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Looking Back: Friday, April 4, 2008

By Elaine Squire - Friday, April 4, 2008
LOOKING BACK
100 Years Ago
April 4, 1908
Thirty six lives were lost in the sea off St Catherine’s Point when the torpedo destroyer, Tiger, sank during a naval exercise.
In darkness, as the Tiger tried to manoeuvre within striking distance of the larger warships, it steamed across the bows of the cruiser, Berwick, and was cut clean in two.
The 20 men on the back of the ship were rescued but the captain and the men on the forward part of the ship, which rose vertically in the water and sank quickly, all drowned.
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Clyde Purnell, a well-known footballer from Ryde, was chosen to play for England against Belgium and Germany on April 18 and April 20, 1908.
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A Ryde bus driver was fined 5s for causing an obstruction on the Esplanade footpath. Witnesses said Walter Hardy’s bus was fifth in a queue when he decided to move to the front via the footpath. When the other drivers threatened to report him Mr Hardy said: “I don’t care a fig.”

75 Years Ago
April 1, 1933
Author, J. B. Priestley bought Billingham Manor, a historic country house, about six miles south of Newport, which was believed to have connections to Charles I.
In an article in the Daily Telegraph, Mrs Priestley said: “We have bought it as a holiday home for our young children and we intend to spend about five months of the year there — it is a perfectly delightful little manor house.”
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Sir John Rowland, of Southsea, husband of Ellen Jolliffe, whose father was G. H. Jolliffe, of East Cowes, was one of the 18 British victims of an air crash.
The Imperial Airways plane, the City of Liverpool, caught fire and crashed during a flight from Cologne to Croydon.
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The IW County elementary education sub-committee gave its backing to proposals for a trip to Geneva in August involving a number of Island schools. Most of the teachers and pupils were expected to come from Sandown CE School.

50 Years Ago
April 5, 1958
Nearly half of the 450 acres of land acquired by the National Trust on Afton Down was gifted to it by Lord Mottistone in memory of his father. The trust also acquired the 240-acre Compton Farm after a bequest from Mary Salter, of Gosport, in memory of her son, Cpl Edward Salter, who lost his life in the Battle of Casino in 1943.
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A teddy boy was fined £2 after swearing at a policeman after being asked to stop singing an obscene song in Newport High Street.
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Alan Fresle, from Ventnor, was crowned the schoolboy Amateur Boxing Association champion of Britain from a field of more than 17,000 entries. Boxing at 7st 10lb in the Junior B Class (13 to 14 years), Alan’s final against M. Locke, of Cheshire, was televised on ITV.

25 Years Ago
March 31, 1983
Island rail travellers were being asked to stamp out vandalism on trains after £300 of damage was caused to seat covers in a refurbished carriage.
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St John Ambulance members from Ventnor and Ryde cleaned up in the IW round of the national first-aid and nursing competition at Nodehill Middle School, Newport.
After both coming top in two of the four sections of the competition, Ventnor and Ryde went through to the regional round in Southampton.
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Two top amateur snooker players took time off from a tournament at Puckpool to play an exhibition match at Cowes Call-in Centre for the unemployed.
More than 40 young people surrounded the table to watch Irish internationals Eddie Swaffield and Sammy Pavis play.

10 Years Ago
April 3, 1998
The willow sculpture of a 10ft-tall man on St Mary’s roundabout was completed after a month’s hard work by Islanders.
Comparing the sculpture to a wig-wam for dwarfs, IW councillor Jeff Manners said: “It is now a toss-up for what is most laughable, the Koan at the hospital or this thing stuck in the middle of the road.”
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IW Council planners were to go on a site visit to the tip at Lynnbottom to consider proposals for an extension, relocation and plans for a visitors’ centre.
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IW councillors pledged not to stand by and watch the historic Sun Inn at Hulverstone turned over to residential use.
Although it had been closed for ten months and pub fittings had been stripped out by the new owner, council planning committee members were determined to do what they could to return the inn to its traditional use.