A ST. SWITHIN’S DAY downpour nearly washed out the St. Joseph’s School fete 59 years ago, over 1,000 people turned out to support the event, despite the lightning, torrential rain and thunder.

After an hour there was a gap in the rain and visitors went out on to the sodden field to try their luck at the many ‘soggy sideshows.’

At the end of the day a provisional profit of £240 was announced, which would go towards the £50,000 cost of a new Roman Catholic Church for Bracknell.

The Bracknell News “parked” a shiny red car in the window of a local newsagent’s shop in July 1961, to encourage people to buy tickets for a special prize draw at the Bracknell Carnival.

The window display caught the eyes of four-year-old twin brothers, Andrew and Gordon McBride, who posed happily for the News photographer.

Staff at Spanner Boilers, Bracknell, posed proudly alongside a giant boiler which they had just built for their client, Unilever.

The huge machine was off to Egypt, via Tilbury docks, then by ship to the Middle East and once it was installed, would produce 5,000 pounds of steam power, a spokesperson for the firm told the Bracknell News: “That’s a lot of steam.”

The Aerosol Packaging Company welcomed Lord Brabazon of Tara to their Milbanke Way premises in 1961, where he witnessed first-hand the colossal advances that the firm had made in recent years.

Three hundred and fifty staff were employed producing a third of the UK’s aerosol products, making 100,000 containers per day and a yearly production of 25 million.

The mechanisation of the manufacturing process was introduced in the late 1950’s, when the company was “hanging on like grim death.”

Sandy Lane Junior School, Bracknell, was ‘infested with rats’ as part of the pupil’s production of “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” which was accompanied by their prize-giving ceremonies.

The 192 children gave hundreds of parents and guests the chance to see that they could entertain against a backdrop of a life-sized painting they had created, depicting a 13th Century town square.

The music review section of the Bracknell News threw the spotlight on top American singer and lyricist, Peggy Lee in 1961 who had released a new single whilst touring the UK.

Having started her career in 1943, with a fabulously successful single, “Why Don’t You Do Right?”, Peggy followed this up with a cover of the jazz standard, “Fever”.

She also did voice overs in the hit Disney cartoon “Lady and the Tramp”, playing the human “Darling” and the two Siamese cats, “Si and Am”.