he was injured.

Usually he dives from 120ft, but because of damage the tower could only be erected to 75ft. This altered the angle of the dive and there was no margin for error.

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Ten children from Robert Thoroton School, Flintham, left on Monday for a 12-day hiking holiday in Germany.

They have linked up with a party of German children - some of whom are penfriends of the Flintham scholars, and are staying at Rhineland youth hostels each night.

Their itinerary includes Bonn, the capital of western Germany, Andernach, Koblenz and the famous Rhine Gorge. One youth hostel they will visit is a Rhine castle.

The Flintham boys and girls are under the leadership of Mr S. Beard, headmaster of Robert Thoroton School, and the senior assistant master, Mr R. Whitehouse.
 

15 July 1953

Ten-year-old Raymond Berry should have gone to a wedding on Saturday. Instead he went for a cycle ride.

He was one of 30 Newark school children  who competed in Newark Road Safety Council's road safety trial.

And it was Raymond, who lives at 10 Stephen Road, who won first prize - a dynamo set for the cycle his parents bought him three years ago.

After he received his prize from the Deputy Mayor of Newark (Ald J. A. Markwick) one of Raymond's teachers from Lover's Lane School revealed that he had almost missed the trial.

He agreed to compete only at the last moment - on Thursday, the closing day for entries.

The Berry family had accepted an invitation to a wedding, but because Raymond's sister was ill in bed, the outing had to be cancelled. So Raymond was able to enter.

The event was started from London Road Carpark. The other prize winners were: 11-year-old Michael Saxby, Mount School, who was second won a saddle bag, Patricia Moffatt of Lover's Lane (third) a cyclometer, and Glenys Shepherd took the fourth prize.

Newark has the smartest and most efficient firemen, and the best-run fire station in Nottinghamshire, it was announced on Saturday.

At the County Fire Service fire-fighting competitions and annual inspection at Worksop, Newark full-time firemen were presented with the Swansborough cup, awarded annually to the most efficient fire brigade in the county.
 

July 8, 1953

Kelham Sugar factory's children summer fete was this year combined with a coronation party on the factory's sports ground. Children of employees were given a coronation mug and a silver spoon.

The first item was a fancy dress parade which was judged by Mrs F. N. C. Dwyer and Miss M. Ford.

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A Southwell bride-to-be drove by taxi, 450 miles across America to surprise her fiancé... and all the time he was waiting in New York to meet her off the plane.

Twenty-three-year-old Joyce Day was on her way to marry a United States Air Force sergeant when she missed her plane to New York from London Airport.

She took the next flight, thinking she could get a taxi to her fiancé's home and surprise him there. On arrival in New York she gave the taxi driver his address in Wall, Pennsylvania.

Thirteen hours later she arrived. "I thought it was just a hop, skip and jump. The driver did not say much ... he just drove and drove," she said.

Worried Sergeant John Sonovick was waiting in New York. A telephone call from Pennsylvania sent him home, and he and Miss Day were married on Saturday.

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Newark has 21 problem families. They live in old RAF huts in the shade of an aircraft hanger off Strawberry Hall Lane, Lincoln Road.

Some have lived there for seven years: others not so long. But all say they have been told they are on the housing list. Some have given up hoping for a council house because they cannot pay the rents being charged for the newest houses.

At Newark Town Council's last meeting, Councillor W. Shore alleged that people living on the site had been forgotten by the council. They were sent there, told they were on a housing list, and that was as far as they got, he said.
 

July 1, 1953

Remember Helston Furry, Sellengers Round, Gathering Peascods, The Old Mole, Black Nag, Newcastle, and Circassian Circle?

It is the very young who keep these names of country dances alive, and on Thursday more than 400 children from Newark and district schools performed in the 16th annual children's festival organised by the Newark group of the English Folk Dance and Song Society.

The festival was held on Newark Girls High School playing field. The children were trained at their schools by their teachers.

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The Minister of Food's announcement that surplus meat can be sold off the ration was not entirely unexpected by Newark butchers and they do not consider it an answer to their problem of "too much meat of inferior quality."

They think the housewife today gets as much meat as she wants on the ration, particularly during warm weather.

Mr. G. E. Sibley, president of the Notts Retail Meat Traders' Council, said: "The fact is, the ministry does not know what to do or how to do it. They have been giving us such a lot of inferior meat which they have now given us the privilege of refusing.

"I shall not put my best meat in the window for sale to anyone, I shall keep it for customers who have been loyal all through rationing."

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Newarkers are urged to burn their waste paper instead of putting it into dustbins. Mr A. E. Whomsley, chairman of the town council's public health committee said that the council could not dispose of the paper after it had been collected and there was a risk of fires breaking out on their refuse tips.

Mr T. E. Howes pointed out the danger of burning paper in open grates, particularly if chimneys needed sweeping.

Mr Whomsley said: "We have got to ask people to be practical and exercise a modicum of common sense."