Believe it or not it's 30 years since Rick Astley dominated the pop charts and the stock market crashed on Black Monday.

Since most people enjoy a trip down memory lane, we've travelled back three decades in time to 1987 to look back at what was happening in Chester this very week 30 years ago by delving into a Chester Chronicle from November 27 of that year.

Back then, a Mars bar cost just 20p and a detached, spacious family home in Curzon Park would set you back just £57,950.

Front page of the Chester Chronicle - November 27 1987

And in keeping with the decade of big hair, The Chronicle was advertising where in the city you could get 'Christmas perm specials' as well as private weight loss tuition at Chester Figure Clinic so you could be 'slim for Christmas'.

Also included in the paper this week was a cinema guide of the latest films which included Dirty Dancing, Full Metal Jacket and Beverly Hills Cop 2; and a TV guide advertising programmes such as Going Live, Telly Addicts, Chucklevision and Cagney & Lacey.

Meanwhile, in local news a heroic knife rescue made the front page, and to mark the start of the festive season, members of the Chester and District Chamber of Trade played Santa Claus at the city's lights switch on while Mayor of Chester Cllr Doug Haynes did the honours of switching the lights on.

But there was concern that the following year's lights switch on may not go ahead after we reported that the current lights had reached 'the end of their life span' and were due to be thrown away when taken down.

Bob Clough-Parker, Secretary of the Chamber of Trade said they were in 'spirited discussion' with the council about the 1988 lights but if negotiations were not successful there would be a distinct probability Chester would get no lights in 1988.

Advert for Allo Allo restaurant, Chester in 1987
An advert for Lillian's Downstairs restaurant in the Chronicle, November 1987

In other matters, when it comes to the issue of parking in Chester, not a great deal has changed in three decades- and this week's Chronicle comment focuses solely on the city's 'chronic shortage' of it.

"We accept one councillor has tried his utmost to get a Wrexham Road Park'n'Ride open in time for Christmas and has been frustrated by his failure, but to our average visitor we are just not trying hard enough," wrote then-editor David Parry-Jones.

"What long term concrete plans have we to stop visitors, deterred by our attitude and desperate shortage of parking, from staying away permanently? We are a major attractor of visitors and shoppers and our facilities should mirror our appeal not exacerbate it. Chester needs at least another 1000 parking spots soon or mark our words, shoppers WILL go elsewhere."

Advert in The Chronicle for the new Ford Escort in November 1987

Meanwhile, Chester's newest luxury hotel Hoole Hall was given a knockout launch by TV personality Stuart Hall and a Handbridge man branded a trader in Chester market 'grossly irresponsible' for selling an insensitive bumper sticker about AIDS.

Elsewhere there was concern about hospital waiting times for routine medical care back then, with Tony Lambe, then administrator for the Chester Community Health Council remarking: "Urgent cases never have to wait more than a month. Chester is doing very well in urgent care but the waiting lists in other departments are not so good. The dermatology department for example, has a very long waiting list."

The cost of microwaves have certainly gone down since 1987

Labour councillors' pleas to get permission for a supermarket to be built at Chester FC's stadium in Sealand Road instead of the favoured Wrexham Road fell on deaf ears when the project was thrown out at a council meeting.

Conservative Cllr Cecil Eimerl said Labour should "look to the future and think things through. By the 1990s the football club site would not prove good for Chester, while Wrexham Road will," he predicted.

Christmas gift ideas from one of Chester's most popular shops Owen Owen - Nov 1987

Also in the Chronicle this week was the shocking news that an 80-year-old Hoole woman was duped out of her life savings and jewellery by two conmen who told her they had come to clean the drain.

And despite us reporting that local band The Montellas were on the brink of stardom as an up and coming pop group, we're not sure they ever did make it onto Top of the Pops.