November 30, 1955

The first street to go in Newark's slum clearance will be Collingham Row and the adjoining properties in Queen's Road.

All 26 properties involved are occupied — by a total of 53 adults and 29 children.
They have no piped water inside their houses and no fixed baths.

Their washing has to be dried on lines slung between their front doors.

The town council decided on Monday to build 26 new houses for these families.

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About 170 young men for whom the prospect of two years National Service is imminent filled the hall at Newark Technical College on Wednesday to hear how they would be called up and what each of the Services had to offer.

The meeting was organised by the Newark and District Youth Employment Committee.

Guest chairman Lt-Col S. I. Derry said the committee considered there were two very important items in the life of a young man — his career and his National Service.

“You may enter the services feeling that whatever happens you won’t enjoy it,” he said.

“This sort of attitude cannot possibly help. That is why this meeting has been called. We want to help you make your National Service enjoyable and to take it in your stride.’
 

November 23, 1955

Earlier this year, Newark Town Council learned with dismay that one house in nine in the borough was classed as unfit for occupation.

Yet the problem has a bright side. For while subsidies on ordinary council building have been cut and will eventually be abolished, those for houses built to replace condemned slums are to continue at the present level.

Thus Newark — which has already outclassed most comparable authorities in post-war building — now has an incentive to take immediate action on slum clearance.
 
Newark has 800 dwellings scheduled as unfit. Of those, 300 are priority cases — houses that will be demolished in the first five years of the soon to start clearance scheme.

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During the past two weeks about 15 unlicensed wireless sets and two unlicensed television sets have been discovered in the Newark district by a Post Office detector van.

A more satisfactory feature of the “comb” is that since it began, 185 sound and 90 television new licences have been taken out, and owners of 164 television sets, who previously held licences for sound only, have taken out television licences.
 

November 16, 1955

The dates of Newark Show are almost bound to clash with either the Royal Windsor Horse Show or the FA Cup Final.

Both have in recent years become clashes that the show is anxious to avoid.

A clash with the cup final - unimportant until recently - may mean a reduction in the Saturday gate because of the enormous increase in televiewing.

At its annual meeting at the Robin Hood Hotel the Newark Agricultural Society decided to leave the dates of the 1957 show for decision by the council after the effects of the Cup Final on the 1956 show on May 4 and 5 have been assessed.

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The casting vote on whether members of Newark Town Bowling Club should play bowls on Sunday was made by president of the club, Mr H. M. L. Hutchinson, JP, at the Friendly Society's Hall, Newark, last week. He voted against the proposal.

Mr Hutchinson said: “I do not think it right that such a change in the club should be made without a large majority of the club's members voting in favour.”
 

November 9, 1955

Referring to disregard of the marriage laws when he spoke at Newark’s Remembrance Day Service on Sunday, the vicar of Newark (the Rev J. H. D. Grinter) said society rested ultimately on the basis of the family.

“Where family life has been strong, there we find national life has been strong - but where the obligations of the family and of family life have been disregarded, the whole life of the nation has sunk in exact proportion,” he said.

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After being floored three times in the first round of his light heavyweight fight at Ransome and Marles Canteen on Saturday evening, a Newark boxer, N. Walker, went into the second round with a new lease of life.

His opponent from Sheffield crashed to the canvas twice before he was knocked unconscious with the neatest knock-out seen in Newark for the last ten years.

Last time a knock-out caused a sensation was when Darky O’Sullivan of Derby k-o’d Alf Phillips of Newark at the Corn Exchange, Newark, in 1945.

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After a summer during which few rabbits have been seen in Newark district, a new generation is appearing in the fields —but almost as fast as it appears, it is being wiped out by myxomatosis.
Farmers’ fears that rabbits might develop an immunity to the disease are being refuted.

RSPCA Inspector G. S. Goreham said the few rabbits that escaped last year’s mass slaughter developed individual immunity, but their young were not immune.
 

November 2, 1955

The first Collingham Village Produce Association digging match match was for men, women and boys only, but this year a class for girls was included. With 14 entrants, it was the most popular section.

The class winners were Mr Jack Spencer (men), Miss Mary Akrill (women) Eric Croft (boys) and Rita Lane (girls). The old age pensioners’ prize went to 67-year-old Mr J. Keyte.

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Recent Civil Defence campaigning around Newark’s Hawtonville estate produced 100 recruits.

Most of them, with the other prospective volunteers, went to Bowbridge Road Primary School, Newark, on Wednesday evening to hear what they would be expected to do if an atom bomb was dropped.

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There will be no municipal Christmas tree in Newark Market Place this year.
Three reasons given for this decision are that Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, “apparent lack of enthusiasm” over recent years, and the cost — £80 last year.

The General Purpose Committee’s decision not to have the traditional tree this year was challenged at Monday’s Town Council meeting, but a reference back was defeated by 11 votes to six.

Councillor D. P. Blatherwick reminded Newark Town Council that he was one of those who had prophesied that enthusiasm for the tree would decline if the lights were switched on before Christmas Eve.