This week in history- 60 and 40 years ago.

Romford Recorder: Romford and Hornchurch Recorder, March 22 1974.Romford and Hornchurch Recorder, March 22 1974. (Image: Archant)

Sixty years ago - 1954.

The parents of a Harold Hill baby who died four days after his birth refused to take the child to hospital for urgently needed treatment, a Romford Inquest heard.

A doctor and midwife claimed that the mother of the child had refused to accept advice on ante- natal treatment.

A doctor warned her that she was extremely anaemic, and that blood tests had shown the birth could be problematic.

He advised her to have a blood transfusion and deliver the child in hospital, but she refused.

After the child was born the doctor was called due to concerns about the child’s jaundiced condition. Despite recommendations the child should go to hospital, a midwife was unable to persaude the child’s parents to agree.

During the hearing the child’s father regularly interrupted evidence and at one point called a midwife a liar.

The Coroner told him frequently to desist and listen to the evidence.

The child’s father was described as an “aggressive man” during the inquest.

A verdict that the child had died from natural causes, due to new born jaundice and a birth injury to the brain, was recorded.

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A student has made a heartfelt plea for the return of a ring that she made with her own hands.

Kathleen Wright of 117 Balgores Lane, Gidea Park, made an earnest plea that the gold and topaz ring be given back after it was stolen from her home.

The burglar had entered her home when she was out studying and stolen a number of her possessions.

Kathleen, an occupational therapy student at the Derby college of art, had made the ring herself.

She intended to enter it as part of her final examinations to go towards her qualification.

After melting down the gold, she formed the ring and attached the topaz to it.

She was anxious to recover it in time to enter into the examination which will qualify her in hospital work, her chosen career.

Kathleen said “I have been studying hard but fortunately my papers and other craft work were not taken or disturbed.”

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An analysis of the 1951 Census has shown that out of the whole population of Essex, around 2,044,964, approximately 43,000 families have no toilet, 23,000 have no kitchen sink and 126,987 have no fixed bath in their homes. It showed that seven families in every hundred share a stove and in some rural areas there are households without stoves.

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Forty years ago - 1974.

Hundreds of medical staff said they would boycott a hospital canteen because of “scandalous price increases.”

The boycott involved 230 people, who were refusing to use Harold Wood Hospital’s canteen.

The staff started a petition and were planning to send copies to their MP, the hospital secretary and the Group Catering Manager.

They claimed that prices in the canteen had risen from 50% to 100% for meat, with a wing of chicken going from 12p to 26p and beef doubling from 12p to 25p.

As well as the increase in prices, one student nurse who didn’t wish to be named also hit out at the fact she was expected to work long hours without any refreshment.

“We can’t get a meal or a drink when we are on night duty if the vending machine breaks down, and it is very unreliable,” she said.

“If I had three meals a day in the canteen, it would cost me about £5 a week.. half my salary.”

The Group Catering Manager for the Brentwood group of hospitals, including Harold Wood denied knowledge of a boycott.

“I have not had any complaints about the food,” he said.

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A danger alert was issued after children dug up live bullets on an old airfield site.

An army spokesperson said that the ammunition, found in Hornchurch, could “kill or certainly maim if it went off.”

Army bomb disposal experts were called in from Kent after children took some .303 ammunition home from the wasteland that was once Hornchurch Aerodrome.

They combed the area where the children found the bullets with detector equipment. They admitted that while the bullets were not as dangerous as modern ones they could go off if they were hit with anything.

The alarm was raised after one parent took the ammunition and some harmless bullet cases to Hornchurch police station.

A police spokesman said; “Please let us know if you have taken anything like these bullets home. We will come and collect them. They could be dangerous.”

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Two schoolboy streakers were ordered to pay a fine in court.

The 17 year old boys, both from Royal Liberty School, Gidea Park, were caught by a plain clothes policeman after streaking through lunch time crowds in Romford town centre.

They appeared at Havering magistrates court and both pleaded guilty to using insulting behaviour in a public place.

Magistrate Olive Roberts said: “For this disgusting offence you will both be fined £15.”

The teenagers offered an apology to the court, saying: “We are very sorry for what we did and for wasting your time.”

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