► ‘RED LETTER’ DAY

Baroness MacLeod of Borve last Saturday formally opened the sun lounges which have been provided by the League of Friends, at a cost of about £12,000. The new sun lounges would certainly have a therapeutic value in getting patients back to health and vigour.

‘You have chosen Trafalgar Day to have the lounges opened. I cannot think of a more appropriate day for a seaside port.’ It was the first newly-built post war hospital to be opened, in 1954, by her late husband, Ian Macleod, the then Minister of Health.

► WINTERBOURNE CENTRE

The Winterbourne Centre was officially opened last Saturday afternoon by Mr Norman Croucher, who lost both legs at the age of 19. Ten years after that, he was walking from John o’ Groats to Land’s End, raising £1,140 for Oxfam on the road, and training his body for the ultimate test, to climb the peaks of the Alps in Switzerland.

He spent years at the St Martin in the Fields’ Crypt Social Unit, where he learned to appreciate the desperation of the young addict and the ‘down-and-out’. All this was recognised in 1971, when he received the Man of the Year award.

► ‘I WAS ONLY DOING MY JOB’

A taxi driver, Peter Richardson of Dawlish, was booked by traffic warden Cyril Rogers, when he left his car near the railway station for 10 minutes while he collected his passenger, a man with a broken leg.

He was astonished when he found that the warden, to whom he had already explained his position, had left a piece of paper under the wiper, to say that he was not permitted to stay at that point. ‘I was only doing my job and I could not have parked safely elsewhere. I had to pick up my passenger.’

When he was granted an absolute discharge, he asked the Bench ‘Does this amount to a conviction?’ He was told that it did, and said that he would appeal against it.

► GIRLS ROBBED AS THEY BATHED

Two young men from Camberley offered a lift in their sports car to two girl hitch-hikers on the Exeter by-pass. The four spent most of the day on the beach.

When the girls went for a swim, they left their property in the MG and on the beach. When they returned, they found the men had disappeared, and their property was also missing.

The girls were left practically naked on the beach, without clothes or money. Miss Walsh’s property included eight blouses, seven pairs of trousers, three dresses, six brassieres and a tape recorder. The items stolen from Miss Chapman were valued at £76.70.

The Magistrates were told that the one man had made 14 appearances in Court, and in 1970 was given a prison sentence. The other had three previous convictions, and had spent a period in Borstal. They were remanded for sentencing.

► WORKS OF ART SALE

A Victorian penny-in-the slot ‘polyphon’ in an unusual case inset with a clock, and sold together with 12 discs, realised £370.

► SWEB LOSS

The South Western Electricity Board made a heavy loss last year, and customers were told that they were being supplied with electricity at too cheap a price. The continued rise in the cost of fuel was again responsible for the deficit. The Government asked the electricity industry to limit any tariff increase to five percent.

► RIVIERA CINEMA

Sleeping Beauty; Treasure Island; Walkabout; Prudence and the Pill; Catlow; The Jerusalem File.