This week in history - 60, 40 and 20 years ago.
Sixty years ago – 1953
A private released from a Korean prison camp surprised his mother by sending an order for the delivery of a bouquet of flowers.
Jack Everitt, was one of the “Glorious Glosters”. The first thing he did was send gladioli and roses to Mrs F. S. Everitt at Crystal Avenue, Hornchurch.
The flowers were sent by “Interflora”, the flower telegraph service from a Navy, Army and Air Force Institute (NAAFI) in Korea.
Pte. Everitt, 32, was captured in the famous battle of the Imjim River in April 1951.
The flowers were delivered by Mr C. N. Dolman, himself a former prisoner of war of the Japanese in Singapore.
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A Romford woman suffered fatal burns after her nightdress caught on fire.
Mrs Florence Harriet Blowers, 84, of 32, Linden Street, Romford, believing that a match she had used was spent, threw it into a bowl of rubbish which flared up and her nightdress caught alight.
Mrs Blowers was taken to Rush Green Hospital, Romford and told a witness what had happened, before she died of bronchial pneumonia following burns.
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An 18 year old was scammed into letting three young women into his house in Harwood Avenue, Hornchurch.
George Gordon Miller let Shirley Betty Smith and two of her friends into his house when they told him they had nowhere to sleep for the night. His mother was away on holiday.
Whilst they slept in the house, they stole two cardigans and a travelling clock worth £5 17 shillings and 11 pence.
It wasn’t until George’s mother returned home from her holiday that they noticed anything was missing and reported it to the police, who subsequently found the women involved.
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Forty years ago – 1973
A luxury house and riding stables in the council’s “leisure for Londoners” park became the target of vandals.
The house, which was vacant at the time, had all the windows of the building except one smashed, as well as destruction to a number of roof tiles.
The stables also took a lot of damage, A Pinewood Road resident said that “a gang of men came with two big covered vans and ripped every stable door off”.
The house and stables are on land between Collier Row and Pinewood Road, Havering-atte-Bower.
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Police in Havering attempted to attack drug taking and drug abuse in the local area. The police, concerned with the amount of drug trafficking in the London area vowed to hit the offenders hard, and to also educate people about the dangers of hard as well as soft drugs.
Det-Insp Peter Legge said that drug abuse was one of the things that gave him most concern in the area. He said: “Some people were turning to crime to supply their need for drugs.”
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A Rainham father made a heartbreaking return to the holiday camp where his 15 year old son drowned.
Robert Spiers was pulled out of the deep end of the pool in Butlin’s camp, Minehead, Somerset and father Bob demanded a full inquiry into the tragedy.
Bob wanted to reconstruct the circumstances of the boy’s death and wait for comments from the police and coroner before seeking legal advice.
Robert could not swim, but had learned to float during the holiday. Lifeguards on duty attempted to revive him, but were not successful.
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Twenty years ago - 1993
A 14-year-old boy was taken to hospital with a fractured skull after he plunged 15ft through a skylight window at the old Forest Lodge School in Lodge Avenue.
The boy was playing with friends on the roof of the building, when he fell through. He was found with blood pouring from his ear, an apparent sign that he had fractured his skull.
The site where the severe injuries occurred was “an accident waiting to happen” said Cllr Pat Ridley, who added he wasn’t surprised.
Police said the boy was no longer in a critical state, but was extremely lucky to be alive.
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More than 100 Harold Hill factory workers were faced with the choice of moving to Durham or quitting their jobs.
Michael Waddell, managing director of P C Henderson Ltd – which manufactured sliding doors on its Gallows Corner site – blamed the recession for a downturn in the building trade.
The factory’s 120 employees were offered the chance to move 270 miles north to work on the firm’s second site, where the company made garage doors.
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An Upminster couple’s holiday to Bournemouth turned to tragedy when a 78-year-old man was killed - by his own car.
His wife could only watch in horror from the passenger seat as her husband fell out of their Ford Cortina while trying to get in.
It was believed the car had started moving and rolled over the pensioner, fracturing his pelvis and causing other injuries.
The Corbets Tey Road resident died from his injuries in Poole’s general hospital. An inquest had been scheduled.
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