150 years ago - July 1 1871

n An excessive mortality among the children of Porlock in the spring led to a vestry meeting being called to appoint a sewer committee to enforce the provisions of the Sanitary Act 1868. There was no pure or spring water available and the people had to depend on the open streams which were fouled at every yard of their course.

n Walter Simms, aged 17, of Capton, Williton, drowned while bathing in a pond in Mr A Hosegood’s fields.

n Watchet Teetotal Society and Band of Hope announced that their annual festival would be held on the pleasure ground. The advertisement included, somewhat unnecessarily, the words ‘no intoxicating liquor allowed’.

100 years ago - July 2, 1921

* Mr Albert William Griffiths, 25, of Jubilee Terrace, Watchet, drowned while bathing at Long Sands. One of the men who went to his aid, Mr Ernest Escott, was particularly commended by the coroner at the inquest. The coroner said the ‘City Fathers’ had talked about installing a rescue boat at Watchet but nothing had come of it.

* Ratepayers of Luccombe met at the Doverhay Rooms to protest against the decision of the Minister of Health that a special expenses rate should be levied on Luccombe to meet the cost of the water supply to the 16 council houses to be built at Doverhay.

* The vicar of Over Stowey, the Rev W A Dickins, who had been ill with malaria and heart trouble, died in Margate – and Mr John Croote, captain of Minehead Fire Brigade died aged 59.

* The annual meeting of Minehead Harriers was told there was a shortage of hares.

50 years ago - July 3 1971

* A Watchet policeman turned up at the scene of a crime in his pyjamas. PC Boots lived a few yards from where a drunken man crashed his car. The man was later fined £20.

* A report from Exmoor National Park Advisory Committee declared proposed reservoir site at Wimbleball.

* Skittler Mrs Evans, of Williton, knocked down two more pins than the highest men’s score but did not qualify for the £7 top prize because she was a woman. She had to make do with £1.25.

* ‘Paint Your Wagon’, starring Clint Eastwood, was showing at the Regal Cinema, Minehead.