Plead for store

A thousand people have signed a petition urging Tesco not to close its shop in St Albans Road, Watford, on October 2. In the space of two days 700 customers put their names to a Save Our Store petition at the shop. Mrs Pat Ellis, who has worked at the shop for six years, said many customers are also collecting signatures in streets round about. Some plan to write to the company. “The response of the customers is terrific and it will be tragic if the store does close,” Mrs Ellis said.

[August 6, 1982]

Top dog

It was all thanks to Honey, an 11-year-old golden retriever, that the trains went on running through Chorleywood Station when the station was gutted by fire two years ago. Honey’s frantic barking woke her master, Mr Alan Tweedle, who lives opposite the station, and he raised the alarm. As a gesture of thanks to Honey, London Transport will include her among the guests of honour when the £230,000 rebuilt underground station is opened on Monday.

[August 6, 1982]

Watford lose £15,000

Watford Football Club are £15,000 out of pocket this week – because the company who sell advertising space on display boards surrounding the club’s pitch have gone into liquidation. But the club are more fortunate than most – Sports Space Marketing Ltd have folded owing more than £300,000 to top class cricket and football clubs throughout Britain. Watford football general manager Eddie Plumley admits the club has come off better than most.

[August 6, 1982]

Glue sniffers

Glue-sniffing youngsters are vandalising North Watford Cemetery, adding to the heartbreak of grieving relatives visiting the gravesides of loved ones. The desecration of graves by vandals out for “kicks” has become so rife that the police have been called in. Youngsters have run amok around the tree-fringed 35-acre cemetery off the A41 for some time. Lately, however, the vandals’ pranks and glue-sniffing have increased alarmingly.

[August 6, 1982]

Factories plan

22 acres of council-owned land has been released to create a Watford Business Park and attract high technology jobs to the town. The news comes at a time when unemployment in Watford has reached nearly 4,000. The land on which the Business Park will be created is the undeveloped part of Holywell industrial estate.

[August 13, 1982]

Theatre on the streets

Some very uninhibited young actors demonstrated their art in the Watford precinct on Saturday. They are from the Threshold Theatre Company in Harrow who recently performed at the Roxeth Carnival. They have now taken to entertaining weary shoppers in Watford and brightening up everybody’s day.

[August 13, 1982]

Sun wins new deal

Sun Printers have ensured their future by landing another multi-million pound colour magazine contract. The Watford company, which was hoping at least to break even soon, will print the Mail on Sunday supplement from October 24. Associated Newspapers intend to have a print run of 1 million copies for the supplement, and 75% of the supplement will be in colour. Sun’s other main contracts are the Sunday Times colour magazine, TV Times and Woman’s Own.

[August 20, 1982]

Sex shops war

A campaign to rid Watford of sex shops has been started by the Christian Action Now group. A petition with more than 2,500 signatures will be presented at next week’s meeting of Watford Council’s Environmental Health and Licensing Committee. A spokesman for Conegate, which runs The Private Shop in St Albans Road, Watford, said: “The Christian Action Now campaign is an attempt to impose standards on other people and remove their right of choice. There are a lot of people who do not use churches but they do not campaign for churches to be closed.”

[August 20, 1982]

Nuclear-free zone

Watford has declared itself a nuclear-free zone. What’s more, there’s even talk of linking up with an American town as well as a Russian town, and bringing the ordinary people of the two great powers together. The decision means that Watford joins 139 other local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales who call on the Government to “refrain from the manufacture or positioning of any nuclear weapons of any kind” within the borough boundaries.

[August 20, 1982]

Gordon house still on sale

A former home of the Gordon family, of gin fame, and nearly 10 acres of ground at Chorleywood are still for sale, four years after Hertfordshire County Council put the property on the market. The Council had originally earmarked the site in Rickmansworth Road for a new secondary school, but the plans were dropped when part of the land was taken for the future M25.

[August 27, 1982]

Mr Men

Mr Men fans turned up in their thousands when Mr Nosy and Miss Scatterbrain turned up at Forbouys Newsagents in Berry Lane, Rickmansworth, on Friday. Proprietor Mr David Mottershead said about 3,000 people called at the shop – mainly children.

[August 27, 1982]

What was happening in the world in August 1982?

• The Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Spadolini resigns (August 7)

• Mexico announces it is unable to pay its large foreign debt, triggering a debt crisis that spreads throughout Latin America (August 12)

• In Hong Kong, health warnings on cigarette packets are made statutory (August 13)

• The first CDs are produced in Germany (August 17)

• Japanese election law is amended to allow for proportional representation (August 18)

• Soyuz T-7, the third Soviet space mission to the Salyut 7 space station, returns to Earth (August 27)

• The first Gay Games, the world’s largest sporting and cultural event for LGBT+ athletes and artists, are held in San Francisco (August 28)

• In 1982: Michael Jackson releases his album Thriller; Time Magazine names the Man of the Year as the computer; Robert Jarvik is the recipient of the first permanent artificial heart implant; Chariots of Fire wins the Academy Award for Best Picture; the most popular song of the year was Olivia Newton John’s Physical; Prince William is born on 21st June