Remember when Whitney Houston hogged the pop charts with her version of I Will Always Love You?
Cast your minds back to December 1992 when Whitney wasn’t just dominating the charts but also the box office with The Bodyguard, which was top billing at Chester cinemas MGM and the Odeon back then, alongside Home Alone 2, the Muppet Christmas Carol, Beauty and the Beast and Sister Act.
But making the front page in the Chester Chronicle this time 25 years ago was a visit from Prime Minister John Major to see soldiers from the Cheshire Regiment in Bosnia. Armed with hundreds of top 50 hit cassette tapes, Mr Major paid a surprise visit to cheer up the brave men as they faced Christmas in the bleak Yugoslav war zone.
And Chester beauty queen Claire Smith was lamenting narrowly missing out on being crowned Miss World by just one point, in what was described at the time as ‘the closest finish’ in the competition’s history.
After losing out to Miss Russia, 21-year-old Claire said: “It would have been easier if I hadn’t been told it was only one point. But I am happy I even got that close.”
Meanwhile, in the House of Commons, Chester MP Gyles Brandreth told Chief Secretary to the Treasury Michael Portillo that Chester was beginning to have more confidence in the economy after the recent recession.
“The only missing ingredient is confidence which in Chester is now beginning to return,” he said. “Talking to people I feel they are just a little bit more positive.”
And there was promise for the coming year when we reported that 1993 would be the best buyers’ market for decades as house prices fell and mortgage rates were at their lowest for 15 years.
In sport, Chester City FC and their former striker Gary Bennett were being sued following an incident in a FA Cup match almost six years earlier where former Sheffield Wednesday defender Ian Knight was seeking to claim damages jointly from the club and Bennett after breaking his leg during Chester City’s cup match at Hillsborough in February 1987.
And flooding put a dampener on Christmas for shops in Watergate Street after a burst drain wrought havoc, causing thousands of pounds of damage. A cleaner had first noticed the water in Weinholt’s bakery at 4am, with Toycraft and Reed Rains also suffering three inches of flooding.
Frank Weinholt told The Chronicle it had been a ‘disaster’ on their busiest day of the year.
