On a couple of occasions recently, I’ve come across stories from years ago which are extraordinarily fitting for the present day.

One such story appeared in the Watford Observer of March 1, 1940 – more than 70 years ago, as I’m sure you don’t need me to point out.

Headed ‘Trees disappear in 100ft subsidence’ it’s every bit as dramatic as the events over in High Wycombe a month ago when a nine-metre-deep (30ft) sinkhole opened up in the driveway and swallowed a teenager’s car.

This ‘hole’ was near Tring, outside our circulation area these days but not so then.

The story reads: “The people of Tring and district have been greatly interested in a remarkable subsidence of earth in the wood adjoining the Kiln Cottages on the right hand side of the Hastoe-Cholesbury road, going from Tring.

“The space, formerly occupied by three larch trees, each almost 60 feet in height, now discloses a circular hole several yards in diameter, into the depths of which the three trees have gradually disappeared.

“Only the most daring visitors to the spot may now, at the risk of their lives, be rewarded by a glimpse of the topmost branches of one of the trees about 30 feet below and this only by standing on the precarious rim of the cavity. It is estimated the total depth of the pit must be approaching 100 feet.

“Searching for a clue to the mystery, older inhabitants have recalled that in the 1890s, a lime or chalk pit was being worked in this neighbourhood and the presence of a kiln of some kind is also suggested by the name given to the cottages and farm.

“It is suggested that when the chalk pit or kiln was abandoned it may have been filled in or timbered over and that an underground stream, of which there are said to be many in the neighbourhood, has gradually undermined the subsoil.

“Some visitors have tested this latter theory by tossing stones into the pit and claim to have heard the faint splash of water.

“It would certainly seem that only the presence of a very large cavity in the subsoil or of a subterranean stream, could account for the disappearance of so many tons of earth and three such tall trees.”

Three years earlier, it was Watford’s weather that was making headlines, rather like today. Only in those days, it wasn’t so much the amount of rain as the weather’s extraordinary inconsistency.

As a story in the Watford Observer of March 26, 1937 reported: “It may be worth putting on record that within the last seven days Watford has experienced snow, sleet, hail, frost, thunder and lightning, rain, fog and sunshine. Is there anything in the meteorological line left?” Probably not.

With all the talk these days of a new hospital for Watford, whenever it may eventually appear, it’s worth noting that the endowment of what is believed to be Watford’s first hospital, the Cottage Hospital at 45 to 47 Vicarage Road, was first mooted 127 years ago this month.

It was, according to the Watford Observer of March 19, 1887, at a meeting of the owners and ratepayers of the district of the Local Board, that ways were discussed to mark Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee that year.

At the end of the discussions, the following resolution was passed: “That this meetingconsiders the endowment of the Cottage Hospital to be a fitting local memorial of the Queen’s Jubilee, and that steps be taken to raise a fund for that purpose.”

The former cottage hospital had been built two years earlier, the single storey building said to be an “excellent example of a Victorian cottage hospital”, designed by local architect Charles Ayres.

The construction was financed by public conscription and opened the following year by Lady Clarendon.

It was extended in 1897 and again in 1903 to provide more beds, before being replaced as a general hospital by the Peace Memorial Hospital in 1925.

Since then, the building was used for a number of medical uses, such as a geriatric hospital and day centre, but has now been converted to offices.

If anyone has any more information about the old cottage hospital, please get in touch, via the email address at the foot of this column.

Finally this week, with the Winter Olympics still warm in our minds, if that’s not an odd way of putting it, I take you back to another major winter sporting event, but this one a bit closer to home: the fourth British Winter Waterski Championships, which “attracted most of the country’s leading performers to the Aquadrome, Rickmansworth, including double gold medallist Jeannette Stewart-Wood, the Watford Observer reported on March 3, 1967.

Ms Stewart-Wood won the overall championship, the slalom and the jumping. Robin Beckett, the British men’s champion, did not compete although he attended the event.

The action may have been hot but the water certainly wasn’t.

According to the report: “The water temperature at the Aquadrome was a mere 38 degrees, which was not at all comfortable for the bare-footed skiers as they skimmed over the water at speeds of 45 and 50mph.”

Despite that, however, “the standard of the jumping was particularly high,” said the report, adding that 4,000 people were there to witness it.

The report continues: “A spectacular exhibition of “human kite-flying” was given by Freddie Strasser, a favourite with Rickmansworth waterski enthusiasts.

“An exhibition of barefoot ski-ing without skis, the first time in Rickmansworth, was given by American visitor Keith Morgan.

“The cups were presented by Lord Wakefield of Kendal, president of the British Waterski Federation, who was accompanied by Lady Wakefield.”

ONLINE TOMORROW: Luther Blissett vs Graham Taylor - the first Watford wheelchair pancake race in 1981.

These stories formed part of the Nostalgia column first published in the Watford Observer on March 7, 2014. The next Nostalgia column can be found in tomorrow’s Watford Observer (dated March 14, 2014) or read online here from 4pm next Thursday.

If you have anything to add – or would like to tell us anything you think our readers may enjoy about Watford’s history – we are always pleased to hear from you. Contact Nostalgia, by clicking here watfordnostalgia@london.newsquest.co.uk