► EXTRA YEAR AT SCHOOL

Now that the leaving age has been raised from 15 to 16, more than 233,000 teenagers will face an extra year in the classrooms. Employers in all fields will be affected, especially in industry, where apprenticeships have been available for 15 year-olds, and offices will face a shortage of young girls. Raising of the age could also put up wage bills.

► TRAIN DERAILED IN TUNNEL

Just before midnight, a freight train travelling from Plymouth to Exeter came to a halt when 12 wagons containing liquid cement left the line, just as the train was entering Kennaway tunnel. All trains were stopped between Exeter and Newton Abbot. Railway staff were called in and worked through the night, organising convoys of buses to transport passengers and goods by road. Newspapers reached Torbay wholesalers two hours late, having been forwarded from Exeter by road.

By early morning, one line had been cleared, and all further major repairs were suspended until evening, to enable trains to pass the derailment. Buses in the shuttle service were often held up in bumper to bumper queues of homeward-going holiday traffic in Newton Abbot.

► CONCORDE

The prototype Concorde 002 was only visible for a few moments, last Thursday, and was making such a subdued rumbling noise that most people did not realise it was in the area. There was no sonic boom, as it was flying at a mere 500 mph, at a height of 2,000 ft. It had flown round Cornwall from its base at Fairford, then travelled along the South coast to Farnborough.

► COLLECTING JUMBLE

‘You cannot take two women to a jumble sale and come back empty-handed,’ Teignmouth Magistrates were told last week. A traffic warden, Mr A C.Pollard, had seen the defendant’s car standing empty on double yellow lines in George Street, and had booked the vehicle.

The driver, Mr William Thomas, claimed he had been loading, and so allowed to park. He said he had stopped so his sister and wife could go to the jumble sale, and explained they were all ‘not as young as they were’.

He maintained he was allowed a reasonable amount of time to load, and added ‘To get a packet of cigarettes may take 10 minutes. To unload a pantechnicon may take all day. I think that to get something from a jumble sale would come somewhere in between.’ The case was found proved, but the defendant was given an absolute discharge.

► WISE WORDS

He that fears you present will hate you absent.

The most trouble is produced by those who don’t produce anything.

The artistic temperament is a disease that affects amateurs.

► POET DISLIKED DEVON

Teignmouth is proud to be associated with Keats, but in fact he loathed the town, and disliked Devon in general. He arrived on March 4, 1818, in a heavy rainstorm, after a long coach ride from London. For the next three days the weather was miserable, and the cliffs and hills were blotted out with fog.

His brother Tom was suffering with consumption, and came to try to recuperate. Keats also had the symptoms, and as a former medical student, knew the inevitable consequences. His melancholy distorted his opinion of Devon men, but was more favourably disposed to the women, ‘especially the middle-sized delicate Devon girls of about 15.’

► RIVIERA CINEMA

The French Connection; Tora Tora Tora.