This week Gerry Brooke looks back on Bristol's Flower Show, gang fights in Weston, Radio Bristol and Concorde's supersonic "boom."

Making the front pages of the Post this week was the 26th Bristol Flower Show.

After a very successful quarter century, the show was now under new management and seeking to beat a national trend towards falling attendances and financial losses.

To add to the organiser's woes, this was the first wet weather opening to the show, held on the Downs near the top of Blackboy Hill, for six years.

"This is a first-class show, on a first-class site in a city of gardeners," said an upbeat show chairman, Councillor Bob Wall.

"Whatever the weather, people will be dry inside the tents."

Cllr Wall said that he was determined that the three-day show would remain a horticultural one and not adopt side attractions – such as show jumping and donkey rides – as others had.

Non-gardeners were catered for by classes for home-made cakes, wines and honey.

The flower show – now unfortunately defunct – attracted 120 trade exhibits and 2,000 from the public, making it one of the top eight in the country.

But for the first time since 1952 the show was no longer under the personal supervision of top city gardener John Abrams, who many people will no doubt remember seeing giving out his tips on HTV.

Things were not quite so cosy, however, in Weston-super-Mare, where traders were counting the cost of bank holiday battles between so-called "bovver boys."

Running fights by groups of teenagers and charges by groups of howling youngsters, hundreds strong, had terrified holiday-makers in the town.

About two hundred "skinheads" had thrown bottles, dustbin lids and clods of earth during a running battle with police. Most of the youths, said the Post, were from Bristol. Twenty were arrested and 12 detained.

It was a great day for Radio Bristol, then being officially opened by Frank Gillard, a former BBC regional controller.

Gillard – dubbed the "Father of local radio" – told the Post: "We have some excellent local papers in our area and this station wants to work alongside them, complementing but not competing."

Although Concorde was on her 38th flight – her fastest ever at 1,100mph – people throughout the South West and Wales were still experiencing her sonic boom – a double bang.

But the chief test pilot, Brian Trubshaw, said that he had to shut one engine down due to overheating and land with just three engines.

There were no reports of damage and the softness of the supersonic bang came as a surprise to the thousands of people who had waited patiently to catch a glimpse of the plane at 43,000 feet.

Cows under special observation by the Ministry of Technology were reported to have not even raised their heads as the plane flew overhead.

Finally, barbers' shops said that they were struggling – some were even closing – because men were wearing their hair longer.

Brian Neville, manager of a Southmead barber's shop told the Post: "Men used to have a trim every two or three weeks – now its about every five to six weeks."

"We used to have a staff of six – now we have just three."

And if you fancied seeing yourself on TV then HTV West were staging a Go-Go dancing competition at the Raquel Club at the New Bristol Centre in Frogmore Street.

You were invited to come along with your partner (or find one there).

Selected couples, said HTV, would appear in a new, weekly, late night TV show called "Fill This Space."