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Looking Back: The Oscar factory

At Hounslow Town Hall, while evening films had been shown about this time, it was some time before the building became The Empire Cinema.Read

Looking Back: An ungodly reason to die

THE Reverend William Dodd is thought to have been living at Park Farm, Whitton, when he was arrested for forgery. Born in 1729, he was the son of a Lincolnshire vicar and attended Clare College, Cambridge.Read

Looking Back: When Sperry Gyroscope left the Great West Road

IT WAS in the late 60s when I was driving along the Great West Road, and having just passed over the crossroads at Boston Manor Road, I noticed on the left that the Sperry Gyroscope Company office block had disappeared.Read

Looking Back: Brentford Canal's grand history

WHILE I was going over the Brentford canal bridge recently, my mind went back to the days when I worked for the Sperry Gyroscope Company, whose building had the Great West Road on one side and the Grand Union Canal on the other.Read

Looking Back: Old ironside's palatial past

WHEN thinking of the great personalities that have resided at Hampton Court we often go no further than Cardinal Wolsey and King Henry VIII but history also shows that Oliver Cromwell had a great liking for the palace, when he was Lord Protector of England.Read

Looking Back: What if the Hounslow racetrack had survived?

SO WROTE the Rev Wetenhall Wilkes in his 18th-century poem Hounslow Heath, which set me thinking that if the horse racing track that once existed just outside the little town in those days, had survived, Hounslow would have been a much different place than it is today.Read

Looking Back: It's a big year ahead

I HAVE been looking at some of the anniversaries that will occur in 2010. It is the 300th year of the birth of Thomas Augustine Arne. Who is he? You may well ask. While you may not know his name, I am sure you have sung one of his songs.Read

Looking Back: A great-great possibility

There, on the wall of the shop, was a large picture of John Bunyan, the great Nonconformist, and I understood that some of the family members insisted that he was their famous ancestor.Read

Looking Back: From the archives: December 18, 1909

AT THE meeting of the Brentford Union Assessment Committee, the Clerk Mr W Stephen called attention to the recent paper read by Mr Bowles to the Isleworth Ratepayers' Association which had criticised the action of the committee.Read

Eddie Menday: This year's remembrance is all the more significant

REMEMBRANCE Day has come round again, and on Sunday parades and services will be held around the world to remember those who died in two world wars. Last year, I was in Australia for theRead

Eddie Menday: Halloween history

TOMORROW will be celebrated as Halloween or Holy Evening, which goes back deep into our history. The ancient Celts commemorated a festival for the beginning of winter and marking a new year in farming.Read

Eddie Menday: Tanks for the memory

At the height of the first world war, one of the early tanks trundled through chiswick to persuade people to donate money towards the war effort.Read

Looking Back: When death imitates art

The vast burial space in chiswick gives the area many famous associations. Eddie Menday traces the life of one such incumbent, the artist whistler, buried alongside his wife, from whose lingering death the artist is said never to have recovered - finding his own place in st nicholas churchyard six years later.Read

Looking Back: Bo what a lovely view

Eddie Menday samples the delights of bowood house in wiltshire, the home of the Marquis of Lansdowne, which not only boasts beautiful views but also several links to Hounslow.Read

Pensions past, present... and future?

While the 100th anniversary of the introduction of the old age pension fell earlier this year, the provision of money for elderly people to live on has existed - and been a topic for debate - for centuries.Read

Looking back: historic opportunities

THE Open House London weekend has come round again, when we can celebrate the capital's architecture - from the medieval hammer-beam roof of the Great Hall of Westminster to the ultra-modern Richard Rogers Partnership offices at Chiswick Business Park.Read

Looking Back: When Chamberlain declared war

SEPTEMBER 3, 1939 is forever emblazoned on my mind as the day, 70 years ago, when war was declared on Germany by Britain's pacifist Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain.Read

Looking Back: Surprised by lack of a cathedral

I WAS reading an account of Middlesex by Nikolaus Pevsner, the travel writer of former years, when he declared that our old county had no cathedral.Read

Eddie Menday: Go with the flow

WE ARE fortunate that the great River Thames borders part of the borough of Hounslow, and over the years, much use has been made of the waterway for leisure purposes.Read

Looking back with Eddie Menday: Dishing it up in oz

I WAS intrigued recently by a photograph in the national press, of a formation of alleged Unidentified Flying Objects appearing over the country.Read

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