Swindon in the Past Lane

Today advertising is big business as firms spend huge budgets on promoting their products. While celebrities  supplement their income persuading us to eat everything from crisps to luxury frozen meals, sports stars can earn seven figure sums from sponsorship deals and endorsements. We tend to think of advertising as a modern phenomenon, one of the evils of a media dominated lifestyle, but it was ever thus. An early example of the flyer, fodder for the recycling box today, was produced by Smith, Nash, Kemble and Travers 'wholesalers and retailers,' who in 1779 informed their customers of a sugar shortage due to 'the loss of Grenada.'  And by the beginning of the 19th century no entreperneurial opportunity to advertise was missed from bill boards to sandwich boards and of course, newspapers and magazines.  Swindon newspaper proprietor William Morris called his broadsheet the Swindon Advertiser, because it did just that. Regent Street was a proliferation of adver...

In the 1950s, when greetings cards were relatively modest, dad always bought my mum a big card in a box for her birthday and at Christmas.  Not big compared to those on offer today, but a box none the less.  His careful, rounded handwriting embellished with curls and loops conveyed the emotions I seldom heard him utter. The printed verse, often running to several inserted pages, said what he couldn't. The card, a padded confection of bows and bells - well, perhaps not bells - was always received with derision.  However mum kept them - in homage to the money they had cost him rather than the emotion expressed within them. Nothing in my parents's relationship was straight forward, but then how could it be?  There was too much sadness and too many secrets - and considering they had both experienced such deprived and lonely childhoods, a surprising absence of compatibility and empathy.  Mum wanted someone with ambition and drive.  Dad want...

Despite the growing deprivations on the home front, hard pressed Swindonians were asked to dig deeper into their pockets as Britain entered a second year at war - and the response was phenomenal. "It does not matter how much we women detest war, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that in this war women and children are in the front line," May George, Swindon's first Lady Mayor 1935-36 wrote in a letter to the Evening Advertiser.  "Let the women of Swindon show what they can do to help in the defeat of the enemies of everything that we hold dear." Just days before the town's War Weapons Week was to begin, ten people were killed and several others injured during an air raid on October 20, 1940.  Houses in Rosebery Street took a direct hit while a second bomb dropped in the middle of an adjoining road.  Local residents were commended for their great fortitude and the calm way in which they responded to the emergency. If ever the people of Swindon needed ...

The doom laden weather forecast failed to dampen yesterday's 10th Swindon Mela where a multitude of Asian food, craft and alternative health therapy stands, plus traditional music and dance acts, managed to squeeze into the Town Gardens along with some 20,000 visitors. Swindon's multicultural festival attracts visitors from across the South West and organisers are rightly proud that the Mela has always been a safe, family friendly event. On the Showcase Stage Kizzy Kukreja introduced a wealth of local talent including the Bollywood Dreamers and the vibrant Swindon Stars while on the main stage in The Bowl a host of established stars had the crowd on their feet.  From up and coming Punjabi vocalist Lovely Singh to award winning Navin Kundra, who kept the audience entertained during a cloud burst. And even when the predicted storm arrived festival goers continued to party. Peacock Dance by children from the Tamil Association ...