Page 1081 - Reading Mercury

At the expiration of the consultation period the public societies etc. will have four
weeks to submit written comments on the proposals. After the comments by the
public, societies etc. have been examined by the council, the architects will proceed
with the preparation of the final scheme.

th
Thur 27 May
WOKINGHAM’S NEW MAYOR IN OFFICE
Wokingham’s new Mayor, Mrs. Margaret Busst was installed at the official Mayor-
Making ceremony in Wokingham Town Hall on Tuesday. She succeeds Cllr. Alfred
Skedgel who has retired from Wokingham Town Council after 22 years’ service to the
town.
A widow for almost three years, Mrs. Busst appointed her daughter, Mrs. Anne
Giddings as Mayoress and Mr. Robert Naish as Deputy Mayor. Making her
acceptance speech Cllr. Busst said it was good to see so many women councillors and
recalled her first days in office when she was told by Mr. R. Board-Jones, “a woman’s
place is in the home.” But in spite of that we have always been treated with courtesy
and consideration by members of this council.
Mrs. Busst of Mill Close, Wokingham, has represented Emmbrook Ward as a
Conservative for almost ten years. Her special interest is town planning and she has
worked to preserve Wokingham’s historic atmosphere. She has served on the town
council and district council planning committees and General Purposes Committee.
She has been unhappy with some of the development decisions in the town especially
when applications we refuse are granted on appeal to central government.
“For the future I hope to see a start made on improvements to Cross Street, Rose
Street, Denmark Street and I hope I even may live to see pedestrianisation in
Wokingham. The retention of Wokingham as a beautiful market town must be our
first consideration in planning.”

th
Thur 10 June
WOKINGHAM CARNIVAL—MOST SUCCESSFUL EVER.
“Around the World in Eighty Days” was the theme of this year’s Wokingham
Carnival and the organisers—West Forest Round Table—said it was a winning idea
and had helped in no small way to make the 1976 event the most successful ever with
a profit of over £2,000.
According to the publicity coordinator the event attracted a crowd of about 10,000.
The organisers made a point of involving the children before the event with the flag
and the Chinese dragon competitions in the schools and when the youngsters have a
personal interest they will persuade the parents to come along.
More than 50 local groups—twice as many as anticipated—entered decorative floats
in this year’s procession and thousands of people lines the route from Norreys Avenue
to the Carnival Field to catch a glimpse of Hawaiian dancers, Dutch girls and African
lions perched on every kind of conveyance bedecked with bunting and flowers.
Judging the procession was around-the-world yachtswoman, Mrs. Rosie Swales, but
her late arrival because of a train delay caused the organisers a few problems.
The police had arranged to close the town centre from 2.00 pm until 2.45 pm to
allow the procession to get from Norreys Avenue to the Carnival Field but judging
didn’t finish until almost 3 pm which meant traffic was stacked from Wokingham to
the Loddon Bridge.
Once on the field the procession, led by children from Walter County Infants’
School, signalled the start of the Carnival which was officially opened by Wokingham

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