ONE YEAR AGO

September 26, 2007

A mother-to-be, who lost her partner and her unborn son when the motorcycle they were on collided with a car, has paid tribute to her “loving, gorgeous, intelligent man”.

Carla Edwards, who grew up in Braintree, was riding pillion on her 26-year-old boyfriend Ian Adams’ bike when the accident happened in Colchester, while they were on their way to take part in an Essex Air Ambulance motorcycle rally.

* Police and firefighters were sent to an isolated farm near Wethersfield to investigate the cause of a blaze, when they discovered the body of a farmworker in a burnt-out caravan the day after the fire.

A police spokesman said the body was believed to be that of a 64-year-old man, but they were not treating the fire, at White Hall Farm, off Hedingham Road, as suspicious.

An Essex Fire Service spokesman said the blaze had happened on Friday, but they were not called to the scene until Saturday.

TEN YEARS AGO

September 24, 1998

Two teenagers braved poisonous fumes to put out a fire at a friend’s house in Braintree.

Kimberley Papworth, 15, had fallen asleep on Saturday afternoon while smoking a cigarette in bed at her terraced home in Deal Close, and was woken by a smoke alarm to find her mattress engulfed in flames.

She ran outside panic stricken and called to her friends, Gavin Chapman, 15, and Matthew Doggett, also 15, who ran into the house and put most of the blaze out.

But the youngsters were later told by firefighters the fumes from the mattress had a high content of carbon monoxide and they could easily have been killed.

* An Avon Lady was left with a badly swollen ankle and a bad gash to the knee after she tripped over a protruding manhole cover in Braintree.

The 26-year-old woman said she had only started the round a week ago and had fallen as she was making house calls. She tripped on the manhole cover in Stubbs Lane.

40 YEARS AGO

September 27, 1968

A lorry driver saw a ten-year-old boy fall into the flooded pit at FA Hunnable and Sons at Straits Mill, Bocking, where he worked.

The ten-year-old was collecting bullrushes at the pit with a friend when he leaned out to pick one, and slipped into the water.

The driver, who was on top of his cement mixer, dived in, fully clothed and grabbed the youngster, who was a non-swimmer and who had already gone under the water twice.

His colleagues formed a human chain to haul the pair out, and the lorry driver then took the boy home to his mother. The man said if he had not been on top of the mixer, he would never had seen the boy and the youngster would have drowned.

* A huge white fungus, weighing almost 2lbs, looked just like a skull to two boys who saw it lurking in a hedge on Clapbridge Farm in Clare Road, Braintree.

They took their find to the science department at their school, Margaret Tabor secondary, where botany mistress Sylvia Jiggins identified it as a puff-ball – botanical name, calvatia gigantea.

50 YEARS AGO

September 25, 1958

Early-morning jet flying from Wethersfield, which woke some residents as early as 5am, will not become a practice, promised an airbase spokesman.

“We are presently on alert status. These have to come occasionally so that we can maintain our alert capability,” he said.

The jets have beeen using their reheat boosters in flight, which give the effect of a mild sonic boom.