ONE YEAR AGO

August 15, 2007

A father jailed in Cyprus is still trying to come to terms with the events that turned his world upside down.

What should have been the start of a relaxing family holiday in Cyprus ended with Julian Harrington, of Witham, being arrested in connection with a traffic collision, in which a teenage moped rider died and a second was seriously injured.

Mr Harrington, who had only been on the island for one day, was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for manslaughter and grievous bodily harm for the incident, which he maintained was a tragic accident.

* Children were taught origami, Aboriginal art, African drumming and pottery as part of a multicultural arts workshop.

The sessions were part of the summer activity programme at Braintree District Museum in Manor Street, Braintree.

TEN YEARS AGO

August 13, 1998

Stansted has paid out more than £250,000 to Uttlesford Council for its 300 houses affected by the airport.

The payment was branded a precedent by the council’s agent, who believed it was the first time a local authority had been successful in claiming compensation from an airport.

An Uttlesford Council spokesman said the money would be used for sound-proofing and double-glazing homes affected by aircraft noise, including those in Thaxted, Takeley and Broxted.

He added the payout would not go into the authority’s general coffers and was for those council tenants affected by the airport.

* An articulated lorry blocked a Braintree road for four hours after a manhole cover collapsed under its weight.

The lorry driver was making a delivery to Casa Julia Wine Importers and Wholesalers in Driberg Way, but then mounted the pavement as he attempted to reverse out of Rose Hill, after realising the vehicle would not negotiate a low bridge.

Drivers coming into Braintree town centre faced delays as a recovery unit struggled to free the lorry.

40 YEARS AGO

August 16, 1968

Silver End, the 40-year-old community built by the Crittall Manufacturing Company to establish a source of labour in a rural district – is up for sale for less than £1 million.

A rumour circulating among employees was confirmed by a spokesman at Slater Walker Securities, the London investment group which took over Crittall’s in May.

* Three Witham Town footballers dived into a slime-filled pond in Langford on Saturday after a seven-year-old boy from London fell in, but were too late to save him.

Players, officials and spectators dashed to the pond and jumped in to find the boy.

He was pulled from the water by the players, whose team were playing a pre-season friendly match with Ulting Villa.

Strenuous efforts were made to revive the boy, but it was too late to save him.

The boy and his sister had been on holiday, staying with a Maldon Rural Council officer.

50 YEARS AGO

August 14, 1958

Champagne flowed in Clare Road, Braintree, when 39-year-old Stan Sutton and 38-year-old Tommy Walton met again for the first time since 1943.

Then they were in a small camp near Laterina in northern Italy, having been captured more than a year earlier at Dier-el-Shein.

Mr Sutton was with members of the 2/5th Battalion of the Essex Regiment, while Mr Walton was in the Highland Light Infantry. Their idea was to escape from the camp and meet allied troops.

They did escape, but it was ten months before they met any Allied soldiers, and they roughed it within a radius of 15 miles, sleeping under hedges, in barns, ditches and scrounging food and wine from Italian villagers.

Then they saw men of the Coldstream Guards advancing towards them across a cornfield.

The pair were separated after repatriation and posted apart, and both were later demobbed in 1946.

* A 25-year-old American airforce pilot, flying a Super Sabre jet fighter low over the disused Rivenhall Aerodrome, made a split-second decision when he baled out at a height of 1,200 feet – three feet below the normal safety level – and found that four of his parachute panels were damaged.

He still landed safely, after the fighter’s engines stalled.