Archive

When her mischievous Jack Russell fell into a 10ft hole near a disused quarry while out on a walk, Sarah West feared the worst. Mrs West, of Bradford Road, Atworth, had been walking nine-year-old Jack with friend Jill Blane and her labrador near Park

Trowbridge Town Council has agreed to go ahead with its plan to borrow £4.5 million to redevelop the Civic Hall. It still needs approval from the Wiltshire Association of Local Councils and the government to fund the project. The money will be divided

Tickets are still available for the Chippenham Male Voice Choir's concert at St Bartholomew's Church in Corsham tomorrow evening. Families are invited to go along and buy tickets at the door for £6 each, or they can be bought in advance at The Corsham

WARMINSTER Town chairman Pete Blackburn has axed the club’s reserve side in a bid to safeguard the future of the Wessex League Division One outfit. The Weymouth Street club said this week that they were in a precarious financial position and had pulled

A priest who helped the community deal with their grief following the disappearance of Melanie Hall will leave his post at a Bradford on Avon church next month, following a re-organisation of parishes in the area. The Reverend Ron Lowrie

Two sisters in Westbury were left in shock after a thief who stole jewellery from their shop also helped himself to a bottle of drink from the fridge before throwing it through their window. Sisters Debbie Goff, 43, of Redland Lane, Westbury, and Helen

I have read today on The Shires centre website that the manager John Grinnell has acted on the complaints from users of the centres car parks. Some humps are being removed, but why have they decided just to lower the humps on the entrance/exit to the

We have to keep repeating facts because of those who base their opinions more on philo-sophical/religious dogma than lives reality, with short-term policies want to suppress them. For example, obesity is rampant even in developing countries, millions

More than 460 potholes have been repaired on roads across west Wiltshire this week following the big freeze. Wiltshire Council’s highways team usually fill or repair an average of 40 potholes a day across the county. But on Monday alone they had to

The past outbreak of cold weather has highlighted grave and serious errors in our society today. It has proved money-saving and cost-cutting comes before human life. The salt on roads issue alone has cost more than 20 peoples’ lives nationwide since

On January 15 and 16 the Rotary Club of Westbury held a collection to help provide disaster relief in Haiti. The collections were held in the High Street and outside Morrisons and we thank the management of Morrisons for allowing us to use their premises

Last Saturday and Monday mornings the Bradford on Avon Oxfam group took collections in the town for the DEC Haiti appeal. Although we only collected at one place each time there was a tremendously generous response and we were able to hand in over

I would like to thank the people of Trowbridge for their support, welcome and generosity to the Trowbridge Lions during the Christmas season when, despite some atrocious weather, our float toured the majority of the town during December and also at Tesco

We would like, through your letters page, to say a big thank you to The Shires shopping centre Trowbridge and its customers for their response to the Red Cross collection on Saturday. We raised a fantastic £1331.82 for the Haiti Appeal. Information

Reading your article last week ‘Councillors refuse to back new waste bid’ makes me realise that the chances of resolving my problem with green bin collections have become vanishingly small. West Wilts District Council withdrew my green bin collection

So Cllr Ian McLennan (who is he?) thinks it is “unfair” for people in Salisbury to pay more for parking than elsewhere in Wiltshire. Okay, so bring them all down to the lower level. If he is so upset over this being “unfair” (buzz-word), perhaps

A breakfast to launch the second annual Melksham Food and Drink Festival was attended by more than 30 guests from local businesses. The launch took place and was sponsored by Well House Manor in Spa Road, and aimed to raise the profile of the

STEPHEN Lee's hopes of starting 2010 with a place in the latter stages of a televised tournament were dashed in Prestatyn this morning. Trowbridge's world number 25 was beaten 5-3 by world number 43 Andrew Higginson in the final qualifying round of the

You report in your edition of January 15 that Wiltshire Council is proposing to continue with its chargeable green waste collection. Why is green waste being treated differently from all other waste? As a service provided by the district councils

I read the Wiltshire Times’ twin reports (January 15) on different standards for rubbish collections and car parking throughout the county with some bemusement. It is now over eight months since Wiltshire Council’s much vaunted takeover of the district

May I, through your columns, express my sincere gratitude to a lady and her son who reside in Trowbridge. The lady was called Rosie and her son was called Ross, I did not know their surname. On December 21 I was flying from Edinburgh to Bristol on

Rosie Eady, neé Curtis, died at the Royal United Hospital in Bath on January 12, aged 81. Born in Westbury, she grew up in Trowbridge where her family ran a milk delivery business from Drynham Lane. She and her sister Margaret delivered milk on bicycles

Joyce Purcell, who was honoured by the Queen for her work for the government, died on Friday in Germany, months before her 100th birthday. Born in London, she was an early pioneer in studying English and Journalism at Kings College, London, going on

Eileen Crook, of Melksham, died on January 11, aged 87. Born Eileen Margaret Trotman, with one sister, Thelma, she used to help out at her father’s grocers and confectionery shop in Bath Road before meeting and marrying Len Crook, who died in 1987,

A couple who met two years ago and got engaged after the bride proposed to the bridegroom while on holiday in Rhodes, were married at the Kendleshire Golf and Country Club, near Bristol, on October 17. Bride Miss Nicola Downes is the first

