The Bracknell News told the story of a ‘day in the life’ of a milkman, police officer and a golf professional in the autumn of 1987 and for the intrepid staff reporters and photographers it meant an early start.

The earliest (of course) was with Cliffords Dairies ‘milko’ Brian Harding who would normally start his round at 1.30am every day-luckily the News team set out at 5.30am.

The headquarters in Western Road bottled 250,000 pints of milk a day which worked out at 800 a minute.

Speaking to the News, Brian admitted:”When it rains some areas I deliver to are covered in mud - but to be a milkman you have either got what it takes - or you haven’t.”

Another ‘day in the life’ was spent at Bracknell Police Station and again when the News team arrived the officers had been on shift for three hours already.

There was no time for breakfast as a crime had just been reported and a quick ‘Panda car’ journey to the scene revealed that two youths had been arrested attempting to steal a car.

New homes were being built right across the Bracknell area in the 1980s -one of the most common crimes reported being thefts from construction sites-with so many journeys undertaken every day the police vehicles would cover 31,000 miles a year.

After 22 years of cooking for the pupils of Nine Mile Ride School Bette Watts cooked her last school dinner and hung up her ‘pinny’.

The staff presented Bette with a cut-glass vase to commemorate her cooking over 800,000 meals during her time and headteacher David Archer told the News:”We are very sorry to lose her, she was part of the institution of the school.”

St Paul’s church in Wokingham was ringing the changes as their bells were taken down as part of the £17,000 renovation to the eight bells.

Each bell weighed in at a hefty three quarters of a ton and although the overhaul was expensive it was expected that they will not need any more work for another 100 years.

A vintage car rally set off from the Royal Berkshire Hotel in Ascot to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of an Indian Restaurant and the event was a ‘scatter rally’-whereby each car headed to different locations within a set time limit.

The winners were Peter Binns and Piers Hart driving an HRG 1939-who chose the most difficult destinations-thereby picking up more points than any other team.