Grantham company provided tyres for expedition
Grantham’s Vacu-Lug Tyre Organisation was commended in a report for the quality of their remoulds.
The report came from a 1970 expedition entitled ‘Encounter Overland’ which used two ex-military Austin K9 trucks, running on Vacu-Lug’s Duramold ‘L’ pattern radial remounds, and pulling half-ton trailers.
The vehicles transported 23 young adventurers overland from London to Johannesburg, through some of the most hazardous road conditions in the world.
In 13,000 miles, of which more than 9,000 miles were on unsealed roads, only one puncture was suffered, and that caused by a nail 50 miles from journey’s end.
Looking back . . .
10 YEARS AGO
+ When police arrested a man at his home for stealing cookies and a prawn sandwich from the Co-op, he told officers: “You won’t find anything – I’ve eaten it.”
+ Grantham’s High Street was locked down by emergency services in a clean-up operation after a spillage of minty smelling car valet air freshener leaked from a van.
+ Populations of crayfish, thriving in the River Witham near Grantham, were to be checked in an Environmental Agency survey.
+ Hundreds of people signed a petition to prevent the Huntingtower Arms pub from being transformed into shops and flats.
+ Grantham CAMRA’s annual beer festival got under way at the Railway Club.
+ Firefighters from Corby Glen and Grantham rescued a horse from a dried up pond after it became stuck up to its neck in mud on a farm.
50 YEARS AGO
+ A young thrush, nesting in a disused dog kennel at Granby Cottage, Barrowby, survived an hour of flames and smoke after the doghouse caught fire, with a fire brigade member describing the bird as “a bit dazed”.
+ Gerald Frederick Newcomb Brittain, the long-standing managing director of Arthur Chambers drapery, High Street, died aged 72.
+ Plans for a 160-bedroom motel at Tony’s Cafe, Great Gonerby, were deferred.
+ Forty members of King’s School CCF unit returned from two weeks in Amberg (Germany), as guests of a West German Armoured Regiment.
+ The Grantham Journal announced a price increase to 8d, only the fifth increase in its 116-year history.
+ Having lost their George theatre premises at Easter, Grantham Dramatic Society booked King’s School hall for their two winter productions.