Born: January 18, 9.06am Weight: 8lb 15oz Parents: Jerome Loubersac, 42, and Gemma Nash, 33, of Windsor Drive, Westbury. Like his older brother William, now three-and-a-half, baby Adam will be brought up bilingual, speaking French and

The former West Wiltshire District Council offices in Trowbridge are to be sold, with all services moved to County Hall, it has been confirmed. The move to sell the Bradley Road offices forms part of a four-year programme and is expected to happen by

A snapshot of life as it used to be reported in years gone by this week, courtesy of Times reader David Harries, 87, who found this local reference while browsing through his collection of vintage newsprint for something to do during the recent bad weather

PREVIEW: The Department of Smelling Pistakes,Tobacco Factory: The Brewery, Bristol. Mining its trademark vein of absurdist humour and taking inspiration from writers such as Gogol and Bulgakov, Bristol-based Publick Transport presents this new comedy

A YOUNG speed demon from Westbury is bidding to take his first steps into the world of car racing. Thirteen-year-old Owen Hunter, who goes to Matravers School, has tasted sucess in Minimax and Juniormax Kart racing and is now looking forward to burning

Moving down Melbourne Street, this week we take a look at a cottage often described as a chocolate box picture. Approached from Emm’s Lane and the land at the rear of Reeves’ Farm stands the thatched farmhouse known as Emm’s Farm. Once considerably

CALNE Town will have home advantage for the quarter finals of the Les Phillips Cup - if they can get past First Division leaders Wells City in the second round. The Lilywhites, last season's beaten finalists, host Wells in their delayed tie on Saturday

PREVIEW: Goodbye Mrs Chips, Ministry of Entertainment After nearly 60 years of sterling service, Mrs Chipping, dinner lady extraordinaire, is finally hanging up her potato masher, egg mallet and gravy sieve for the last time. She has watched generation

A letter written by a 19-year-old man hanged in 1803 for setting fire to a mill in Semington as part of an anti-mechanisation protest has been chosen as one of Wiltshire’s top 10 treasures. A handwritten copy of the last letter written by Thomas

Melksham-based Mobsta Promotions are continuing their partnership with The Old Bear in 2010, and plan to continue showcasing some of the best young musical talent in the county. The promotions company aim to hold a gig at the pub in Staverton on the

Even nostalgia is getting on a bit these days. As The Solid Silver 60s Show sets off on its own 25th anniversary tour, which includes three dates in the region, Mike Pender, frontman with The Searchers, talked to the Wiltshire Times about music

IT'S been a very long time since the Chippenham Sunday League have had a side compete in the Somerset Sunday Challenge Cup and, without looking back through the history books, it probably been even longer since they had a team reach to quarter-final stages

STEEPLE Ashton’s James Vince believes England have a great chance in the U19 World Cup after storming through the group stages in New Zealand. The former Warminster School student, pictured, scored 47 not out and 76 not out respectively against minnows

Acclaimed sculptor Patricia Volk, 58, moved to Coppice Hill in Bradford on Avon 22 years ago from London, where she had been working in advertising. She had always longed to sculpt and when her screenwriter husband Stephen’s career took off she used

Firefighters were called out to a fire in a bathroom at the Original Factory Shop in Corsham yesterday afternoon. The store was evacuated at about 12.45pm after staff smelt smoke on the first floor, which they found was coming from the bathroom, where

STEVE Shipway will be hoping that his Audley Spartans side will pick up only their second win of the season when they welcome basement side X Change FC to Stanley Park. Spartans solitary victory came against X Change back in October when a

IT'S derby day in Division Three this Sunday as three of the six matches will see locally-based sides go head to head. The match at Sands Lane, Rowde, featuring leaders British Lion and their Devizes-based rivals The Crown FC gets top billing. Lion

FOLLOWING their 14-1 hammering at the hands of top-flight Biddestone Social last weekend, Steve Mallard will be hoping his Audley FC side won’t still be shell-shocked when they welcome a struggling Pig & Whistle United side to their base at Stanley Park

FIRST Division leaders FC Bradford may have suffered a Knockout Cup exit at the hands of Premier Division Westbury Rangers A last weekend, but their manager Pete Collier has to be very proud of his side. Their efforts almost saw them pull of a cup upset

THERE is no doubt to which takes top billing in the Premier Division of the Robson Taylor, Chippenham & District Sunday League this weekend. That is the match at Meadow Lane, where leaders Westbury Rangers A are scheduled to host second-placed Biddestone

A railway station worker has described the moment a 50-year-old Warminster man calmly lit a cigarette just minutes after throwing himself in front of a train in an apparent failed suicide attempt. Gary Collins, who works for First Great Western

DARREN PERRIN hopes that his side have shrugged off the hangover of the enforced winter break ahead of Saturday’s trip to AFC Hayes. Frome Town travelled to Toolstation League Division One side Shepton Mallet on Tuesday night and ran out 3-

An elderly woman who was in bed when a car ploughed off a road and into her home has said the noise of the crash still haunts her. Grandmother Juline Rose, 74, was asleep at her home in Crockerton, near Warminster, when a black Mercedes lost

A canoe club has decided to take action to prevent teenagers from littering and drinking alcohol outside the Adventure Centre in Melksham Park. Wiltshire Canoe Club, which has about 40 members aged between eight and 25, uses the centre in King George