THESE were the stories hitting the headlines in the South Wales Guardian in 1969.

THE Welsh Language Society’s campaign to have legal forms, such as vehicle excise licences printed in Welsh received support from an unexpected quarter.

New champions on the society’s side were magistrates at Neath, who reflected their feelings by granting an absolute discharge on payment of 4s.

This was the cost to a member of the society before then on a charge of failing to have an excise licence.

A 17-YEAR-OLD minder of Upper Tumble was fined £15 and banned from driving for three months at Llanelli Magistrates court after he had pleaded guilty to using his motorcycle without insurance.

He denied driving a motorcycle without instance and driving a motorcycle without due care and attention.

He was found not guilty.

ACCUSED of burgling the Golden Grove Arms at Llanarthney, an 18-year-old unemployed youth of Fforest, Pontarddulais was remanded on bail by county magistrates.

MAGISTRATES in Ammanford decided that money found in a vase in top of a wardrobe at a house in Cardiff was ‘the proceeds of burglaries’ and they decided that £320 out of the £368 found should be returned to the gentleman who had that amount stolen from his home.

THE South Wales Area Council of the National Union of Bank Employees have decided to send telegrams to the chairmen of the Big Five banks telling them that staff relations in British Banks are a public scandal and requesting urgent attention to demands since 1918.

This week in history

August 14 1979: Dozens of yachts are lost after a freak storm blows during the Fastnet yacht race.

August 15, 1971: Horse rider Harvey Smith is stripped of his £2,000 winnings for allegedly making a rude gesture.

August 16, 2001: A former butler to Princess Diana is charged with stealing hundreds of items from her Wales household.

August 17, 1560: The Catholic Church is overthrown and Protestantism is established as the national religion in Scotland.

August 18, 1989: Manchester United Football Club is sold for £20m.

August 19, 1964: Syncom 3 is launched.

August 20, 1858: Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London.