50 years ago

Extracts from the Barry & District

News of November 19, 1964:

l On November 9 there were 562 persons registered as unemployed in the Barry area, comprising 481 men and 81 women. This is the second successive monthly increase since September when the total figures stood at 374. The increase has been due to a rise in the unemployed workers in the construction industry, railways and shipping, not forgetting the end-of-season redundancies in catering and entertainment.

l Once again, a very enjoyable day was spent on Saturday when Mount Pleasant Baptist Church held their ninth annual Eisteddfod. Commencing just after 1pm, there was a continual feast of singing, pianoforte playing and reciting, until well after 10pm in the evening.

l The Glamorgan County Council takes over control of Cardiff (Rhoose) Airport on April 1 next – and immediately faces a bill of about £48,000, the cost of strengthening the subsidiary runway. This is part of the improvements being carried out by the Ministry of Aviation.

The total cost of the work being carried out by the Ministry before the hand-over is estimated at £180,000.

l The Government announced on Wednesday week, too late for inclusion in our last issue, that they had decided to lift the 15 per cent surcharge on ships over 80 tons built abroad.

The decision was welcomed by Geest Industrial Limited for it means that the 8,700-ton Geeseport will now be able to join in the banana traffic between the West Indies and Barry.

l On Saturday Barry Dockers travelled to Bristol to play Avon City in the Newlands Cup, a competition organised by the Dock Board, to be played for between all the major ports of Britain.

Barry Dockers won the match 3-2 and considering that Bristol have 1,000 dockers to choose from, compared with Barry’s 140, this was no mean feat.

l Woods will shortly be up for sale at St Athan for the parish council agreed at a meeting on Tuesday to convert the bowling green, referred by members as a “white elephant,” to a putting green and to erect seats at the end of it.