Here was the news

40 YEARS AGO: 1961

A 23-YEAR-OLD who lived for driving died in a road traffic accident. The draughtsman from Chigwell Road was killed when his sports car hit a telegraph pole and overturned. His 26-year-old brother said his sibling had lived for his car and was an excellent driver.

SIR WINSTON Churchill, MP for Woodford, celebrated his 87th birthday on Thursday, November 23.

20 YEARS AGO: 1981

GLUE-SNIFFING teenagers were ruining trade for shop keepers in George Lane, South Woodford. According to shop owners gangs of 15-year-olds hung around high on glue urinating on shop fronts and abusing customers. The drug abusers congregated around George Lane to sniff glue together.

A DISPUTE over land ownership became a health hazard as neither Redbridge Council nor the ABC Cinema in South Woodford High Road claimed responsibility for keeping the area in front of the cinema tidy. Pedestrians had tripped on discarded bricks, rubble and rubbish while the council and the owners of ABC Cinema discussed whose responsibility the tidy-up was.

10 YEARS AGO: 1991

AN OLD Bailey judge threw out a satanic sex abuse case declaring a 10 year-old's evidence was "inconsistent and improbable".

The case was brought against the South Woodford parents after their two daughters, aged 10 and 14, told police they had been subjected to orgies of sex and child sacrifice at a Gipsy shrine in Epping Forest.

As the defence prepared to cross examine the sisters the prosecution announced they no longer wished to proceed. The father of the two girls blamed his daughters' accusations on horror films.

A MAN returning home from an evening playing cards died in an hit and run accident. The 72-year-old was crossing Cambridge Park, near George Green, at 10pm when he was struck by a VW Golf.

After the Golf hit him, the injured man was struck by a Ford Fiesta as he lay in the road. The driver of this car stopped but the eldery man died later at Whipps Cross Hospital after firefighter had cut him free from under the car.

FORGED £10 and £20 notes were flooding into the area. Police issued a warning telling shop keepers to be on the lookout for the "fairly good" forgeries.