Pictures from the Past

Housing goes up in Dawley New Town in November 1967. This photo was taken on the 20th of that month, although unfortunately the print in our files does not give the exact location.

The smoking chimney in the background is obviously a clue, though. Can anybody pinpoint exactly where this is?

Going underground . . . This picture was taken on February 22, 1973. The caption when the photo was used the next day was: "Telford's sewer tourists led by the development corporation's general manager, Mr Emyr Thomas, right."

The accompanying story explained that the party was of Telford Development Corporation officials led by a couple of civil engineers and followed by a woman secretary and two gentlemen of the Press. They went to see the surface water sewer, almost complete, which would take the rainwater from the new town centre in the Malinslee, Old Park, and Hollinswood area. They entered a 12ft diameter tunnel near the old Stirchley foundries, a tunnel only six inches smaller than London's Victoria Line tube.

It's a familiar sight even today – people struggling with prams around obstacles on narrow pavements.

This picture was taken in April 1970 and shows a woman attempting to get round a tree in Church Stretton with a chrome chassis pram. The picture was taken in Sandford Avenue railway bridge which was cause for concern at the time.

It's Oakengates Civic Hall. No, sorry, Oakengates Town Hall. Or is it Oakengates Theatre? Maybe you know it as The Place, Oakengates. Whatever you wish to call it – and it's undergone some changes of name over the years – this shows it being built on February 28, 1967.

The original caption was: "Oakengates' 126,000 new civil hall continues to grow in the town centre. When completed, in September, the hall will seat about 900. Oakengates Urban District Council hopes to have the Minister for the Arts, Miss Jennie Lee, to open it officially."

This is the Allscott sugar beet factory netball team in about 1953, although Mrs Beryl Parks of Wellington, who loaned us this photo, is not sure of the location.

"I think it was the factory at Kidderminster, as they were going to play in Kidderminster," she said.

She names them as: top row, Dolly Bray; Rosemary Sharp (who in 1952 became the first post-war Miss Shropshire, so may well have been reigning Miss Shropshire at the time of this photo); Joyce Coxall (later Mrs Maiden); and Barbara Picken (later Mrs Lewis), who was Mrs Parks's mother.

Bottom row: Leela Davis (Mrs Parks is unsure of the correct spelling), others unknown.

A while ago we carried a picture of Shrewsbury's Sabrina Angling Club in 1938, and that has prompted Bryan Evans to loan us this photo of the same club, taken by the canal, Four Crosses, in about 1951. The photographer was his father, Eric. Bryan himself is the young lad, top right.

Those in the picture are: back from left, standing: John Morris (young boy), Bill Lewis (lopsided beret), three unknowns, Ron Wellings (open jacket, white shirt), unknown, and a young Bryan. Seated, left, with dark trilby (holding rod) is Harold Jones, who Bryan says also featured in our 1938 photo. Then are two unknowns, and then bald headed in white shirt is Mr Edwards, and far right, looking off camera, is retired policeman Charlie Jones.

Front left, with glasses, is Mr Walker, who had a fishing tackle shop. Front right is unknown.

This is so 1960s!

This photo from our files was taken on May 12, 1969, and the original caption was: "All set for Sunday when the BBC televise Shrewsbury and Chester in the It's A Knockout series is the Shrewsbury mascot, Ann Mills. Ann, who was chosen in a competition through the Shropshire Star, is wearing the outfit she will go to the Quarry in on Sunday."