25 YEARS AGO

JANUARY 6, 1995

A phone call from a relative gave Walditch naval officer Cmdr. Peter Graham Blanchford the news that he had been awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours List.

Cmdr. Blachford is naval attache at the British Embassy in Cairo, where part of his job is to negotiate for the passage of British ships through the Suez Canal.

More than 2,400 people were breathalysed during Dorset Police’s Christmas crackdown on drink driving as part of a campaign that slashed offences and the number of injury accidents.

It was the county’s most successful ever seasonal campaign with offences down by 20 per cent between December 1 and January 3.

Work is due to start in just over two weeks’ time on an £800,000 science block for Beaminster School.

Head teacher John Pugsley said the new facilities would make life bliss.

50 YEARS AGO

JANUARY 2, 1970

The whole country is now in the middle of a complicated switch to decimal coinage.

In the January edition of his Toller and Hooke Parish magazine, the Rev John Penrose said the church is suffering from the effects of decimalisation owing to the disappearance of the half-crown and the presence of many smaller coins.

It is almost certain that the ‘axed’ Lyme Regis railway line will be back in business on a small scale this summer.

A director of Mini Rail Ltd told a reporter that a miniature railway would operate on part of the line in the holiday season. It would be an additional amusement for the visitors.

Despite being one of the worst-hit towns in Dorset, Bridport is surviving the flu epidemic and the town has enjoyed a reasonably normal Christmas.

Doctors are reporting a mass of new flu cases, but in most shops, business is as usual and there has been no major breakdown in services.