► HEALTH CENTRE

Reporting on a meeting of the County Old People’s Welfare Committee, Mr H L Wright said that the location of health centres was raised. He pointed out that in a number of cases these were being erected at the top of steep hills with poor transport facilities. Miss Alice Cross raised the point of the chiropody clinic in Teignmouth being in a very awkward place for elderly and infirm people to get to. Four years ago, the Committee asked for the Health Centre to be incorporated in the new library, but they did not get anywhere.

► PAINT SPRAYING

The recent spate of spraying paint on walls and buildings came to a head when four boys at the Teignmouth Juvenile Court admitted to two spraying offences and two thefts. They asked for 38 other spraying offences to be taken into consideration.

They had stolen a chocolate vending machine from a store and twelve boxes of darts, and £12 from the till. Then they went to a garage and bought aerosol spray from a young mechanic. They went up to a railway bridge and sprayed Exeter City football slogans and generally “made a horrible mess”, and went on to 30 other places. Among their spraying were their four christian names, which gave a pretty good lead.

Mr Neville Jennings, prosecuting, said they were young men of completely impeccable character, who suddenly ran amok and did these silly things. They were bound to be detected as the spraying caused a great scandal, and the townsfolk felt aggrieved.

Since then, the parents had sent them out in their spare time to paint over the places they had sprayed. Magistrates would want written notes from the property owners that the repairs had been done to their satisfaction.

► WISE WORDS

'Alcohol is good for preserving practically everything except secrets. Today is the tomorrow I worried about yesterday - and it didn’t matter.'

► BITTON PARK CROSSING

The Urban Council Car Parking and Traffic Committee decided to ask the Devon County Council to consider the floodlighting of the Bitton Park Road pedestrian crossing near the Golden Li: ‘Even after all this length of time, and knowing this crossing is there, I have great difficulty in persuading myself that there is a crossing. I don’t know why.’

► EXAMINATION RESULTS

Evelyn Hardy (former trumpeter and band leader) had five pupils in the Royal Schools of Music exams, Richard Firth, trumpet, (only seven years old), received Merit 1, Michael Firth, trumpet Grade 5, and David Ramsden, trumpet Grade 4, Jacky Upton and Ian Norman, piano.

► READ THIS AND SHUDDER

While the patrons of ‘Carousel’ were entering the warmth of the Carlton Theatre at 7.30pm, two people were surfing in the sea nearby. They were in wet suits, but they could not have entirely escaped the bitingly cold north-easterly wind which was whipping the waves high. Brrrrr.

► RIVIERA CINEMA

Bridge on the River Kwai; Lawrence of Arabia; Doctor Zhivago; Ryan’s Daughter.