April 4 to April 11, 2011 (From Worcester News)

April 4 to April 11, 2011

2:22pm Monday 4th April 2011 in This week in... By Michael Grundy

THIS WEEK IN 1991:

WATCH out reckless drivers – you’re on candid camera – or to be more precise an unmarked police car equipped with a video camera is watching you travel along the county’s roads and motorways. In fact, there is more than one of the hi-tech spy cars patrolling the West Mercia Police area 24-hours a day. Inspector Paul Austen, who is fully trained to operate the Danish-made video system, says the aim of the video cars is to improve driving standards. The video camera will capture offenders overtaking on continuous white lines, “tailgating”

hazardously, emerging from minor roads in the face of oncoming traffic, and other incidents of reckless driving.

The drivers when pulled up, can be show the recording of their actions and, if charged, the “film” may be used in evidence against them in court.

THIS WEEK IN 1981:

ABOUT 2,000 young people in the county are chasing just 17 jobs – a grim statistic of “concern and horror” to councillors. Their distress at the scale of youth unemployment in Hereford- Worcester was expressed at a County Hall meeting this week. More than 1,840 young people are now jobless – a rise of 250 per cent over the past 12 months. There are 10 times fewer vacancies than there were a year ago, and 730 school-leavers from last summer are still unemployed.

THIS WEEK IN 1971:

THE decision to pass the sex film Love Variations for screening in Worcestershire cinemas was strongly criticised by county councillors. Mrs CW Potter claimed the licensing committee had come to the wrong decision after a private viewing of the film.

She said: “The nation has been suffering an excess of sex in recent years and the result can only be physical and mental damage. I am told it is wrong of me to criticise the committee’s decision as I have not seen the film and it is also argued that the film is both clinical and educational, but my claim is that such films are only made to make money for the producers and distributors.”

Licensing committee chairman councillor FJ Harper said they were equally concerned over morals but found there was nothing in the film they could really object about. It had been given an X certificate by the British Board of Film Censors.

However, he admitted his committee was “all male and mainly in the grandfather bracket”.

THIS WEEK IN 1961:

FROM the Jottings column of Berrow’s Worcester Journal: An echo of the trouble over portable radios on the Malvern Hills is to be found in a news item from France. An order has been issued affecting the departments of Finistere and l’Herault, forbidding the use of portable radios and gramophones on the beaches and restricting the volume of sound emitted by car radios in vehicles near the beaches to the audibility of the passengers only. The argument in support of the ruling is that the radios and gramophones disturb the peace of holiday makers who simply want complete relaxation away from the “madding” crooners. We are all in favour of this.