Two Crowthorne sisters were ‘doing it for themselves’ on the tennis courts at Queen’s Club in London by winning the U19 Girl’s Schools pairs championship in 1985.

Lucy and Sally Eve aged 14 and 16 celebrated their success by being presented with the Challenge Cup by British tennis legend by Wimbledon Single’s winner Virginia Wade.

In nearby Ascot a drama of a totally different kind occurred when a factory fire closed the London Road for over three hours as firefighters from six different stations fought the blaze.

More than 60 workers at Abrasive Specialities were evacuated as the danger of explosion from gas cylinders increased-firefighters dragged them clear of the flames.

At one point the fire spread to the factory’s timber roof,which exploded,shooting tiles into the air-later it collapsed.

The Bracknell branch of the Burma Star Association held a special march to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the end of WWII and to remember their colleagues who were killed or maimed during the Burma campaign.

A wreath was laid at Bracknell’s War Memorial before the procession of veterans paraded through the town centre.

Broadmoor Hospital was getting a facelift 32 years ago and the Bracknell News reported that the building programme would take the complex into the 21st century.

A new ward block,medical centre,kitchen and stores were under construction and the News printed an aerial photo showing the work was well advanced.

The Reading Chronicle-who published a South Oxfordshire edition 32 years ago-announced that Goring had been voted 1985 Best Kept Village and had also run away with the best kept recreation ground and playing fields class.

The chairman of Goring Parish Council Norman Radley told the Chron:”I am very pleased that the village has done so well-more than anything else we have to be grateful to all the people who contributed to the result.”

A host of England’s best table tennis stars played a series of exhibition matches in the unlikely venue of the Butts Centre (later to become the Broad Street Mall).

Amongst the players was England’s number one Desmond Douglas who (at the time) had a record of being unbeaten for the last eight years.

Local townsfolk awoke to find the eerie spectre of 100 life sized silhouettes painted around the streets of Reading to remind people of the 40th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.

The spooky artwork had been stopped by the police in the early hours but not before the grim art had appeared on some of the main roads into the town centre.

The Slough Observer reported two very different roadside incidents when two ‘shedloads’ spilled onto local streets.

In Chalvey a sugar lorry got itself into a sticky situation and to make matters worse the sugar was in a liquid form but after two hours of hosing from local firefighters the mess was cleared up.

Nearby in Montem Lane another lorry dropped its load of bales of hay onto the car of John and Catherine Brophy just as they were sitting down to dinner.

Speaking to the Observer Mr.Brophy quipped:”It isn’t everyday you see a car covered with hay!”

Luck was certainly on the side of Yvonne Gaywood from Colnbrook when she played a round at Datchet Golf Course and scored a hole-in-one.

The odds for scoring every golfer’s dream are 43,000 to 1 and after 13 years of playing she achieved an ‘ace’ which earned her a bottle of 12-year-old Scotch Whisky and membership to the exclusive Hole-in-one society.

Words and archive photos: Chris Forsey