Army bomb disposal experts from Salisbury on Saturday removed 30 three-inch sticks of gelignite discovered in a shed adjoining a house at Cross Park, Woolsery.

The explosive was found by Mr A C Perkins, who told the Gazette he had lived in the house all his life. "I have an idea how it got there, but I don't want to comment" he said.
Said to be about 10 years old and in a damp state, the gelignite was on a shelf.
Gazette article dated 17 November 1972

Witches and Ghost at Party

Twenty-nine young people attended a Halloween party at Torrington Church Hall on Friday night.

The party was organised by the Church Youth Fellowship, under Mr E Smith and Mr Walter Webber (Church Sunday School Supt) helped by other members of the club’s adult advisory committee.

Games were run by Mr Smith and Miss L Matthews. There were two girls, Janet Squire and Jennifer Short, wearing ‘witches’ costumes and another, Helen Smale, dressed as a ‘ghost’.

Refreshments were provided by the young people themselves and served by the older committee members.

Gazette article dated 7 November

Postal order at Appledore

It took three years for a postal order gift to travel from Irsha Street to Meeting Street, Appledore.
The postal order of five shillings was sent in 1955 by Miss M Arnold, of Irsha Street, to the two children of Mrs Whitlock of Cullompton. Mrs Whitlock spends Christmas with her aunt, Mrs D Slade, at Meeting Street, and it was to this address that the postal order was sent.
It arrived with another postal order of five shillings – this year’s gift to the children from Miss Arnold – on the Monday after Christmas.
It was not until

It was seen by others too!

The sighting of an unidentified flying object over the area on Christmas Eve exclusively reported in last week’s Gazette has been confirmed by a number of readers who have added fascinating details.

Mrs Arthur Pridham, of Chircombe, Bideford, was loading her car outside her home around 9pm when she saw what she described to her husband as “a funny light in the sky” over Westleigh. He as ill and confined to his bed on the opposite side of the house, but told his wife “it must be a flare.”

“I still looked in amazement,”

Rummaging around at Torrington, schoolboy Bryn Williams and his friends came across a bottle that intrigued them

although it was broken at the neck. Not only was the glass extremely thick, but embossed on the bottle was ‘Rogers, Excelsior Works, Appledore.’

Bryn was the more interested because his father, Emlyn, is headmaster of Appledore County Primary School. Mr Williams could tell his son that the bottle was of a type used for ‘pop’ – in the days when it was a fizzy drink and nothing to do with music – and that the pressure of the gas sealed in the contents by

Rev F G Scrimner, writes from Sutcombe Rectory to the ‘Western Morning Fews’ –

North Devon is full of strange folklores and beliefs (we won’t call them supertitions). On Sunday the Parish Church of Sutcombe, a small village between Holsworthy and Hartland, was the scene of a revival of an interesting old faith cure.

A woman in the parish has of late been a sufferer from epileptic fits, and at the persuasion of a neighbour who 19 years ago had done the same thing and had not suffered fits since, she went round the parish and got 30 married men to