HERE AT News Shopper we pride ourselves on our relationship with the community and are always delighted to hear from our readers.

They know this and often write in to tell us about their lives, and a skill of journalism is deciding which tales should go into the newspaper.

In 1975, this skill may have deserted our journalists.

I admit it was a nice idea to profile mothers and their children on the front page each week, and I suppose featuring readers' dogs each week was acceptable.

But the fine line of newsworthiness was crossed when News Shopper allowed an elderly lady to tell us about the plants in her living room - on the front page.

In the April 17 edition, Bromley resident Mrs Masters was pictured with her plants and gave detailed descriptions of each one.

Rumour has it Mrs Masters' plants narrowly beat competition from Mrs Goggin's favourite dusting method to make it onto the front page.

Speaking of talented old people, Lord of the Rings wizard Gandalf was offering his services as a DJ throughout south-east London in 1975.

On October 9, News Shopper featured an advert for The Gandalf Mobile Disco.

Reviews said Gandalf was great on the decks, using his wizard staff to do some hip-hop style scratching, but he did often get his beard tangled with the needle.

Another amusing advert in News Shopper in 1975 was for Graham's Web hair salon in Greenwich.

Graham spoke of his experience as a top international stylist, but the example of his work was a photo of a woman who looked like she'd been given a number six all over with the clippers.

The expression on her face is one of pure shock. She'll always regret the day she said to Graham "just do whatever you think will suit me".

There was shock on the faces of a family from Sidcup when they found a whale stranded on the coast at Clacton in the summer of 1975.

Apparently it is common for whales to risk their lives to get to Clacton beach just to get a Cornetto.