More jobs for school-leavers

Summer school-leavers have found it easier to get jobs in the eastern and southern region this year than they did last. The Ministry of Labour say that by early August all but 6 per cent had found employment compared with 7.1 per cent last year. Say the Ministry: “The build-up of vacancies over the past few months has ensured that young persons are quickly absorbed into employment. It is not expected that many of those who have not obtained jobs will be unemployed for long.”

[September 3, 1965]

A dog’s life!

A complaint has been made to Watford Parks and Recreation Grounds Committee that dogs were being allowed, and even enticed, into the children’s paddling pool in Cassiobury Park, and tending to contaminate the water. The parks superintendent has been asked to take steps to ensure that the public are informed that dogs are not allowed in the pool.

[September 3, 1965]

Anyone fancy a train ride?

Watford Grammar School pupil Alan Jenkins, 15, took a 240-mile Tube train ride to nowhere on Tuesday – and set up a new world record. For Alan, of Chiltern Avenue, Bushey, covered all of London’s 273 Underground stations in 16 hours 56 ½ minutes flat and slashed the previous time-record, set up in July, by one hour 30 ½ minutes. He told an Observer reporter afterwards, “I bet you will never guess what I came home by? Train!”

[September 10, 1965]

Trewins now complete

The front page picture of the current John Lewis Partnership Gazette shows waitresses counting some of the 2,000 pieces of cutlery which had to be unpacked and checked for the opening of Trewins’ new restaurant last Thursday. This event marked the completion of the Queen’s Road store’s extension, which has been in progress for the past two and a half years. The new Trewins now has 85% more selling space. With 15 new departments and 100 extra staff, Trewins is now a complete departmental store, and no longer the smallest in the John Lewis “empire”.

[September 10, 1965]

Goodbye to old Watford

One of the biggest single property and clearance jobs in Watford has started, with the appearance in lower High Street of Mr Peter Mobbs and his demolition men. The two-phase clearance, starting at the south end with Dumbleton’s recently-empty butcher shop, will go up as far as the Three Tuns and back to the stream. Sedgwick’s old house will come down. It is recalled that the Minister refused planning permission for a £2million “Shoppers World” on the site.

[September 17, 1965]

Loss to world of drama

Watford’s world of amateur dramatics, and the many who over the years recall the familiar programme credit “produced by Elsie B. Crockett”, will be sorry to hear of her death, at the age of 72. She died last Thursday at her Cassiobury Drive home which was designed by her late husband, Toby Crockett, and where they lived for many years until his death in 1957. Mrs Crockett – “Crockie” to her host of friends in amateur drama – was very musical in her early days, but it was love of amateur theatricals which she and her husband shared so ardently and practically. Since well before the last war she was producer for Watford’s YMCA players, winners more than once at the South-West Herts Drama Festival. She also produced plays for the North Watford Townswomen’s Guild’s drama section for many years.

[September 17, 1965]

Firm’s £250,000 extension

Watford’s Cassio Photographic Co. – the local firm which makes paper for half of Britain’s snapshots and exports 75% of its output – opened a new £250,000 extension on Wednesday. The development includes a new factory, three modern photographic coating machines, and new laboratory and mechanical handling equipment. The company say the development at Watford will mean higher productivity, improved working conditions and finer prints.

[September 24, 1965]

What was happening in the world in September 1965?

• Two homes in California are damaged and 41 people taken to hospital after debris from a destroyed missile falls on their neighbourhood six miles from Vandenberg Air Force Base (September 2)

• Former presidential candidate and US Senator Barry Goldwater files a lawsuit against publisher Ralph Ginzburg, seeking $2million for libel arising from an article published with the headline ‘1,889 psychiatrists say Goldwater is psychologically unfit to be President’ (September 2)

• The earliest known skateboard park opens in Tucson, Arizona (September 3)

• In a rare show of defiance against the Communist government of the Soviet Union, public protests begin in the Ukrainian SSR against the roundup of Ukrainian intellectuals by the KGB (September 4)

• Hurricane Betsy roars ashore near New Orleans, the first hurricane to cause more than $1billion worth of destruction, giving it the nickname ‘Billion Dollar Betsy’ (September 9)

• US Navy Commander James Stockdale is captured as a prisoner of war when his jet is shot down over North Vietnam. He would spend more than seven years as a POW and later, in 1992, he would be a candidate for Vice President of the United States (September 9)

• Only 11 days after he had been appointed as the new Prime Minister of Iraq, Brigadier General Arif Abd ar-Razzaq makes an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government of President Abdl Salam Arif (September 16)

• Pakistan Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto appeared before the United Nations Security Council and read a statement from President Ayub Khan, reluctantly agreeing to a ceasefire in the war with India (September 22)

• US President Johnson announced that the US had agreed to relinquish its exclusive control of the Panama Canal and to share administration of the canal with Panama (September 24)

• The Tom and Jerry cartoon series makes its television debut on CBS (September 25)

• Dr Sol Spiegelman, a molecular biologist at the University of Illinois, announces that he has successfully created the first synthetic life from a genetic code and chemicals (September 29)

• The classic British sci-fi show Thunderbirds makes its debut on ITV (September 30)