50 years ago

* The Wales Tourist and Holidays Association awarded Newport a certificate of merit for conspicuous services to tourism.

* The bank rate was hoisted by two per cent to seven per cent in a move to strengthen the international position of sterling.

* Newport’s new Ebbw Junction servicing and maintenance depot was likely to require only half the present workforce and 50 employes would have to be relocated.

* A delegate conference of dockers agreed to call off their strike if they get the pay increases recommended by the Devlin report.

* The fight to save Crumlin viaduct had been lost and nothing now stood in the way of British Railways’ plan to dismantle it.