This week 10, 20, 30 years ago

10 Years Ago 

Some patients with liver cancer prepared to face a “postcode lottery” after control of NHS cash was handed over to local GPs.

The stark warning from Dame Tessa Jowell MP followed fears from clinicians at King’s College Hospital after they were told they could no longer routinely give liver cancer patients a vital life-saving treatment.

Thousands of books were given away by volunteers in South London to mark the third annual World Book Night.

More than 400,000 novels, including Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale and the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith, were handed out to readers around the world.

The UNESCO-backed giveaway aimed to inspire people to read more books.

In Southwark, successful British writers also discussed the joys of reading in Canada Water Library.

Lambeth council sold up the last of its short life housing stock and evicted long-standing residents – to a rising chorus of criticism.

The town hall acquired 1,200 properties through compulsory purchase orders in the 1970s for a project that never got off the ground.

The properties, many without boilers, with holes in the roofs and broken windows, were rented out to housing cooperatives, which then maintained them.

But in July 2011 Lambeth council began a tranche of recalls.

---

20 Years Ago

More than 70 deadly firearms were handed in by one woman as part of a gun amnesty.

Police were stunned when they were called to collect the firearms from a Battersea house.

The owner of the home, in Prince of Wales Drive, was clearing out the basement when she made the discovery of the weapons cache.

The owner’s mum used to run a shooting range in Battersea Park, which had shut down 30 years earlier, and her daughter assumed that the firearms had been disposed of.

Many were antiques but were still classified as lethal. The haul was destroyed.

A major player in the world of motoring with roots in South London celebrated 100 years in business.

Vauxhall gave its name to the famous car maker and the Wandsworth Road site where it made its first car was set to become a focus for the company’s celebrations.

The car was made in 1903 on the site which had been turned into a Sainsbury’s supermarket.

A plaque was to be unveiled in the car park of the store by Vauxhall chairman Kevin Wale on April 24.

A secondary school’s move to a new site was sealed after the first private finance initiative in Lambeth was signed off by the council.

Negotiations to make Lilian Baylis School the subject of a PFI agreement rumbled on for years.

But the £20million deal was finally completed, so the school, in Lollard Street, could make the move to Kennington Lane, where it was planned to open in 2005.

Under the agreement, repayments would be made to FocusEducation for 25 years.

---

30 Years Ago

Millwall FC began the mammoth task of building a roof over their new stadium in Senegal Fields, New Cross.

The roof over the 20,000-seater stadium was set to be completed by August 1993.

In addition to the seating it would also boast 32 executive boxes, 200 spaces for disabled fans, CCTV and 17 fast food and catering stands. Club bosses hoped the new venue would be completed in time for the new football season.

A pensioner set off on a 228-mile charity cycle despite doctors orders to take it easy.

Mary Wynn-Jones, 73, began the journey despite having a hip replacement operation.

The pensioner set out from her home in Rusham Road, Balham to take the route she had peddled as a youngster in 1913.

She hoped to retrace her exact route from London to a ridge in the Quantock Hills in Somerset in just seven days.

The cyclist, who was originally from Trowbridge in Wiltshire, was taking on the challenge to raise cash for arthritis and rheumatism research.

Nearly £450,000 of rent arrears racked up by tenants was set to be written off by Lewisham council.

Lewisham’s housing committee was owed the cash by people living in homeless hostels and bed and breakfasts in just four years. But the proposal to cancel the debts came under fire from opposition councillors.

The council said that a computer systems failure had meant the mountain of debt had been allowed to grow unchecked, but said there was little chance of the money being paid back.