Back in the day: We delve into our archives to see what was going on 10 years ago, 25 years ago and 50 years ago this week
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10 years ago – July 23, 2015
Court fury
New Government plans to close West Berkshire’s last remaining courthouse, in Newbury, have prompted fury and contempt.
Newbury MP Richard Benyon, a Conservative, condemned the proposal by fellow Tory and justice secretary Michael Gove, calling it “an attack on local justice”.
And he accused the Ministry of Justice of cynically running down the court’s business in advance in order to justify its current proposals.
Another senior Conservative, Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Anthony Stansfeld, said he feared the consultation process would be an empty exercise to “keep the natives quiet” while local justice was dismantled.
The court was previously threatened with closure in 2010 and only saved by a determined campaign.
But since then it has been reduced to “satellite” status, with weekly opening times slashed from five days to one, its security service removed and custody cases moved elsewhere.
Even routine West Berkshire cases have been increasingly switched to Reading, Slough and Maidenhead.
25 years ago – July 21, 2000
Soldier returns
A former German soldier has undertaken an emotional journey back to where he was held captive as a prisoner of war in Newbury in 1944.
August Steinhage, who lives in Velbert, had been holidaying in England last week with his daughter, Marion Weibel, her partner Peter Blein, and his daughter Jennifer Blein, when he decided he was ready to return to the place where he was detained for a year-and-a-half, between 1944 and 1946, aged just 16.
Mr Steinhage told how he was captured in Belgium during the Second World War, and then shipped to Southampton from where prisoners were distributed all over the country.
He was sent to Newbury Racecourse, which had been temporarily converted into a Pow camp for the duration of the war, where he was forced to eat and sleep in the stables.
His job was to load and unload lorries.
50 years ago – July 24, 1975
Roof rumpus
George Richardson climbed onto his roof on Monday evening to adjust his television aerial ... and found the job took longer than he had bargained for.
No sooner was he up on the tiles of his home in Newbury Street, Lambourn, than his ladder slipped.
He found he was stranded. For half-an-hour he could do nothing but sit on the roof, calling for help.
His wife was inside the house but because she had the radio on she failed to hear his shouts.
Eventually, a passer-by, Mr Philip Greenwood, of Lambourn, spotted him and at the same moment a group of firemen coming off duty from the newly-opened Lambourn station saw what had happened.
Mr Richardson’s ladder was put back in place and he returned safely to the ground.
