Twenty five years ago...

HENLEY councillors are to press ahead with making the town centre a car-free zone, despite the Government’s refusal to foot the bill. The town council is to apply to Oxfordshire County Council for agency powers to organise a 12-month trial scheme and will pay for this itself. The Henley Partnership has indicated that it will support the scheme. The county council learnt before Christmas that its bid for £800,000 to fund the project had been unsuccessful.

Millionaire Urs Schwarzenbach has undergone extensive surgery after being involved in an accident on the Cresta Run in Switzerland. The Harpsden resident, who heads the Little Black Bears polo team, suffered two broken vertebrae when his toboggan careered into two spectators. Mr Schwarzenbach, 49, who was wintering with his wife at his Swiss home, is now recovering in hospital in St Moritz after a five-hour operation.

A pupil at Kidmore End Primary School spent an uncomfortable 40 minutes with his finger stuck in a desk on Monday. Richard Abbott, nine, from Caversham, was freed by firefighters who dismantled the desk.