St Oswald Players, I was told, are the first to have performed this play in the southern counties of England. Let us hope they are the last, for a more painfully contrived, trite affair [than Mystery at Abbots Mead] it would be impossible to imagine.

I now know there are six, long wooden beams, counting the two in the middle as two, running lengthways along the roof of the St Oswald’s Parish Hall, plus four iron cross pieces, five large windows on one side, five small windows on the other side, eight doors (not counting the two in the scenery on stage), a serving hatch and five lights on each side.

All of which details interested me far more than either the plot or the acting. I am sorry to have to say. There is nothing I like more than being able to praise a production, but I must respectfully suggest that next time, the St Oswald Players try to make their performance look a little less like the second night of rehearsals before they invite an audience along.

[Drama critic EFG is not impressed, in the Watford Observer of November 15, 1963]

 

A young girl at Bishops Stortford lost a £1 treasury note in the New Town Road. Her efforts to find it attracted the attention of the whole neighbourhood and the vicinity was soon crowded with treasure hunters carrying lights. A very animated scene was presented for half an hour and then the note was found at the corner of Castle Street and handed to the owner.

[From the Watford Observer of November 14, 1925] 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Despite a drop in receipts, the Watford Communist Party were well satisfied by the £200 raised at Saturday's Morning Star bazaar at the Co-op Hall in St Albans Road.

A large crowd was at the noon opening of the bazaar by county councillor Dr John Dore, but as the afternoon wore on the number of visitors dwindled.
The £200 raised was about £60 below last year’s receipts but the organisers were pleased in view of the stringent economic climate.

Councillor Dore, in a speech at the opening of the bazaar, praised the Morning Star newspaper because it was the only daily paper to be owned by its readers, not by capitalists.

[From the Watford Observer of November 28, 1975]

 

A Watford man, who helped rescue three young children from the estuary of the River Thames at Southend in July, has received an award from the Royal Humane Society.

Mr Peter Jules Norman Godecharle, 30, of Leggatts Way, Watford, has been awarded a Resuscitation Certificate “for restoring the apparently dead from drowning or asphyxia”.

The three children, two aged eight and the other nine, were playing with a ball in the sea when they got out of their depth.

Mr Godecharle waded in and saved two of the boys, and a Mr Frederick Morton saved the third.

Mr Morton, a London man, has been awarded a testimonial on parchment.

[From the Watford Observer of November 18, 1960]