Holiday heartbreak as company goes bust and new superstore opens: Look back at headlines from 1992

In our regular On This Week column, we look back through the pages of the Lynn News from July 28 – August 3, 1992 as well as a picture from July 1992…Holiday heartbreak has struck for more than 140 West Norfolk travellers after the coach tour company they had booked with went bust, and all seem certain to lose their hard-earned money. A devastated North Lynn pensioner was looking forward to a nine-day break on Spain’s Costa Brava with her friend after undergoing several cancer operations. But now both face losing up to £400 after the Bath-based independent tour operator Land Travel called in receivers. Members of the sports and social club at Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital stand to lose a total of £7,500 after booking holidays for 116 people to Austria, Hungary and Paris. ACR Heat Transfer’s sports and social club had booked to go to EuroDisney and those members will lose £76 each.Royal approval was given by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother as she heralded the arrival of rail electrification to King’s Lynn. She told delighted British Rail and civic dignitaries that it was a major step forward for West Norfolk. The Royal great grandmother – she will be 92 next week – visited Lynn station to mark the £40 million modernisation of the Lynn to Cambridge line due to roll into action on Monday, August 24. During her visit she unveiled a commemorative plaque, named the first electric train, King’s Lynn Festival, and admired photographs from the Lynn News archives included in an exhibition.

Angry Magdalen mums are threatening not to send their children to class if the predicted closure of the village school goes ahead. Pupils will be forced to travel two miles to Watlington if Norfolk County Council’s operations sub-committee decides at its September meeting to close Magdalen First School and refuses a parish council offer of land for a new school in the village. Parents are angry at the possibility of their children having to walk along a busy road to Watlington as they would not be eligible for free transport.Lynn’s Millfleet culvert intake, built at a cost of £180,000 by Gaywood Internal Drainage Board with aid from the Ministry of Agriculture, has now been officially opened. The board’s chief engineer, Mr Ben Hornigold, said the mechanism would enhance Gaywood River, which runs out to the sea through the culvert, by maintaining water levels and thereby provide a better environment for plant and animal life. It will also filter out weeds and improve drainage after periods of heavy rain.Plans for the future of North Lynn’s troubled youth centre look set to ensure it will stay on the map for some time to come. Earlier in the year things looked bleak when the centre closed for a few months, but now a new committee has been formed, with bingos and discos being held at the Pecks Field premises. A recently-formed mother and toddler group will start up in September and it is hoped ultimately to set up a youth club at the premises. John Shaw, a former Lynn News Sportsman of the Year, set up both goals in Great Britain’s 2-0 hockey victory over Egypt as his Olympic career got off to a great start in the searing Barcelona heat. The former Pelicans player, who still has a house at Ashwicken, nearly scored himself before being substituted in the second half. GB are the holders having won in Seoul in 1998, but now face a tough test if they are to progress this time when taking on the tournament favourites Germany. Another former Pelican, Kathy Johnson, is hopeful of being in the GB ladies team taking on Holland. [At these games, GB men finished sixth and GB women took the third place bronze medal].The “obsession” of West Norfolk Council for selling houses has been condemned by Labour representatives, after it refused to reconsider the sale of a council-owned bungalow in Lancaster Crescent, Downham. The issue of the two-bedroom property, in an area set aside for the owner-occupier scheme, was raised at a full council meeting. A controversial motion to lower the selling price rather than re-let the property to needy tenants angered the Labour councillors who pointed out the council had more than 30 applicants in the Downham area listed as being “in need”.Mark Howard has been appointed assistant manager of Lynn Football Club. Howard (27) played for the Linnets in the early 1980s, before spells at Manchester City, Wrexham, Cambridge, Northwich and Buxton. He joins boss John Musgrove and coach Andy Weavill on the management team. In recent years Howard has lived in the North West, but is now moving to Heacham to take over the family’s butcher shop.