50 YEARS ago

Extracts from the Penarth Times of December 23, 1966:

Nearly 300 were present on Tuesday evening, for the Annual Christmas Concert of Penarth Secondary Modern School. Carols by the choir were followed by a Christmas suite based on well-known Christmas tunes, and played by recorders, violins, a cello, a trumpet and a French Horn along with the piano.

Christchurch will have its usual Family Service at 11am on this Christmas morning. This, the only service of the day, will be of about 40 minutes duration and will bring together one of the largest congregations of the year.

The Annual Christmas Play Festival was performed in the small Assembly Hall at Ysgol Erw'r Delyn by the pupils of the school for parents and friends on Wednesday afternoon, Thursday and Friday evenings of last week. Your observer shared with some 200 others the Friday evening performance.

The "People Next Door" campaign is now getting under way. The project, one of the most imaginative in which the churches has ever been engaged is concerned with the problem of getting to know our fellow countrymen better which means understanding their ideas and beliefs.

Since the proposal at the recent public meeting, regarding the new church room it is hoped to add to the Old School, more than £160 has been raised by Young Wives, Mother's Union and the Women's Institute and handed over to the rector.

One of the most eagerly awaited annual events in Sully, is the concert that the Sully Primary County School always puts on at this time of the year, and this year's concert held on Friday evening of last week maintained the high standard of other years.

Every member of the Cogan and Llandough Pensioners received a Christmas gift at the annual dinner held at their Rest Centre last week.

The dinner and gifts were made possible by the fundraising activities, organised by the committee throughout the year.

785,879 broadcast receiving licences, including 682,113 for television and 29,147 for sets fitted in cars, were current in Wales and Monmouthshire at the end of November 1966. During November the number of television licences increased by 4,821.

This increase is exceptional for November when the increase is generally about 1,000. The leap in licences may be attributed to the publicity given to the PMG's recent announcement that the campaign against licence evasion is being intensified.