A BLIZZARD and some generally foul weather gave the Adver several stories this week in 1970.

In an era when young people were often portrayed in the media as workshy, self-centred louts, one of those stories was about a pair who were anything but.

“Two schoolgirls,” we said, “gave first aid to an injured man near Purton today after their school bus collided with a van in which he was travelling.

“They were Carol Walker, 16, and Sandra Parsons, both pupils at Malmesbury Grammar School.

“The school bus in which they were travelling with 30 other pupils collided with the van at Lydiard Plain crossroads.”

The teenagers, who both lived in Reid’s Place, left their damaged bus and tended to the three men in the van. One passenger had a severely cut hand, which they bandaged.

Another accident saw a cottage in Shrivenham’s Townsend Road turned into an impromptu lorry park.

The driver, a Calne man, was unhurt when the truck skidded off the Swindon-Oxford Road, tore through a hedge and came to rest against an apple tree.

The weather caused other problems. The alleyway between Somerset Road and Cheney Manor Road had yet to be surfaced, and we dispatched a photographer to capture a scene not unlike one of the tracks to the front in World War One.

Later in the week we reported: “Thousands of people struggled to work today in a blizzard that brought traffic to a standstill on hills throughout Wiltshire.

“Many roads were blocked by skidding vehicles in spite of the efforts of council workmen who were out early gritting and salting.

“Bus services were thrown into chaos and in one case had to be suspended. About four inches of snow fell in the first five hours after the storm started at about 4am.”

It may have been chaos for plenty of grown-ups, but children seemed very cheerful about the turn of events. Among the youngsters we photographed enjoying the winter wonderland were brothers Neil and Christopher Embling from Wroughton, who raced their bikes on Red Barn Hill.

At least one Swindon person wasn’t affected by the weather in any way, and many of our readers must have wished they could swap places with him.

He was a Mr JR Burrows, and his British address was in Hunts Hill, Blunsdon – but he wasn’t anywhere near Blunsdon during that bitter cold snap.

Mr Burrows was the chief postmaster of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in the Western Pacific, and had sent home a photograph of himself in shirt sleeves and shorts, stamping what looked like some first day covers.

The islands, now dream holiday destinations, had been a Crown colony since 1915 and would gain their independence in 1976. The Gilbert Islands became Kiribati and the Ellice Islands Tuvalu.

Mr Burrows, we said, had attended Even Swindon Primary School and the High School before joining the GPO in 1944. He moved to the islands in 1968.

Another of our stories dealt with an issue which is still prominent in the news agenda nearly half a century later, the gender pay gap.

The major difference between then and now was that in 1970 it was still perfectly legal for employers to pay women less than men for no other reason than their being women. It would be several years before the law was changed.

One woman’s story was typical.

Dorothy Rooke was a union shop steward at Garrard’s Newcastle Street works, and chairwoman of the union’s Women’s Campaign for Equal Rights Committee.

She said: “The work I do as a packer is equivalent to that being done by men, and I am often called upon to handle the same weights.

“But even when I actually fill in for a man who is off sick, I do not get extra in my pay packet.

“There are girl packers in the works getting £12 a week for the same work that men are getting £16 for.

“And this is not work that they are always supervised for – they are left to use their own initiative.

“But I have to pay the same as any man for rent, food and fuel. What I am paid has barely been enough.

“Even when I go sick I can only get about £9 benefit instead of the sort of amount men can get, which can make it profitable for them to go off sick.”

An unusual story involved a German medal dating from the 1914-18 war, which was brought to us by a reader called Ray Webb.

It had been given to his mother-in-law some years earlier by a friend who had since died, and Mr Webb hoped other readers might be able to tell him something about it.

One side showed the sinking of the British liner Lusitania sinking after a submarine attack. The incident, in which many American passengers lost their lives, had caused a major scandal and turned a great deal of American public opinion away from Germany.

The other side of the piece showed passengers buying tickets from a booth apparently staffed by the Reaper.

Today Mr Webb would have been able to find answers simply by Googling and then clicking on www.lusitaniamedal.com, but Adver readers didn’t let him down.

The medal, we later revealed, was originally a German one struck to defend the country’s insistence that the Lusitania was carrying military supplies and was therefore a legitimate target.

It was copied by the Allies for propaganda purposes and packaged in boxes bearing the words: “This indicates the true feeling the War Lords endeavour to stimulate, and is proof positive that such crimes are not merely regarded favourably, but are given every encouragement in the land of Kultur.”