I’ve recently made a marvellous discovery; it came about purely by chance. A couple of weeks ago my wife decided to venture up into our loft, on doing so she unearthed a box containing a rather fine tea service, a wedding anniversary present from over 20 years ago. It wasn’t the tea service that caught my eye, but the fact that it was wrapped in an old newspaper from 1991. In fact a copy of the Nottingham Evening Post no less.
What a joy it was to read about delays on the A453 and the wedding of Nottingham ice star Christopher Dean (of Torvill and Dean fame). Not to mention the Forest FA Cup special edition front cover welcoming the boys home with the banner headline “We love you Forest, we do”, even though we did in fact lose the FA Cup Final that year. Great also to see that I could buy an XR3i in black, with sunroof and alloys for just £5,995. I loved the headline on page five: “Let them eat beef”, remember the beef and butter mountains from the European Community? Apparently we had 6.8 tonnes of butter and 5.2 tonnes of beef to allocate to good causes in Nottingham.
A young looking Sandi Toksvig was pictured on page seven raising at glass at the launch of Nottingham Playhouse’s new bar the Limelight (I remember it well). Best of all was the headline “City’s skyline under threat” where Nottingham’s “threatened” historic skyline comes under scrutiny by the Civic Society on the proposed impact of the controversial Inland Revenue headquarters and the Broad Marsh extension, all sounds very familiar. What was really surprising though was the fact that white goods, such as washing machines and dishwashers, actually seemed more expensive, being advertised by East Midlands Electricity at £529.99 and £349.99 respectively with a typical loan rate of 28.9% APR. Perhaps the internet and greater competion has had something to do with bringing these prices down? Loving the old “(0602)” Nottingham dialling codes, but the most obvious thing to be noted on the advertising was the lack of website addresses, how did we ever manage without them?
Great to see our world famous Newstaed Abbey (still fully open to the public then); Sherwood Forest Park Farm and Playlands offering family days out from as little as £1.00 entrance fee. I never did win “Find the Ball” but with 250 crosses for just 100p on page eighteen and a chance to win this week’s jackpot of £28,000 it would give today’s Lottery a run for its money.
I spent a good hour pouring over the sepia tinted pages discovering more and more gems. Twenty years has gone quickly and much water has passed under Trent Bridge since then, but it was comforting to see that some things never change; I see that both Notts County and Nottingham Forest are still battling against their arch rivals on the back sports pages.
