Mystery solved8 November 1957
Pillar Box Puzzle
People passing through Allhalland Street on their way to Bideford Parish Church one Sunday morning glanced down the street towards Bideford Bridge and just could not understand why there should be two pillar boxes on the pavement outside the Bridge buildings.
The solution to this picture poser comes from Mr Edward Weeks, of 31 High View, Pynes Lane, Bideford – he made the pillar box on the left!
One day his 8 year old son, Jimmy, returned home from Coronation Road Infants’ School and casually told Dad ‘I have told teacher you will make a pillar box for our class’. Dad, who admits ‘I’m no carpenter’ set about the task in his spare time. He studied the pillar box, which stands outside the Bridge Buildings, acquired some three-ply wood and commenced construction work. ‘I made it to a children’s scale. It is the first thing I have tried in that line’.
The pillar box has now taken its place at the school and is contributing to the education of the infants. So delighted were the
...
A surprise!14 November 1958
Birthday Surprise
Among greetings received by Ann Pickard, of 59 High Street, Bideford, on her 15th birthday was a letter that was both a surprise and a reminder.
Enclosed in the envelope was a square of cardboard. Then she remembered that a few months ago she was playing with her young brother on the river near Monkleigh when, for his amusement, she wrote her name and birthdate on a piece of cardboard, adding a joking 'Ha, ha' and put it in a bottle, intending that her brother on the other side should get it and open it.
The bottle never reached the other side, and was forgotten until a letter arrived on Ann's 15th birthday, intimating that it had been found by 21 years old K Staddon, of Holly Farm, Monkleigh, who also added a joking 'Ha, ha'.
Gazette article dated 14 November 1958
On a shelf17 November 1972
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
Ghosts and witches7 November 1958
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 1958
Five Shillings9 January 1959
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 Mrs Whitlock had seen Miss Arnold to thank her for the two postal orders that this was discovered.
As it is not possible to cash a postal order which is so old, Mrs Whitlock is to see the Bideford Head Postmaster about it.
Gazette article dated 9 January 1959
Aliens in Bideford?6 January 1978
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,” Mrs Pridham told the Gazette. “It was a great big orange ball, quite round with a bluish-tinged circle shading to purple at the edge. I thought ‘the moon is never over there’ and turned to find it where I expected it to be.”
When she again looked at the object which was definitely solid, it had taken on an elongated shape, but it still had a bluish tinge around ti. The next time she came out of the house the object had disappeared, but she saw a...
Do we now know more about Appledore pop?13 May 1977
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 pressing a glass marble against a rubber ring.
But he knew nothing of the makers and inquiries, even from someone who has lived in the township for over 70 years, produced no real information. All that seems to be known is that a man called Rogers once had a chemist’s shop in Bude Street – and I am told chemists were known to manufacture mineral water many years ago.
Gazette article dated 13 May 1977
Married men and pennies15 May 1906
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 promise to attend the Parish Church at the morning service. It was a gratifying sight to see so large a congregation, drawn together out of sympathy for a neighbour and a desire to do anything she thought might help her. At the close of the service the Rector desired the selected men to pass one by one, and as they passed through the porch they found the woman seated there, accompanied by the neighbour who had done the same thing 19 years ago...