It was one of many stories contained in the July 31 edition of the Weston Mercury & Somersetshire Herald, which also reported:

* The Welsh Shipping Agency Bill, in which it was proposed to build a huge iron ore jetty in the Bristol Channel, was set to go to the next stage in Parliament. But Weston Borough Council wanted more research to be carried out because it thought the jetty, which would stretch across four-fifths of the channel, would do ‘untold harm to the coastline’.

* A human chain of holidaymakers helped bring five people safely ashore when a cabin cruiser capsized on rocks off Anchor Head. The boat had drifted onto the rocks when its engines failed.

* Putting a children’s playground on the Beach Lawns was described as ‘thin edge of the wedge’ which could destroy one of town’s greatest assets by Ald. GW Couch at the monthly meeting of Weston Borough Council. He did not think the council should destroy one amenity to build another.

* And just as the Mercury is commemorating the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War One, the 1964 edition was doing the same for the 50th. It wrote: “August Bank Holiday, 1914. At Weston-super-Mare it was a wonderful day at the peak of a wonderful summer… the happy holidaymakers, who were swept screaming and laughing down the water chute at Birnbeck Pier, who raced around on the helter skelter… little realised to what momentous tragic years the passing hours were carrying them… that wonderful bank holiday on the eve of the First World War… and then the fateful Tuesday night when, with the stroke of eleven, England was at war.”