hb week 4, 23/1/09 Ten years ago One of the borough’s largest employers is to sell its new £240 million headquarters and rent it back for £18 million a year. Pharmaceutical giant SmithKline Beecham is expected to announce the owner of the new offices on the Golden Mile in Brentford within weeks. The new owner will have to pay for the construction costs and then rent it to SB over 25 years. The proposed development on the 13 acre former Trico site is the size of seven football pitches and will house a 13 storey tower block and nearly 1,650 staff.

Brentford chairman Ron Noades has warned the club would be plunged into crisis if plans for a £35 million super stadium are dropped. National newspapers this week speculated on Mr Noades returning to Crystal Palace.

The day before shocking the country by announcing his resignation as leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown was happily cooking cakes at the Twining Centre, Twickenham. The MP donned a white hat and grabbed a wooden spoon, saying: “Give me a live rabbit and a potato and my army training has taught me to turn it into something edible, but that’s my limit.”

The Lord came to the rescue when three times the expected turnout inched into St Mary’s Church Hall, at Tuesday’s meeting [which turned down the Alsop/Zogolovitch scheme to develop Twickenham riverside]. Council leader David Williams left to check the availability of neighbouring York House before the vicar, Rev Alun Glyn Jones popped his head round the door: “Want to use the church?”, he asked.

25 years ago Sir Donald Gosling takes the wheel of his new £1 million plus ocean going yacht Brave Goose next year. It is the second yacht of the name to be owned by Sir Donald. The first was also built by Tough Bros of Teddington at a cost of £250,000 in 1970.

Plans of Harrods to convert its well known depository by the Thames at Barnes into 76 flats with a restaurant to seat 60 and parking were rejected by Richmond upon Thames planning committee on Tuesday.

Reports of a uranium leak up to 100 times the permitted level at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington were described as a “gross exaggeration and distortion”.

50 years ago The 20 staff at Zeeta’s restaurant and bakery at The Quadrant, Richmond, was told on Thursday that the shop was closing down today. Originally owned by J Barkers, Zeeta's is under the control of financial magnate Hugh Fraser. Goslings departmental store in George Street, is under the same ownership.

Teddington’s old people’s clinic, opened after a two year battle by Dr J Maddison, medical officer of health for the borough of Twickenham, is the first of its kind in Britain.50 years ago Another 70 production workers at the Brentford factory of Sperry Gyroscope Limited have been warned that they will be laid off by the end of next month. This means that almost a third of the firm’s 680 production staff will have been made redundant during the past 16 months. Already 145 have been sacked in a series of monthly lay offs since October. The redundancy notices are the result of the nationwide recession in the aircraft industry, to which the company supplies instruments.

On Wednesday afternoon the celebrated actor Henry Oscar left his home at 48 Esmond Road, Chiswick and went along to the Regal Cinema, Hammersmith to see himself in The Secret Man. ... While teaching drama at the Central School of Speech and Drama two of his pupils attracted his attention, but for opposite reasons. “I never thought much of Laurence Olivier as an actor and often thought he should try something else. Peggy Aschcroft was always brilliant and destined for greatness.”

100 years ago The Chiswick Soup Kitchen has been supplying daily during the pat four weeks soup and bread to an average of about 450 children and women each day. Something like 2,000 quarts of soup and 750 loaves of bread are thus distributed amongst the poor of the district each 233k which means a weekly expenditure of more than £12. It is a small but soundly practical piece of philanthropic work.

There is no need to do your shopping in town. Local tradesmen can supply all you want and you may order by telephone as well locally as you can from the big London stores. For the convenience of our readers who desire to shop by the up to date method we have arranged to publish weekly, a list of local firms with their telephone numbers. Keep this list by you and make use of it. You will save time and money.

The stirring appeal by the Earl of Meath, as chairman of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association, for the acquisition of Whitton Park as an open space and the methods that funds can be raised, [he proposed Heston and Isleworth contribute £2,000 and Twickenham £3,500] reopens a subject that has, for many years, been before the public of Heston and Isleworth and Twickenham. As the beautiful estate with its wealth of foliage and its collection of cedars unrivalled in the metropolis is within the two main urban areas they are more concerned than any other local authorities, but it would be a mistake to argue that the value of the spot is confined to the immediate neighbourhood.