Remember When: Crowds flocked to outdoor pool and nuclear bunker was for sale

1973: Music was in the minds of more than 30 girls at the Convent of the Nativity, in College Avenue, Maidenhead, after a Melody Makers group was formed.

Originally a ‘strum-along’ club for guitars, it rapidly expanded to include accordions, clarinets and recorders.

Teachers and pupils were hoping to play a concert at the end of term.

1973: When popular Cox Green Youth Club leader Jack Mann announced he was leaving, members asked him to write to them.

To make sure he carried out the request they presented him with a pen and notebook at his final meeting at the Victory Hall in Cox Green.

Mr Mann, who combined his job at the club with being a travelling youth leader for east Berkshire, was off to become a full-time sailing and canoeing instructor in Felixstowe, Suffolk.

1978: Sizzling sunshine saw Maidonians enjoying the bank holiday weekend in the open-air swimming pool in Cookham Road (main picture).

The outdoor pool was reported to be the most crowded spot in the town.

1978: While not quite 101 Dalmatians, seven cute puppies were still proving a bit of a handful for owner Verity James.

The five-week-old pedigree Dalmatians, and one more fostered out for feeding purposes, were the survivors of a litter of 12.

1988: Furze Platt Junior School pupils and teachers wound up a special book event by dressing up as their favourite storybook characters.

The aim of the scheme, which had started earlier in the month, was to encourage children and their parents to take more of an interest in reading.

1988: A ‘top secret’ nuclear bunker was being offered for sale by the Ministry of Defence – after it
became apparent it wasn’t very secret at all.

The 20,000 sq ft underground complex in Bowsey Hill, two miles from Wargrave, was planned as a base for military and administrative control in the South-east in the event of nuclear war.

The Regional Seat of Government was to shelter 400 top-ranking survivors and space was also rumoured to have been
reserved for members of the Royal Family.

Built in the Sixties in nine acres of dense woodland, publication of the bunker’s exact location had previously been prevented under the Official Secrets Act, but it was abandoned after its location became known to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

Marchers even took a detour past it in a 1988 protest march. Estate agents advised prospective purchasers to take a powerful torch as, after the military personnel left the site, it had been vandalised and the lights stolen.

1988: TV personality Ernie Wise lent his support to keep litter under control when he turned up in his yellow Rolls Royce to collect a free supply of car litter bags.

The star, one half of legendary comic duo Morecambe and Wise, was backing a Keep Berkshire Tidy Campaign calling on people to take their litter home rather than leave it by the roadside.