These are the stories that were hitting the headlines in the South Wales Guardian 50 years ago on August 19, 1965.

Thieves made off in a stolen van after taking more than £700-worth of tobacco and cigarettes and a delivery of transistor radios during a late-night raid on the Gorslas Co-Operative Store which saw them climbing a nearby tree to enter the store through an upstairs window.

The raiders couldn’t believe their luck when – on top of the unexpected shipment of radios – they found that the van seemingly chosen at random belonged to a gent’s outfitters and was filled with brand new men’s suits. The empty vehicle was discovered the following day in Swansea.

Organisers of the inaugural Llandeilo rodeo were left with a headache after discovering there were not enough horses available for the would-be cowboys to ride.]

In a last ditch bid to keep the event alive it was decided to head up the Black Mountain in the hope of “lassoing” up to 30 wild Welsh mountain ponies for the job.

A Glanaman factory worker was fined for drink-driving after police stopped him as he followed a bus full of colleagues who had been on a works day-trip which he had organised.

“I could not possibly be drunk,” he told the officers, “I have been driving since I was 16 years old.”

An electricity board meter reader claimed he had not complained when he was bitten by a dog whilst doing his rounds in Saron because he had been left “dazed and confused” by the canine’s canines nibbling his leg.

The housewife owner refused to believe her beloved pooch was to blame but magistrates saw things differently and order her to compensate the limping victim.