Top Reading stories from the early 80s

The month of May in 1982 saw a group of men dressed in full bunny regalia get turned away by airport staff in Ibiza.

The lads from Reading, who were regulars at the Beadles Wine Bar, arrived at the airport dressed as bunnies and were sent straight home without an explanation – and minus a week’s holiday with the 18-30 Club.

They had been sponsored to raise money for the Ken Thomas Scanner Appeal and the Tilehurst Animal Sanctuary to complete their flight to Ibiza in bunny-girl gear.

On arrival, two of the bunnies and another member of the group who had not dressed up were let through – the other four were turned away and took a ferry to France to finish their holiday there.

In the same month, the Holy trinity Church became the only place of worship in Reading to be featured in the first issue of The Good Church Guide.

The book, edited by Anthony Kilmister, described the church as being “all glorious within” and praised its “magnificent” fittings.

In other news, a group of unusual squatters drove the council quackers when they set up home on a pond at the Reading Civic Offices.

The duck pair then produced a brood of chicks – 10 ducklings in total – seemed to be enjoying their town hall residence, but council officers were worried they would struggle to find food there.

But they had not bargained on the family’s intelligence. They fought their corner as employees advanced with giant nets and a box to move them safely to a nearby river.

The parents herded their brood to a nearby shrub.

A mother-of-two spoke to the Chronicle about her London Marathon achievement, describing the atmosphere as “buoyant and exhilarating”.

Winnersh woman Anne Coffey completed the 26.2-mile route in five hours 53 seconds, and also raised £1,000 for the Wokingham Theatre.

May also saw the Woodley Townswomen Guild celebrate its 21st birthday, Berkshire County Council elect its first Labour chairman and six new magistrates sworn in at a special ceremony.

A new golf clubhouse was opened at the Dinton Pastures, in Hurst, by then-Wokingham Conservatives leader Trevor Osborne, the first combined fete and open day at Chiltern Nursery Training College was a great success with £500 being raised for student amenities, and eight members of the Caversham Rotaract Club took part in a sponsored parachute jump at Englefield to raise money for Stoke Mandeville’s Olympic village.

Finally, a creative writing course put a young Twyford mother on track towards a successful career as an author.

Mary Hooper, a well-established novelist, first started writing when her children were very small after taking on a creative writing course.

Before long, she found herself launched into a full-time career, writing love stories for teenage and women’s magazines.