IT’S Throwback Thursday – a new feature where we look back on this day from a random year of our past.
Today, we wind the clock back to 10 March 1980, when you could buy a hotel for less than the price of a studio flat today.
* Customers at the JEC’s Broad Street showroom had a lucky escape when a ceiling collapsed. Several shoppers were showered with tiles and other debris, but amazingly no one was hurt. A member of staff told the JEP: ‘Strangely enough, about half an hour before it happened there was a rumble but we never thought anything of it.’
* Channel Islanders held their breath as an oil tanker, which had been sliced in half by a freak wave, was towed through local waters amid fears of a major environmental disaster. The vessel, called Tanio, spilled about 13,000 tons of oil into the sea when it’s bow section was ripped off in rough seas. Eight sailors were killed in the tragedy. In a major operation involving French and German boats, the tanker was towed out of Channel Islands waters. But thousands of tonnes of oil washed up on the Brittany coast.
* And, because it was the 1980s, everyone was still wary of nuclear power. So much so that a public meeting on the possible dangers of the energy form was held in the Town Hall. Of particular concern was the planned expansion of the Cap de la Hague reprocessing plant on the Normandy coast.
*Nowadays you wouldn’t get much change out of £300,000 for a studio apartment, but back in 1980 you could buy a whole hotel for less than half the price… The JEP reported that the St Moritz in Midvale Road had been sold for £145,000.
* And as the property pages showed, you could buy a nice family home for less than £50,000. This three-bedroom house with garden and garage at Mont à L’Abbé would have been yours for a mere £49,500. Rents, meanwhile, were about £70 per week.
* OK, it’s not exactly news, but it is quite interesting that back in 1980, you could get a three-course meal for £3. And this menu from Le Coq au Vin came with all the classics you’d expect from a restaurant in the 80s – including crab cocktail and desserts from a sweet trolley.
