KEITH HAMILTON looks through past editions of the Echo and reviews the issues which made the headlines

50 YEARS AGOThe Parachute Regiment was staging an Airborne Dance at the Merry Oak Drill Hall, Bitterne, Southampton.

Butchers E Brown and Son, with several local branches, announced their sausages were "the best obtainable and now available to all.''

40 YEARS AGOSouthampton dockers were unhappy about working conditions while unloading a Union-Castle liner.

A Southampton dentist asked women patients to take off their stiletto-heeled shoes when they walked into his surgery as they were making too many cavities in the Lino.

30 YEARS AGOSouthampton City Council said it might be against the law to hold fun fairs on the Common.

A strike by Ford employees at Swansea was resulting in the threat of lay-offs for staff at the company's factory at Swaythling in Southampton.

20 YEARS AGOTop of the pops, according to sales in local record stores, was Coward of the County by Kenny Rogers who also had the best-selling LP.

Hampshire Trading Stan-dards Office announced a crackdown on rogue secondhand car dealers who had broken the law.

10 YEARS AGOThe first signs of economic recession were beginning to hit Hampshire as job vacancies for school-leavers dropped for the first time in three years.

More youngsters were out of work in the county compared with the same period the year before.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.