Without boasting, but never before so confident. Mr F.W. Farey-Jones, Watford’s MP, told Watford Conservatives last Friday: “I don’t care if the general election is next week, next month or next year. I can assure you we are not going to lose Watford. I look forward to the future with absolute confidence.”

[From the Watford Observer of March 1, 1963]

NOSTALGIA NOTE: The next election was, in fact, on October 15, 1964, and Farey-Jones lost his seat to Labour’s Raphael Tuck. Tuck represented the town from then until the Tories won the seat back 15 years later in 1979.

A  defendant at Hemel Hempstead Police Court who had been summoned for non-payment of rates, offered a piano and a sideboard when asked by the Clerk what he was prepared to pay.

[From the Watford Observer of March 26, 1937]

The labourers working on the electric light trenches were still out on strike as we went to press. At the council meeting on Thursday evening, it was stated that the men were asking 6d an hour instead of 5½d.

[From the Watford Observer of March 18, 1899]

It pays to be superstitious. When a ladder was erected against a shop in Watford High Street on Wednesday, 67 passers-by were observed to give it a wide berth, risking life and limb in the traffic rather than pass underneath. No 68, a modern miss with no faith in old wives’ tales, walked boldly underneath, tripped and laddered her stocking.

[From the Watford Observer of March 4, 1949]

Watford Rural Council is to introduce all-night lighting of main traffic routes from October 1 next. “It will be appreciated by early morning workers and others,” said Councillor D.G. Williams at the council meeting on Tuesday.

[From the Watford Observer of March 6, 1964]

Elvis Presley needs a red hot single to regain his former superiority over other artists in the record markets of the world. His new one, Viva Las Vegas, certainly isn’t the one to change the Beatles’ tune. It’s just another boring song from another of Elvis’s boring conveyor-belt produced movies. When I go to a Presley film now I can’t help feeling I’ve seen it before, and the same goes for this record. The coupling is quite a good work-out on What’d I Say, the Ray Charles standard, but Elvis could do so much better.

[From the Watford Observer of March 13, 1964]

NOSTALGIA NOTE: The film Viva Las Vegas (renamed Love in Las Vegas in the UK as there was another film called Viva Las Vegas doing the rounds at the time) is these days regarded one of Presley’s best. However it wasn’t only the Watford Observer’s reviewer who wasn’t impressed at the time. Other reviews were lukewarm including Variety magazine which called it “trite”. It still made nearly ten million dollars at the box office though.

These stories conclude the Nostalgia column first published in the Watford Observer on March 14, 2014. The next Nostalgia column can be found in this week’s Watford Observer (dated March 21, 2014 and available in newsagents now, priced 90p) or read online here from 4pm on 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