Top Reading stories from the 1980s

Six couples were featured in the Wedding Bells feature in the early January 1982 edition of the paper.

Mark Douglas married Julie Fellows at St Nicholas’ Church, Remenham, while Nigel Clark and Elizabeth Walker got married at St Nicholas’ Church in Sulham on Christmas Eve.

The wedding of Charles Skinner and Joyce Kingston took place at the Reading Register Office, while Glenn Hooper married Debbie Randall at Whitley Hall Methodist Church, Reading.

Another Reading Register Office wedding was between Michael Clacy and Gillian Hinton, while Glen Howes and Marina Kersey got married at Christ Church, Reading.

The same month saw childhood sweethearts Gladys and George Cooper officially open the Leicester Building Society’s new look offices in Friar Street.

The pair, both then aged 70, had bumped into each other at the building society in Reading 20 months previously, after separating many years earlier.

They had met at school, fell in love and were to be married, but family problems forced the engagement to be broken and they lost touch.

Amazingly though, after a separation of 43 years, and living within a mile of each other, they met again and got married in January 1981, getting their happy ending after all.

January 1982 also saw Reading’s first sponsored hair cut raise more than £100 for the Penlee Lifeboat Fund.

Volunteer Alan Milne had his shoulder-length locks snipped, with customers of the King’s Road pub, where the cut took place, sponsoring the trim.

The money went to the wife of a lifeboatman who died in the 1981 Penlee disaster. He was the landlord of the Ship Inn, in Mousehole, and the money was expected to pay for a New Year’s party for all the children affected by the tragedy.

Finally, Tilehurst’s Norcot Primary School children celebrated its 75th anniversary with a trip down memory lane.

The school put on a special exhibition of Tilehurst memorabilia, with a potted history of the area as seen through the eyes of Norcot Primary.