SHOPPERS in Bracknell were taken by surprise when a shiny red fire engine appeared in the High Street 60 years ago, but the local fire service had nothing to do with the ‘drama’.

The 1921 vintage fire engine was being driven by its owner Terry Sanger, who had just driven from Bristol in his 1921 Dodge engine, nicknamed “Dennis”.

With a cruising speed of only 40mph and a fuel economy of 15 miles to the gallon, it had taken Mr. Sanger and his wife, Nova, most of the day to travel the 87 miles.

An eight-year-old Bracknell boy, Jimmy Davidson, who had lost his sight in one eye, walked out of a spiritual healer’s session in 1960 and told his mother: “Mummy I can see with my bad eye.”

Tom Campbell-Best used his powers on the youngster in Victoria Hall, Bracknell, and told the News: “A sick body is expressing a state of mind, I merely ask God to clear the emotional state of the body.”

For two nights Mr. Best had attracted people to the hall, one man had pushed his wife, in a wheelchair, all the way from Ascot to attend the healing sessions.

Both evenings went on past midnight so that everyone could be seen, and many visitors admitted that they would be attending his next meetings in Binfield, Crowthorne and Sunninghill.

A Bracknell fashion show saw the demonstration of a revolutionary new motorised pram by Houseman’s of Reading, but the ‘motorised marvel’ had not been given a licence and it was unsure whether it was even legal.

The four-wheeler was equipped with headlights, mirrors, reflectors and winking ‘trafficators’- all powered by a small 49cc petrol engine.

A famous four-legged visitor called Hexe, arrived in Bracknell in 1960, with his equally well-known rider, Wilfried Wendl, the Austrian holder of a world endurance riding record.

The 35-year-old riding instructor had previously broken the Russian held record by covering 6,786 kilometres in just over six months.

Despite the previous holders ‘rubbishing’ his achievement he told the News: “They claimed that I only pulled it off at the expense of ruining my horse, so to show that they are wrong we are knocking off another thousand miles on the same horse.”

Shops in Bracknell High Street were suffering from a series of ‘smash and grab’ attacks by criminals 60 years ago, with four robberies inside three weeks.

Each raid had been timed between the regular “beat times” of local police officers in the early hours of the morning, with a brick being thrown through shop windows and then the raiders speeding off in a get-away car.

The Ritz Cinema, Wokingham, played host to the qualifiers for the Miss Press Ball 1960, and three lucky winners were chosen to represent East Berkshire in the finals.

The trio included, Jeanette Martin, Janet Lawrence and Jennifer Snuggs, from Binfield, Ascot and Wokingham respectively.