Dursley Rural District Council (DRDC) paid for and published the official guide with its smart burgundy cover you see reproduced here in 1966.
Council members had, perhaps, caught wind of the news that they were likely to be given the heave-ho in the reorganisation of local government being mooted and wanted to leave their mark.
And sure enough, in 1974 DRDC vacated the council offices in Kingshill when its duties were passed on to Stroud District Council.
The guide book’s a snapshot of this small Gloucestershire town and its environs 60 years ago. DRDC administered 11 civil parishes spread across 42 square miles. These parishes included Slimbridge, where Sir Peter Scott had established the Severn Wildfowl Trust reserve.
Author Evelyn Waugh was once resident in nearby Stinchcombe, though he hadn’t a good word to say for the place. And it was hereabouts that Sir Isaac Pitman invented his shorthand.
Oddly perhaps, the guide doesn’t mention a local celebrity named John Daniels who lived in neighbouring Uley for four years after the Great War. He was well turned-out in the fashion of the time. Entertained society folk at afternoon tea parties. Shook hands with guests and displayed the social niceties expected of a well brought-up youth. Uley schoolchildren enjoyed his company and domestically he was helpful, making his own bed and assisting with the washing up. Oh yes, and he was a gorilla.
The guide tells us that Dursley “is indirectly served by the Western Region of British Railways”, although at the time of publication and thanks to Dr Beeching that service was about to disappear.
Affectionately known locally as the Dursley Donkey, the rail service on the two-and-a-half-mile branch line from Coaley Junction to Dursley carried its last passengers in 1962. The line opened in 1856 and remained open for goods freight until 1968.
At the time of publication Dursley had four banks. Early closing day for shops in the town was Wednesday, although a few shut on Saturday afternoons instead. Some 1,100 new houses had been built within the DRDC’s boundary post Second World War and most, but not all parishes had street lighting.
The largest employer in the area was Lister’s. Centred in Dursley this engineering firm enjoyed a worldwide reputation for the production of sturdy petrol and diesel engines, along with a wide range of products that ranged from tractors to municipal waste paper bins. Lister left Dursley in 2014 and the site the firm occupied is now a housing estate.
Until 1977 Dursley had its own cinema. The 658-seat Regal was built on the site of a former football field at Kingshill and opened on December 16, 1937. On closure the former cinema reopened as a Kwik Save. Then after 15 years’ trading the Art Deco building was demolished and a new, purpose-built supermarket set in its place.
For a few frantic minutes during the Second World War it was believed that Dursley had been invaded by Nazi forces. For the duration of the conflict the tower of St Bartholomew’s church on Churchdown Hill saw service as a signal station for the Royal Observation Corps (ROC). Messages were sent from this vantage point to units at Rotol and the Gloster Aircraft Company at first by Aldis lamp, then by field telephone and eventually wireless.
In June 1940 an over-enthusiastic member of the ROC rang the bell of St Bartholomew’s, which caused panic in the locality as people took this as the sign of a Nazi invasion. An enquiry revealed that the bell toller had misheard the radio message that Jersey had been invaded and believed Dursley had been overrun by German paratroopers.
