West Swindon's first church marks a quarter of a century since opening at Toothill Village Centre in 1978
Clergyman and clergywomen gathered together with the congregation at the Toothill Church twenty-fifth year reunion service. Pictured from right to left, George Gibson, Ian Handscombe, Mark Roper, John Florey, David Attwood and Olive King.
Layperson Olive was a church community support worker in the Western Expansion (as it was then known) who helped the first residents to settle into the area which was a huge building site with no facilities at all, from the time the first people arrived in 1976. The area was two miles from the shops in Swindon town centre and the nearest bus stop was half a mile from the closest group of houses at Markenfield.
Olive was a friend to families and mainly mothers with young children left isolated at home. She would assist with contacts with local council departments and benefit agencies, and liaise with primary and secondary schools on the other side of town which provided education for the first two years of Toothill, until Toothill Primary opened in September 1978.
