ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO — 28 DECEMBER 1894

AN ARTFUL VAGRANT

At the Town Hall on Monday last Henry C---, a tramp, was brought up in custody before Messre.Kellow and Bracher, charged with begging in the High Street on the previous Saturday.—P.C.Whitehorn said that 8.30 p.m. on the day stated he was on duty in the High Street in plain clothes, when he received complaints of a man begging. He went into a shop at the top of the street when prisoner came in and begged. He took him into custody and at the station found a penny in his pocket, and 1s 8¼d. concealed in the leg of his trousers.

When asked if he had any money on him prisoner said he only had a penny.—Prisoner pleaded guilty, and said he had been ill for a long time and not able to do any work and that made him beg, He had sold all he had got and wanted two or three halfpence to keep him over Sunday as he did not like to walk on that day. He came from Twyford, and had been in the hospital for thirteen weeks.—Superintendent Miller said prisoner wore straps round his trouser legs, and as he got money dropped it down his trouser till it rested where the straps were. The officer heard the money rattle as he was taking the prisoner to the station, and that led him to ask if he had more than the penny on him. This looked more like the trick of an old tramp than one new to the business.—Prisoner was sent gaol for seven days.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO — 26 DECEMBER 1919

CORRESPONDENCE — GREETINGS

Dear Mr.Editor,—The compliments of the season to you and your wide circle of readers, among whom, I am able to be happy to count many personal friends. It scarcely seems possible that 10 years have slipped away since I left Broughton, where for so many years I held the pastorate of the historic Baptist Church. Many things have happened since I closed my ministry there. The Great War has taken its terrible toll of no less than 32 of the young men of that village, nearly all who I knew their early boyhood days. My deepest sympathy is tendered to those who will miss from fireside and festive board the brave fellows who nobly fell in the Fight for Freedom and the Cause of Righteousness. We revere their memory, and desire to live lives worthy of their supreme sacrifice.

I congratulate you, Mr.Editor, on the continued prosperity of your valued weekly, and I am glad and grateful to be kept in touch through the medium with the district in which I had my share of public life and work. And I may be pardoned for saying that naturally no column is more interesting to me than the one that chronicles the doings and darings of those who dwell in the beautiful and healthful village where I spent 16 of the happiest years of my ministerial life. For dear as Drumtochty was to Ian Maclaren, and fascinating as Thrums was to Barrie, so Broughton was, and still is, to me. Long may your able correspondent live to be the “chiel amang them takin’ notes,” and long may you be spared to “prent ‘em.” Wishing you, your readers, and all my old friends the good old wish—“A merry Christmas and a happy New Year.”

I am, dear Mr.Editor, yours very sincerely,

HENRY A. TREE. 2, Adrian Villas, Stanley Road, Lymington.

SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO — 29 DECEMBER 1944

ADVERTISEMENT

THE ANDOVER PIE SHOP

25, High Street

HOT PIES always on sale

Pork Pies Steak & Kidney Pies Cornish Pasties Fruit Pies &c.

FIFTY YEARS AGO — 24 DECEMBER 1969

ADMIRALS WAY ESTATE TO GET ITS FOOTBRIDGE

Admirals Way Estate is to have its long-awaited footbridge over Churchill Way to the industrial estate.

The borough council’s Highways and Works Committee was told on Monday night that the Minister of Housing and Local Government had agreed to give a grant towards the cost of constructing the £23,000 footbridge.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO — 30 DECEMBER 1994

ANDOVER ADVERTISER COMMENT

As another year draws to a close we take the time to thank all our readers for their support over the past 12 months.

It is our stated policy to produce a newspaper that reports both accurately and fairly on items of local interest and this we have again strived to do.

If our sales figures, which have risen again this year, are any indication, we have apparently succeeded.

In addition we try our best to publish as many reports of the activities of local organisations as possible and, once again, very few of those submitted have escaped our net.

This year we grasped the opportunity to represent the people of Andover and district by leading the campaign to save Test Valley from a proposal to include this area in a new larger Basingstoke authority.

In this, too, we seem to have been successful.

As 1995 dawns we continue with our avowed aims of serving the people of Andover by providing them with the best possible local newspaper which not only reports on the activities of, and reflects the opinions of, our readers, but which is also prepared to take up the cudgels on their behalf.

We trust we shall not be found wanting in the next 12 months.

Ken Dykes, Editor.

Compiler's note: This will be my last Back Through the Pages. I have enjoyed compiling these since August 2006 and I hope you readers have found them of interest, amusement and maybe both! - Derek Kane