75 years ago

JUST after 12.15pm on Saturday, the discharge of the fire maroons brought a large crowd of people to the fire station where they witnessed a smart turn out in just under five minutes by Sidmouth Fire Brigade. This was in response to a call that had come from the fire alarm at the bottom of Alexandria Road. Arriving there, however, the brigade found they had been the victims of a false alarm.

A VERY successful flannel dance organised by Mrs Prendergast in aid of Sidbury, Salcombe Regis and Sidmouth Social Worker, was held in Sidbury Village Hall on Tuesday evening. A large company spent a thoroughly enjoyable time to the strains of music supplied by Ernie Dommett’s Band.

50 years ago

AN experiment, believed to be the first of its kind in Sidmouth, has this summer been introduced at Sidmouth Lawn Tennis Club in the form of a junior coaching school. The response to this has proved how many young people there are in the district who have been waiting for just such an opportunity.

THEATREGOERS who remember Mercury Players’ production Fools Rush In will welcome the current comedy at the Manor Pavilion by the same author. Trial and Error, Kenneth Horne’s farce, concerns a feather-brained female who immediately after her second marriage is confronted by husband number one, thought to have met a watery doom over the side of a ship the year before.

25 years ago

WORK can now start on 37 luxury flats on Sidmouth Esplanade. Revised plans by Japsem Developments Limited to build the flats on the site of two garages at the eastern end of the Esplanade were approved by East Devon District Council’s Planning committee on Tuesday. They show 37 rather than 40 flats with a controversial fifth floor removed to match the adjacent listed buildings.

WHEN Sidmouth Bowling Club announced they would hold a function for the town’s Hospiscare appeal, it expected to raise about �600. At the presentation on Wednesday, however, the club was able to hand over a cheque for �4,000. The money was raised by a coffee morning, a bring and buy sale, a bowls match and donations from members, including one for �1,000 made anonymously.