What was making the news in the Newark Advertiser in 1924, 1974 and 1999
The Advertiser has opened its archives to see what was making the news this week 25, 50 and 100 years ago.
15 years ago – April 9, 1999
ABOVE: A campaign to collect clothes and blankets for refugees from Kosovo has been inundated with donations.
The appeal was launched by Kirton businessman Mr Stephen Smith as the plight of thousands of homeless Kosovan families dominated television bulletins and newspaper headlines.
Days after the launch enough clothes, blankets and food had been collected to fill two articulated lorries.
• A £2m hotel could be built on a historic former maltings site on Newark’s riverside.
It is planned for the site of the former Peach’s Maltings building, Northgate, which was destroyed by fire in 1995.
Plans have been submitted for a four-storey development that would have more than 30 bedrooms.
• Hundreds of years of tradition has ended with the re-naming of a Newark town centre pub.
The former Queen’s Head in the Market Place has re-opened as The Hobgoblin.
The grade-II listed building was built in 1560 as a coaching inn. But Oxfordshire-based Wychwood Breweries and Hobgoblins Ltd has completed a £200,000 refurbishment of the pub and renamed it.
Newark Archaeological and Historical Society said they were shocked and disappointed.
• Conservative Party leader William Hague met truck drivers campaigning at Newark Showground against recent fuel and excise duty changes.
He announced a new Tory policy initiative designed to help the truckers’ cause.
• A plan to reopen Southwell’s former workhouse building as a museum is gradually taking shape.
The National Trust has completed the first stage of a £2.25m bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a grant to help to pay for redevelopment work.
50 years ago – April 13, 1974
ABOVE: Arriving on the Mrs Mopp Special at the Kelham Hall headquarters of Newark District Council are these seven women employed by a cleaning firm.
The women are picked up each day at 5pm to be returned when their work is done.
• A move to bring big increases in charges for sports facilities in Newark – including doubling the admission prices at the open-air pool – was blocked. Instead, increases of about 20% to 25% are to be made.
The swimming pool charges would have gone up from 5p to 10p for adults and 10p to 20p for adults, and season tickets also would have doubled.
Tennis during the week would have gone up from 13p a court to 30p.
It was feared the increase in pool prices would drive people to the Trent.
• Newark FC moved a step nearer to retaining the Willie Hall Cup when they beat Greyhounders 5-3 after extra-time at Elm Avenue in a thrilling match watched by more than 200 spectators.
• Father Gregory of the Society of the Sacred Mission at Kelham has been asked to carry out an exorcism at the home of a Mansfield family who say supernatural forces have subjected them to a year of terror.
Beds have been stripped, electrical appliances turned on in the night, and a woman was pushed down the stairs by an unknown force.
Father Gregory is a chaplain to the Bishop of Southwell with special responsibility for exorcism.
100 years ago – April 9, 1924
The notorious Glaswegian extremist, Comrade George Buchanan MP, addressed a meeting of the Newark Independent Labour Party at Christ Church Schoolroom.
The speakers stood at the schoolmaster’s desk and there was plenty of room for the listeners, who were accommodated at the rows of desks in the front.
There was an atmosphere of ease, the tobacco was blown, there were one or two ladies, there were pamphlets for all, and several supporters failed to doff their hats, even in courtesy to their champions.
• Another earth tremor was felt in Southwell on Friday night. Many residents were considerably alarmed about 10.40pm to feel beds move and ornaments rattle.
The peculiar thing about the tremor was again that very few people downstairs felt the shock, yet children in bedrooms above were roused and cried out in alarm.
• An extraordinary meeting was held in North Collingham to consider the question of lighting the lamps next winter.
It appears, owing to a misunder-standing, the council instead of asking for a stipulated sum for the purpose, took the unusual course of asking for a 3d rate to be levied.
This, it was discovered, would not produce sufficient money for lighting the whole of the winter months, hence a meeting to rectify matters.
• Ill luck continues to attend the Newark Agricultural Show.
In consequence of either strikes or foot and mouth restrictions, only two shows have been held since the war and, as a result of the cattle plague, this year’s fixture has been abandoned.
• There was a big blaze in the village street at Old Balderton caused by a large tar boiler leaking into the fire underneath.
Road repairs were in hand at the spot near the Old Hall and when the fire broke out the workers were away at breakfast.
A man named Harrison, a road foreman, got the fire appliance out and the brigade was warned to find on arrival that some half a dozen barrels of tar were ignited.
There was a danger of the fire spreading to adjoining buildings, but the prompt action of the brigade rendered these safe and the fire was got in hand and eventually extinguished.
