FINANCIAL crisis, Burnham’s dangerous jetty and the ‘Berlin Wall of Locking’ made for an interesting week of news in 1964.

The Weston Mercury & Somersetshire Herald featured a host of stories from across the area during the week of March 13, 1964.

News reported included:

n A Weston man was fined £2 by magistrates for parking a van after dark in Moorland Road without leaving the lights on.

n A financial crisis for Somerset County Council would mean an extra threepence on the county rate, predicted Mr HF Scott-Stokes, vice chairman of the county finance committee.

n Drownings near the jetty in Burnham which occurred last summer led to a move to have part of the structure removed. “It is thought that the removal of the end of the jetty would prevent conditions that make bathing there dangerous.”

n A suggestion that the 2s admission charge for the open-air pool should be put up to 2s 6d found favour at the Finance Committee’s special estimate-pruning meetings.

n “Valuation Court told of Locking’s ‘Berlin Wall’ – but it does not open at Christmas, says appellant.” The paper reported how three bungalow owners near a barrier of a thick hedge and five foot wire mesh fence were appealing against their rating assessments due to this ‘Berlin Wall’ of Locking.

n Keen dancer, swimmer and water-skier, Susan Thompson, aged 18, of Hobart Road, Weston, is the winner of this year’s Weston Telephone Exchange Inter-Flora Personality Girl contest.

n The paper also ran its own ‘Looking Back – From The Mercury Files’ column – focusing on events of 100 years ago (now 150), with the following story from March 12, 1864, when the paper had been established for just 21 years: “A Wedmore woman, Miss Waters of Sand, has been appointed head nurse to the infant son of Prince and Princess of Wales. He was named Prince Albert Victor of Wales.”

The 1864 paper also featured calls to make the tercentenary (300 years) of William Shakespeare’s death, a public holiday.

n Have you got any photos from bygone times? Send in a digital copy of your pictures to newsdesk@westonmercury.co.uk and they could be included in a future edition of Picture Past.