If the congregation at Watford Parish Church 100 years ago, or 20 years ago for that matter, had been told that just before Christmas, 1927, an evening service there would be heard by at least one million people, they would have regarded their informant as having “bats in the belfry”.

Yet a million is rather an underestimate of those who will listen to the service that is to be broadcast from 2LO this Sunday evening. The marvel increases when it is realised that listeners will not be restricted to these shores.

[From the Watford Observer of December 17, 1927]

NOSTALGIA NOTE: 2LO was the second radio station to regularly broadcast in the United Kingdom. It began broadcasting on May 11, 1922, for one hour a day from the seventh floor of Marconi House in London’s Strand. On November 14, 1922, the station was transferred to the new British Broadcasting Company. The letters LO stood for “London”.  The 2LO transmitter now belongs to the Science Museum.

 

There is a knack in throwing a brick through a plate glass window so that it makes a large hole. And smash-and-grab thieves who raided Robinson Rentals Ltd, The Parade, Watford, early on Saturday morning had apparently not acquired it.

They threw one brick at the window, but the hole it made was so small they had to throw another. Then they took four transistor radios and one mains radio, worth about £60, from the window display.

“They could not have been experts,” said the manager, Mr A.G.E. Cooper. “The bricks were not the normal size – they were hefty bricks which looked as if they had come from an old house.”

[From the Watford Observer of December 22, 1961]

 

News of John Lennon’s death reminded Watford Observer managing director Mr A.J. Greenan of the time he got a United Kingdom scoop by selling the former Beatle a half-page advertisement.

When Mr Greenan was a trainee sales manager at the Southend Evening Echo in 1969, he read about a Christmas message by Lennon and Yoko Ono and rang to ask if they would like to publish it in his newspaper.

Lennon paid £150 for a half-page advertisement reading: War is over if you want it, Happy Christmas, John and Yoko.

[From the Watford Observer of December 12, 1980]

 

Twenty-one years ago, a little girl at Chalfont St. Giles despatched a postcard to a friend at Clapham. A few days ago the postcard was delivered.

[From the Watford Observer of December 8, 1928]

 

No amateur team playing today that I know of could have stood against Watford on Saturday. Certainly Clapton, who have done extremely well this season in the Isthmian League, and have, by the way, defeated Ilford twice, had no chance at all of even drawing their Cup tie at Cassio Road. They were outpointed from beginning to end and Watford might easily have reached double figures. As it was, they registered a round half-dozen, and Clapton could not get a single chalk on the board.

[From the Watford Observer of December 10, 1910]