100 years ago

The annual meeting of Hemel Hempstead Football Club was held at the Rose & Crown Inn, Tring. The club was under leadership of Mr HE Webb and the meeting was presided over by Rev LH Boswall. The committee took the opportunity to congratulate the team upon its remarkable success, especially in the fight for the Championship of the 2nd Division of the West Herts League.

Tring Agricultural Show was held on Thursday 7, 1908 in Lord Rothschild's beautiful park (now the Arts Educational School). Acclaimed at the time to be one of the best one-day shows in the country, thousands of agriculturalist and pleasure seekers flocked there with prize cattle. £1,375 was given out in prizes with Sir RP Cooper of Berkhamsted securing many prizes.

The third annual horse show at Hemel Hempstead saw almost 200 horses coming to partake. The Bury Meadows and Gadebridge Park were the venues for the show. WC and AJ Flowers took first prize in the shire and cart horse competition and their five year old brown mare, Chiltern Rose, won £4.

A Bound of Hope Festival was held in Boxmoor on Thursday, July 30, 1908 by the members of the juvenile sections of some of the branches of the Church of England Temperance Society in the Berkhamsted Deanery. Those that took part were Boxmoor, Berkhamsted, Tring, Wigginton and Potten End.



50 years ago

The traditional August Bank Holiday Carnival took place in Hemel Hempstead this week in 1958. Celebrating its Diamond Jubilee, 18,000 people swarmed to Gadebridge Park for the occasion.

The highlight of the carnival was the selection of the Borough's Miss Diamond Jubilee.

Twenty one attractively dressed young ladies aged 16-27 competed to take top spot but Miss Gillian Newberry (20) managed to claim the title.

Other events included a dog show, a horse show and balloon/cycle racing.

The Luxor in Hemel Hempstead premiered The Sheepman, starring Glenn Ford and Shirley Maclaine, and Up The Creek, starring David Tomlinson and Peter Sellers. There were also various films showing at the Rex, Berkhamsted.

Eileen Mary Slatter (7) and Rosemary Ann Slatter (6) from Swing Gate Lane, Berkhamsted featured in The Corner, a children's section in The Gazette.

The column called, For The Kiddies, saw youngsters getting involved in competitions, postbag letters and birthday announcements.

If you were to invest in a three bedroom, semi-detached house with two garages situated two minutes from the Magic Roundabout in 1958, you would have had to pay £2,700.


25 years ago

Two brothers were reunited in Kings Langley this week after more than 50 years apart.

Frederick Elgar was one of 15 children in his family but was adopted as a child and separated from his siblings.

This week in 1983 marked the reunion at the home of his oldest brother, George. Frederick met another brother, Ernest and his youngest brother James.

Only from pure coincidence from working at the same War Office in Whitehall with two of his brothers, was Frederick able to trace his family.

Through these records he managed to trace his youngest brother, James, who astonishingly worked only a few 100 yards away from him and his two brothers. A remarkable moment of family history.

Young gymnasts were doing backflips, following their success at the Bucks v Herts v Northants contest, representing Buckinghamshire.

Clare Chalk (9), Annie Echlin (12) Emma Reilly (13), Lucy North (8), Lisa Evans (12) and Kirsty Montague (13), took part in the contest, and all lived in Dacorum, except Emma who lived in Aylesbury but regularly trained there and at Dacorum Sports Centre.

Annie came second in the under-14 competition, while Emma came fourth, proving that these youthful gymnasts were a force to be reckoned with.

These results led to: Annie, who was already in Southern Regional National B squad, being picked for Zone Squad trials for National team A; Emma was selected as second reserve for the national finals at Wembley in October, and Clare and Lucy both passed their club grade 4 tests.