Crusader against the ungainly pylon and the unsightly power station which straddle the English countryside, the Council For the Preservation of Rural England held its annual meeting on Monday.

But “conscious Philistinism” – the idea that if you are going to have a power station and there is one beautiful location you automatically choose it – is on the wane, said Lord Tweedsmuir in an address to the meeting.

There were some, he said, who when they saw a landscape thought of levelling it out and filling it in with concrete.

He spoke of the magnificent diversity of Britain and attacked the outlook of modernism in planning which was careless of the past.

“You can have no uniformity in this country of such diverse beauty,” he said.
We were more truly a nation of countrymen than any other nation in the world.

"If a man is successful he always moves to the country. In other parts of the world, he moves into the city. But we have misused our country probably worse than any other country in Europe,” he continued.

[From the Watford Observer of June 8, 1951]

 

Sunday trading is still illegal for most shops – that’s the message of a new publicity campaign to be launched this summer by Watford Borough Council.

In the wake of the defeat of the Government’s Sunday Trading Bill, councillors have decided to let shops know exactly what they can and can’t sell on a Sunday – and then prosecute persistent offenders.

Shoppers and shopkeepers are thoroughly confused about the Sunday trading laws, Watford Borough’s environmental health and licensing committee heard on Monday. But some shops have taken advantage of the situation to flout the law, environmental chief Roy Ware said.

[From the Watford Observer of June 13, 1986]

 

An amalgamated meeting of the committees of the Watford Rovers Football Club and Watford Cricket Club was held on Thursday evening for the purpose of discussing the advisability of procuring a common ground for the two clubs. A further meeting, it was decided, should be called.

[From the Watford Observer of June 16, 1888]

 

Many defendants are puzzled when asked in court if they wish to give evidence on oath or make a statement to the magistrates, but few ask what the difference is. One did so on Tuesday, however, and a ripple of laughter followed the assistant clerk’s reply: “Well,” said Mr A.S. Hutchings, “if you take the oath you swear to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If you make a statement, you can say what you like.”

[From the Watford Observer of June 17, 1938]

 

The Mayor of Watford (Councillor F.H. Vince) pressed a switch on a lamp standard on the corner of Queens Road and the High Street on Monday night, and the small crowd of people back from theatre, cinema or the dance hall, paused to watch.

They saw the High Street bathed in a warm white light from the 12 lamp standards which have recently been erected, each of which bears a lantern containing three 80-watt fluorescent tubes.

British Thomson-Houston Co. Ltd. were responsible for the installation which gives Watford one of the most up-to-date lighting systems in the country.

[From the Watford Observer of June 24, 1949]