Memory Corner October 17th 2019

Friday October 17th, 1794

LATELY DIED, in the 22nd year of his age, Mr John Watkinson of Liverpool.  This unfortunate youth, who was second mate on board a Guinea-man [cargo ship] was pressed ganged, along with 14 others of his crew, at Barbados last spring and sent on board the Vengeance.  Mr Watkinson was a young man of considerable nautical abilities and would soon have been appointed to the command of a vessel, had he not been thus unhappily torn from his station and friends by a press gang.

 

Friday October 15th, 1819

18th century porcelain dentures

MR BEREND, SURGEON-DENTIST most respectfully informs the ladies and gentlemen of Shrewsbury that he may be consulted, during his stay, at Mr Williams’s, seedsman, in the Market Place.  ARTIFICIAL TEETH fixed, one or a set, without any pain, to be equal in appearance to natural ones, and serve every purpose of mastication and articulation.

 

Friday October 15th, 1869

PARLIAMENT stands prorogued by Royal Proclamation under Thursday 23rd December next.

AN AMERICAN PAPER anticipates infinite trouble in the future in settling Brigham Young’s estate.  The old fellow is very rich, but then when he dies each of his 25 widows will expect her third.

A NUMBER OF LADIES have sent in their names to the secretary of Edinburgh University with a view to becoming students of medicine during the winter session.

 

Friday October 17th, 1919

BY DEFEATING Coventry City Rovers 3-2 at the Gay Meadow, Shrewsbury moved to the head of the Birmingham League table.

IT WOULD APPEAR that there are various sums of money remaining in the hands of the War Office, unclaimed by the dependants of soldiers killed in the war.  In connection with the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, sums are owed to the relatives of 17 deceased men.

 

Friday October 19th, 1979

SHREWSBURY’S mayor, Councillor Bernard Lingen, will be back on official duty this weekend – only a week after almost losing his sight.  Councillor Lingen was badly cut about the eyes when a bottle of tonic water exploded in his face at home last weekend.  He was rushed to the Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, where he had an emergency operation to remove fragments of shattered glass from around his eyes.  He was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, but his eyes are still badly bruised, and he has to wear dark glasses.

 

Thursday October 20th, 1994

AN ARMED SIEGE drama unfolded in Shrewsbury town centre last Saturday afternoon.  At 12.20 a man allegedly stole a shotgun and a rifle in a distraction theft at a shop in St John’s Hill.  Constable Kevin Balcombe approached a suspect in the street after hearing a description over his radio.  Twenty minutes later he radioed back to base to say that he and seven other people were being held hostage at the Sheraz Restaurant in Wyle Cop.  The siege ended peacefully at 7.10pm.

 

Thursday October 22nd, 2009

John Lakelin’s last milk round

ONE of Shropshire’s last traditional milkmen is finally calling it a day – after half a century of making doorstep deliveries to hundreds of happy customers.  John Lakelin took over the family business in Pontesbury when he left school in 1960 and has driven many thousands of miles in sunshine and snow to ensure householders get their daily pinta.  But he has been a lot more than a tradesman.  “I’ve saved a few lives in my time,” John said, “including a woman who fell out of her wheelchair in the snow in the 1970s and was at risk of dying from hypothermia.”