Gillette histories

From the Jan. 12, 1956 News Record:
The official closing of the Yule season, which was to have been performed with a torchlight ceremony and the burning of Christmas trees on high school hill by the local Boy Scout troop, ended in disappointment Saturday night, it was announced by Scouting officials. The ceremony had been slated at 8 p.m. but someone fired the trees at 6 p.m. and the Scouts’ program had to be canceled. The irony of the situation was not so much that the trees had been burned Friday night, since the city had collected them from along main street. But the ones which were burned Saturday night had been collected through the Scouts’ efforts all day Saturday. Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts and Brownie Scouts had also been invited, so there were approximately 200 young people quite disappointed, officials pointed out.
From the Jan. 13, 1966 News Record:
Gillette Fire Chief Charley Tyrrell recently called to attention a humorous item regarding fire safety which appeared in the form of a notice at an Eastern hotel. “Instructions to Guests Preparing to Smoke in Bed: Call the office and notify the management where you wish your remains to be sent, as it is a matter of record that a very high percentage of hotel fires are caused by this careless practice. Notify guests in adjoining rooms of your intention of endangering their lives, so they may take the necessary precautions to protect themselves. Go to the corridor and locate the nearest fire escape, so that if you are fortunate enough to escape your room you may reach safety. Now sit down and think how foolish it is for you to take this risk. You may enjoy your smoke while thinking it over.”
From the Jan. 18, 1945 News Record:
What life is like in war torn London was told to a representative of the News-Record recently by Mrs. Dympna Sackett of Dungarvin, Ireland, who made a brief visit here with her cousin, the Rev. Father James Power. Mrs. Sackett had lived in the British capital for almost three years, through the blitz and the buzz bombs. She said, “The English people are tired and the buzz bombs are nerve racking, worse than the blitz, because you do not know where they are going to fall. They come at all times and uninterrupted sleep is almost impossible, since one all-clear many times is followed within an hour or two with an alert.” The children and the civilians, not in essential work, have been evacuated. She was a receptionist in Hotel Waldorf, Aldwyck, London, and was in the hotel when a bomb dropped in the street, killing 90 people. She said the blast was freakish. The outer walls of the building, holding 500 rooms, held but the corridors and inner walls crumpled like an accordion. A passer-by could look between the walls and see the outline of the rooms. The office, in the center of the building had two bottles of ink on the desk. The bottle of red ink splashed all over the wall, while the bottle of blue ink remained in exactly the same position. It was a busy time of day when the blast struck, two buses heavily loaded with people were in front of the hotel. All they found were pieces of charred bodies and the engines of buses. A past office was across the street and every person in and near it was killed. She told of another queer happening in a buzz bomb explosion. Two men were standing in the hallway of a hotel. They were found afterward in a large hole made by the explosion, one man killed, the other unharmed except that the blast had torn off all his clothes. Mrs. Sackett has been in the vicinity where five bombs have fallen. She said the rationing system was “pretty rough.” Rationed food available per person per week included one half-pound of sugar, one-half ounce of tea (there was all the coffee people wanted but the English didn’t use it) one ounce of butter, 1 egg and one-half pound of meat. Cereals were covered by the rationing.