25 YEARS AGO

JANUARY 20, 1995

GAS ALERT: A poison gas alert at Colfox School in Bridport is forcing Dorset County Council to spend about £160,000 on eight new classrooms. The classrooms will replace seven notoriously ancient and rickety mobile huts.

Headteacher Chris Mason said that heating exhaust gases started creeping back in through the fabric of the huts.

MILLION-POUND CONTRACT: More than three years’ research into a new safety device is starting to pay off for Bridport Aviation Products.

The firm, part of the Bridport-Gundry group, has just signed a contract worth more than £1 million with British Airways to supply overhead bin visors for 100 aircraft.

HARRODS TO HEADTEACHER: A woman who trained to be a Harrods executive is going to be the new head of Beaminster School.

Susan Collard said she gave up working in wealthy Knightsbridge because she wanted something more intellectually stimulating.

50 YEARS AGO

JANUARY 16, 1970

SAVE OUR HOTELS: Lyme Regis Borough Council will resist strongly any attempt by the education authorities to ‘take over’ one of the resort’s hotels to provide additional boarding facilities for the Woodroffe School.

The matter was raised when it was reported that the Alexandra Hotel had been mentioned as a possible building for the extended school boarding facilities.

NEW AMENITIES: Beaminster is to have a miniature putting course next summer. Announcing this at the parish council meeting, Mr. Brian Newbery, secretary of the playing field improvement fund committee, said it would be sited at the Fleet Street end of the playing field.

Mr Newbery said that the bowling green they were planning should be provided in four or five years.

FARMLAND FLOODED: Winds gusting up to 40 miles per hour lashed the Chesil beach over the weekend and on Monday.

The River Brit, unable to flow into Bridport harbour because of the high level of sea water, overflowed its banks and flooded acres of farmland in the West Bay Road area.