100 YEARS AGO

● There was unrest at the revised tram fares. Passengers were unhappy that the ‘wealthy’ residents of Stow Hill appeared to pay less. It was claimed that they in fact should pay more because of the extra wear and tear on brakes and on tramlines that the hill was causing.

● A little girl missing from Llanhilleth for over a month was found in the river Ebbw at Cwmcarn. It had initially been thought that the child had been taken by relatives.

● The annual Budget reflected a record year for trade with all estimates exceeded. No new taxes were inposed.

● At Cwmbran a labourer was charged with a series of local farm thefts. Items stolen were mainly clothes, but he had also allegedly stolen a watch chain from one of the local dwellings.

50 YEARS AGO

● There were dramatic escapes for two lorry drivers, a motorist and passengers as well as 12 workmen on the notorious Black Rock, Brynmawr, when a six-wheeled lorry carrying coal ran out of control.

Amazingly the driver escaped uninjured when the lorry eventually over-turned and dropped into a ditch.

● Newport bookmakers fell victim to a new form of crime after betting slips bearing the names of known winners were placed late in offices by subterfuge. The chief constable blamed old-fashioned business methods.

● Juvenile delinquency was blamed in part on the absence of the mother from the house on new forms of gambling such as bingo.

● Many local people camped overnight in London to witness the marriage of Princess Alexandra of Kent to Angus Ogilvy in Westminster Abbey.

25 YEARS AGO

● A mystery saviour looked set to buy crisis-torn Newport County in a £250,000 takeover. It was a condition of the sale that the buyer not be named before the deal was signed.

● A Pontypool soccer player was killed during a drag race in Dallas when a pick-up truck in which he was driving overturned.

● A Wye Valley businessman appeared in court in connection with a multi-million-pound plot to smuggle military equipment to Iran.

● Newport West MP Paul Flynn claimed that the re-opening of Rogerstone power station would be a planning atrocity and an act of industrial vandalism.