Year of change as city industry began to switch
“THE cathedral in the sky. The projection of Gloucester cathedral into the night sky, occurred several times during the illuminations on the occasion of the Three Choirs Festival in September 1956.
“The front cover to this guide reproduces a photograph of the phenomenon and the corporation are much indebted to the Gloucester newspaper, The Citizen, for permission to use”.
You can see the picture on this page, which appeared on an official guide to the city. And what a striking sight that beaming brilliance must have been to local people who only a few short years before had endured years of black out during the Second World War.
The guide presents a peek back to that decade, when Gloucester was finding its feet after the years of conflict and striving to find a new purpose as its time as a centre for heavy industry was running out.
According to the Citizen, 1960 was a year of change for Gloucester. In particular it was the year when there was a major industrial switch from “an unhealthy dependence on the aircraft industry – particularly military aircraft – to diversified industry”.
This move was probably just as well, since by the end of 1961 news was released that the Gloster Aircraft Company was to close. There were other portents of things to come.
For instance, Staverton Airport was ruled out as a possible university site, Gloucester city’s water engineer appealed for restraint in the use of water and the county police introduced radar speed checks.
In the days before the M5 motorway bypassed the city, traffic congestion was a thorny issue. In April 1960 The Citizen reported “the usual miles long traffic jam into Gloucester on Easter Monday” and again in August “thousands of cars passed through Gloucester as holiday traffic converged on the West Country”.
There was the first hint of pedestrianisation when Gloucester’s Mayor, Alderman Jelf, prophesied that motorists would have to be prepared to walk and that the solution to the city’s problems lay in “fringe parking”.
Traffic to and from Wales using Gloucestershire roads also provoked county council pressure on the Transport Minister to expedite work on the first Severn Bridge, which produced a promise that the project would start in 1961.
There were three notable firsts for the city in July. Jack Diamond, MP for Gloucester was the first city member to be promoted to Labour’s front bench.
Tom Voyce became Gloucester’s first president of the English Rugby Union and Mrs Stina Robson became the city’s first woman prospective Liberal candidate.
On the economic front Wall’s ice cream factory came into operation in July 1960 at Barnwood, while in Stroud such was the number of job vacancies that the Employment Exchange manager said there was little chance of meeting the demand for workers “unless more can be brought in from other districts”.
There was no such luck in the Forest of Dean. There was a further rapid dwindling of the district’s coalfield and Cannop Colliery closed in August 1960, although there was more hopeful news regarding the future of Northern United and Princess Royal collieries.
But the story to overshadow all others in the Forest was the Severn Railway Bridge disaster in October 1960, when
two tankers collided in fog and partially demolished the railway bridge with the loss of five lives.
Other key moments of 1960 were the opening of Chosen Hill School by Sir Peter Scott. Archway School was built to replace Rodborough County Secondary school in Stroud. Work on transforming the old market site in Gloucester into a bus station was given the go-ahead.
Red and White bus crews from Cinderford stopped work in protest at the introduction of one-man operated buses. Aston Down air station closed and Dr Barbara Moore walked through Gloucestershire on her epic John O’groats to Lands End marathon.