This week's pictures from the past

In February 1988 a group of Shrewsbury schoolboys were dramatically rescued from the River Severn after their boat crashed into a bridge before the start of a race.

The four were left clinging to a buttress of the English Bridge while the cox, Daniel Talbot-Ponsonby, swam downstream in the swirling river.

He managed to get to the side 50 yards downstream while the other four, 15-year-old James Clover and 16-year-olds Steven Killian, Martin Kettle and Daniel Corbett, were rescued by the fire service using ropes and ladders.

The incident happened when boys from Shrewsbury School were preparing for an inter-school rowing race.

You can't accuse us of failing to bring you any good moos stories today.

This heifer was rescued on February 20, 1975, after falling into a 12ft well at an Ellesmere farm.

The roof of a building had to be dismantled and special lifting tackle brought in. It took firefighters two hours to free the beast.

The accident happened at Mr Roger Hampson's Tetchill Farm. The heifer was being treated by a vet when it ran into a tool house and fell into the boarded-up well.

Recognise this? Shrewsbury author and historian David Trumper is hoping somebody will be able to pinpoint this photo from his collection. All he knows is that it was taken on the canal system in Shropshire somewhere. The biggest clue is, of course, that waterside crane or derrick. And the photo doesn't look to be all that ancient ­ 1960s maybe.

Any ideas?

Here's a good place to play housey-housey. It's the interior of Zetters bingo hall in King Street, Dawley, in May 1976.

It was one of the most northerly clubs in the Zetters group and had just undergone major work including an extension, adding more facilities for the 3,000 customers it had on average each week.

Like many bingo halls it was an old cinema, in this case the former Royal cinema. The building was demolished in January and February of last year and the site has since been redeveloped.

What's going on here? It's obviously wartime, and it's obviously The Square, in Shrewsbury, with Clive's statue just visible on the extreme right.

Shrewsbury historian David Trumper said: "The timber-framed building held part of Maddox's store. Maddox did a lot to boost the morale of the people of Shrewsbury with lots of patriotic displays in their windows in the war years. They used to back the Spitfire Fund in which money was raised to buy Spitfires.

"I don't know what is going on here. There's quite a crowd. Whether it is part of the stand-down celebrations in 1944 when the Home Guard was disbanded, I don't know. The photograph came to me from David Woodhouse of Shrewsbury."

This is another photo loaned to us by Shrewsbury historian David Trumper, and is a rather unprepossessing rear view of some of the town's shops during a 1960s flood.

One car is almost totally submerged. We are looking at the back of the Woolworths, Littlewoods and Marks & Spencer stores.

"This photo was taken after they knocked down the old cattle market and before they built the new Riverside centre," he said.

The picture came to Dave from Cyril Done, of Shrewsbury, who started working for Shukers in Shrewsbury in 1930 and, apart from war service, was with them for 50 years, retiring in 1980.

The Shukers Garage was taken over by Charles Clark and Mr Done worked his way up to become a director and general manager.

Here's an interesting view of the old cattle market which used to be in the centre of Shrewsbury. The photo was emailed to us by Bob Hanley of Telford.

The date given is 1960, but in fact it must have been a little earlier as the new replacement smithfield officially opened at Harlescott on April 7, 1959, after which the town centre smithfield closed.

In the background is the Victorian general market hall which was demolished in the early 1960s.