The British Newspaper Archive: it's almost like stalking

Posting a clip of Norman Bowler in Softly Softly: Task Force the other day, I mentioned that his character's Wsst Country accent was probably the result of his having been happily evacuated to Wiltshire as a small boy during the war.

And having found Bowler reading extracts from his elusive memoirs, I knew that it was the remote village to Chitterne, surrounded by Ministry of Defence Land and Salisbury Plain, to which he and an older brother were sent.

So I thought I would see if the British Newspaper Archive had any record of him there. And, remarkably, he crops up in three stories from the Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser.

On 10 May 1941 he makes what may be his stage debut as John and Norman Bowler play pages in the schoolchildren's play Cinderella in Verse.

That summer, on 29 July 1941, the paper reports the results of the Chitterne children's sports. We find Norman winning the boys 7 to 9 east potato race and, what sounds like a blue ribband event, the boys 7 to 9 flat race.

And the following year, on 2 May 1942, Norman received a book prize at the Chitterne School Bird and Tree Festival.

So that's the British Newspaper Archive. It's almost like stalking.