Underground surprise

Builders working in North Watford have unearthed a huge air-raid shelter. The maze of rooms, about a metre underground, was discovered by workmen building a turning circle for cars in Bruce Grove. “We’ve had a few people come up and say they remembered it was here. Some even remembered using it during the war,” added builder Tony Catling.

[May 4, 1984]

Town centre plan

Another part of Watford’s town centre is set to be demolished to make way for a new development. The site is a block of shops and offices on the corner of Clarendon Road and The Parade. Prudential Assurance are the freehold owners. They want to reconstruct a retail and office building with a basement, ground and two upper floors – three times the existing floor space.

[May 11, 1984]

Warning for swimmers

Children in Cassiobury Park are being urged to play in the paddling pool and not in the River Gade following a case of “swimmer’s itch”. Seven-year-old Emma Smart, of Watford, went paddling in the Gade last week with her sister Samantha, aged 11. Later that day both girls were suffering from a rash on their legs. The symptoms are similar to those of “swimmer’s itch”, several cases of which were reported by people using Rickmansworth Aquadrome last summer. It is caused by parasites associated with water snails.

[May 11, 1984]

Save town’s show

Watford’s largest horticultural show faces cancellation – unless organisers can attract £1,500 sponsorship within the next two weeks. The Borough of Watford Horticultural Society has launched an eleventh hour appeal to save the town hall show, which was revived just three years ago after a 30 year gap. The society, which is reluctant to ask previous sponsors to dig into their pockets again, has been looking for new companies since February. But so far it has had a poor response.

[May 11, 1984]

Jetting in

The lure of Watford’s first appearance in an FA Cup Final is proving too much for fans all over the world. They are flying in from as far away as Canada and Australia to support their home town team. After keeping in touch with Watford’s results since the beginning of the year, Nick Reynolds has secured special permission to come home from Sydney, Australia, to see his team play Everton. Australian immigration authorities saw the match as a suitable reason for relaxing the permanent residency rules.

[May 11, 1984]

Everyone’s football crazy!

Watford has gone football crazy as the Wembley countdown reaches zero hour. Dozens of businesses, scores of shops and hundreds of homes are sporting the crimson, yellow and black Watford Football Club colours. Schools, hostels and old people’s homes have gone in for scarves, rosettes and bunting, plus pictures of the team. At the town’s Market Street Post Office, the staff have been given permission to wear Watford FC tee-shirts on duty today and tomorrow. In newsagent WH Smiths they’re wearing hats and rosettes.

[May 18, 1984]

School shut by police

A Watford junior school is the first one in South West Hertfordshire to close because of a selective three-day strike by the National Union to Teachers. The closure this week of Holy Rood RC junior school in Greenbank Road came as members of both the NUT and the NAS-UWT took industrial action. The measure of teachers’ discontent was now being felt, said Mrs Rose Masien, spokesman of the NAS-UWT Herts Association.

[May 25, 1984]

Brighter job hopes

Job prospects are brightening for 900 school and college leaves expected in the Watford area this summer. Well over half the youngsters on Youth Training Schemes this year have already got jobs, says Divisional Careers Officer for South West Herts Mr Mike Hinsley, who expects the maximum number of training places will not be needed for school-leavers this year – because there are more genuine jobs.

[May 25, 1984]

New park gates

If there is one thing that unites the people of Watford, apart from the football club, it is the subject of Cassiobury Park gates. It still rankles after all this time that they were pulled down to make way for the town’s new road system. But if the alternative is to erect new gates like any suggested by architectural students from the North London Polytechnic then perhaps the park is better off the way it is! The Friends of Cassiobury Park were delighted when Mr Brian Nicholls, course tutor, offered to make designs for new park gates a project for his students. About 30 plans were submitted, and an exhibition of them has opened at Watford Museum. Several people have already written their views in the comments book. One unsigned comment speaks nostalgically of the original entrance being superb. “Trying to replace it with one of these objects is a complete waste of time and resources.”

[May 25, 1984]

What was happening in the world in May 1984?

• The Itaipu Dam is inaugurated on the border of Brazil and Paraguay after nine years of construction, making it the largest hydroelectric dam in the world at the time (May 5)

• Sweden wins the Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley’ (May 5)

• The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles (May 8)

• The Thames Barrier to stop flooding in London is officially completed (May 8)

• An explosion at the Soviets’ Severomorsk Naval Base destroys two-thirds of all the missiles stockpiled for the Soviets’ Northern Fleet (May 13)

• A methane gas explosion at Abbeystead water treatment works in Lancashire kills 16 people (May 23)

• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom opens in the US (May 23)

• US President Ronald Reagan rules out US military intervention in the Iran-Iraq war (May 26)

• Six inmates escape from a death row facility at Mecklenburg Correctional Center, Virginia, the only occasion this has ever happened in the US (May 31)