50 years ago

Extracts from the Barry & District News of April 30, 1964:

• The Barry team of Midland Silicones Limited were placed second at the weekend in the seventh annual first aid competition of the Albright & Wilson Group. The competition this year was held at Walthamstow in London. The Barry team were only one point behind the winners who were from Widnes, Lancs.

• With their final game at Jenner Park tonight (Thursday) Barry Town come to the end of their worst season since joining the Southern League as founder-members well over 40 years ago. But though the position has been critical the club has come through and completed its programme in the Southern League and gained some slight consolation by securing promotion to the newly-formed First Division of the Welsh League. The financial position is still very serious, but John Bailey, chairman of the club told the News and Herald on Tuesday that the picture is perhaps not as black as painted.

• The mass resignation of the officers of the British Legion reported exclusively last week in the News and Herald, was brought up at the monthly meeting of the British Legion Council for Wales in Cardiff on Saturday, and afterwards Trevor Philpott, of Barry, chairman of the council, said that it was hoped to “resolve the difficulties.”

• Mr Brian Baylis, son of Mr and Mrs H V Baylis, Gladstone Road, Barry, has been successful in obtaining his MA Degree. Mr Baylis is teaching at Archway Comprehensive School, London, S6, where he is head of the history department.

• A former Barrian who lived in Kingsland Crescent many years ago and who now lives in Warwickshire, played in the orchestra at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon during the celebrations to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. He is 70-year-old Robert Swan, who specialises in playing the violin and viola, although he can play eight instruments.

• County Ald Dorothy M Rees was on Thursday elected chairman of Glamorgan Council Council – the highest honour ever conferred upon a Barrian in the sphere of local government. She is the second women to be appointed to the office . . . and at the ceremony there were well-deserved tributes to her long record of public service.