Precinct meeting

Watford Youth Campaign for CND kept their word on Saturday and defied the ban on meetings in the Watford High Street precinct. Police were on duty but did not interfere. Everything, in fact, went off without trouble, the only diversion being supplied by the interruptions of a veteran member of the audience.

[March 5, 1965]

The printing mecca

When some of the ‘top brass’ of Russia’s printing industry visit England for a study-tour at the invitation of the leading members of the British newspaper and printing industry, it is almost inevitable that their itinerary will include a trip to Watford. And so it came about that the four Soviet printing engineers who arrived in England last Thursday for a 10-day tour spent the whole of Monday at Watford studying the production of magazines at Odhams Ltd, which is reputed to be one of the most up-to-date printing works of its kind in the world.

[March 5, 1965]

Your taxi, sir

Every day a male stronghold crumbles, as women gradually move into jobs where men have reigned supreme in the past. One of the latest women to move into a male preserve is Mrs D.G. (Penny) Smith, of Parsonage Close, Abbots Langley. She is Watford’s first and only woman taxi-driver.

[March 12, 1965]

My dear Watson!

Mystery surrounded Bushey village on Monday. Shoppers just stopped and stared. Some spoke in whispers. What was happening? As Conan Doyle’s famous fictional detective would have remarked: “It’s elementary, my dear Watson.” Anyone recognising period costumes, spotting a TV camera, or hearing familiar cries of “quiet please… take one… cut!” would have guessed. A BBC camera team was busy shooting a scene for the “Sherlock Holmes” series. Our picture shows actors Nigel Stock (Dr Watson) and (behind the dark glasses) Peter Henchie.

[March 12, 1965]

‘Watch it’ call

Trade Unionist Mr Pat Slavin, who spoke our strongly against Trades Council participation in the Churchill Memorial Appeal, has received a threatening, middle-of-the-night telephone call. He was awakened about midnight by a caller who warned him: “The boys don’t like it. Watch your step, brother.”

[March 19, 1965]

Far too hazardous

The old arguments about crossing the road in Watford were aired again on Wednesday night at the Road Safety Advisory Committee meeting at the Town Hall. “The car is ruling our lives,” said Councillor C.F. Johnson. “We have to take our lives in our hands crossing the road every day.” The committee was discussing the road accident figures for January 1965 – which are 9% up on the same month last year. “It is all due to speed,” contended Mr J.F. Chown. “There is no consideration for the pedestrian.”

[March 19, 1965]

‘First generation pagans’

Many schoolchildren and young people today are “first generation pagans”, a Bushey church was told on Sunday. The Reverend Tom Greenaway, guest preacher at Bushey Congregational Church, told of the shock he received when he visited a number of schools. He found that many children had no belief and no ethical standards on which to base their lives.

[March 19, 1965]

Filmed at school

A BBC TV camera team spent three days at Oxhey Wood Junior School this week making an educational film. Their subject: children watching television. The film, part of a series of educational programmes to be shown on BBC2 in July, is designed to show teachers how valuable television can be to modern teaching lessons.

[March 26, 1965]

What was happening in the world in March 1965?

• Bruce McLaren won the Australian Grand Prix but the race was marred by a crash that killed driver Rocky Tresise and a cameraman, Robin Babera (March 1)

• Operation Rolling Thunder, the daily bombing of North Vietnam by the United States, began (March 2)

• The film version of The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews, premiered in New York City (March 2)

• The Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupted; 15 million cubic metres of lava poured out of the ground in the first eight hours (March 5)

• The first American military combat troops arrived in South Vietnam (March 8)

• In France, President Charles de Gaulle approved a bill to remove many of the restrictions placed on married women. At the time, married women could not have a job, open a bank account, or spend their own earnings without their husband’s consent (March 10)

• Queen Elizabeth II ended the ostracism of the Duchess of Windsor, the former Mrs Wallis Simpson, 28 years after her uncle, formerly King Edward VIII, had abdicated the throne in order to marry the divorced American (March 15)

• Frank Bossard, a member of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service who had been selling information to the Soviet Union for four years, was arrested in Bloomsbury (March 15)

• The first TGI Friday’s restaurant was founded in America (March 15)

• Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov left the airlock on his spacecraft for 12 minutes and 9 seconds, becoming the first person to ‘walk in space’ (March 18)

• The story broke that US and South Vietnamese forces were using gas warfare in combat (March 22)

• The US launched Gemini 3, the nation’s first space mission with two astronauts and the first manoeuvrable spacecraft from any nation (March 23)

• Martin Luther King Jr and 25,000 civil rights activists successfully ended the four-day march from Selma, Alabama, to the capitol in Montgomery (March 25)

• An estimated 470 people were killed in the El Cobre dam burst and landslide that followed an earthquake in central Chile (March 28)

• A car bomb exploded in front of the US Embassy in Saigon, killing 20 people and injuring 175 (March 30)