OVER the past month News Shopper readers have become used to seeing pictures of a horse in the newspaper, as Mark Wallinger’s 50m tall white horse was chosen as the design for the Ebbsfleet Landmark.

However, in January 1988 readers were confronted with page upon page of equine beauties, as horse mania inexplicably swept News Shopper.

At the beginning of the month the News Shopper Horse Show saw stallions and mares from across the area gather at Chelsfield Riding Stables for no good reason.

Later in the month the newspaper reported that Hamleys had donated a life-size model of a horse to the Marjorie McClure School in Chislehurst.

In February the pages were empty of horses, with not even a saddle or long-faced person in sight. Horse mania was over, but the conspiracy theories were just beginning.

Some said the News Shopper editor at the time was inspired to turn the newspaper into The Horse Times by a Bladerunner-like vivid dream of a horse galloping through a field.

Some say the same dream made him wonder whether he was actually an android, but that’s never been proven.

Nor have the theories a rich jockey secretly bought control of News Shopper during January 1988 only to sell it a month later, frustrated at being unable to see over his desk.

Whatever the truth, January 1988 will always be remembered as the month News Shopper rode bareback through the fields of editorial lunacy.

Later in the year, Bromley Council had a moment of madness, as it released an education leaflet with 16 spelling and grammar mistakes.

Councillor Ron Huzzard was outraged by this, saying “I wonder what any pupil will think of a leaflet which, as written, would fail anyone taking an English exam.”

I’m no language expert, but it seems to me Cllr Huzzard’s above statement has a rather poor sentence structure. Still, he was Bromley’s Labour education spokesman at the time, so I’m sure he knows best.

Editor’s note: Check the newsshopper website for all the latest news and photos of horses.

- In cinema the big films were Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Big, Beetlejuice, The Naked Gun, Die Hard and Rain Man, with the latter winning the best picture oscar.

- In music the best-selling singles were Faith by George Michael, Need You Tonight by INXS, Got My Mind Set On You by George Harrison and Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns N Roses.

- On television a whole host of heart-wrenching classics made their debut: Home and Away, You Bet!, Count Duckula, Playbus and This Morning.

- Notable births included Barbadian popstar Rihanna, English model Lily Cole, Canadian Juno actor Michael Cera and English footballer Micah Richards.

- Notable deaths included American jazz musician Chet Baker, American wrestler Adrian Adonis, Italian car maker Enzo Ferrari, American singer Roy Orbison, - Star fact: On March 6 Operation Flavius saw the SAS shoot dead three members of the IRA in Gibraltar, who they believed were planning to detonate a car bomb outside the Governor of Gibraltar’s residence.