Chronicle chief reporter JACK TOLSON takes a look back at the archives from 1998 to see what was making the news.
LIFE’S GRAND FOR GOLFER GLEN
HIT-and-hope golfer Glen Rennison is £1,000 richer after scoring a hole in one - at a theme park.
Glen, 24, became the first person this year to put the ball in the hole at the Augusta Golf Challenge at American Adventure World in Derbyshire.
The insurance rep from Park Grove, Barnsley, paid £5 for 15 balls to hit from a lakeside tee across a huge lake to an island in the middle where the green is.
He watched his first 12 shots plop into the murky depths before hitting a gem with his nine iron.
“The ball bounced around the green a few times before dropping in off the flag,” he said.
The challenge is a replica of the famous par three 12th at Augusta - scene of many a spectacular failure by some of the world’s greatest golfers.
And Glen is hardly that.
“I’m not a member of any club but I do occasionally play for a bit of fun,” he said.
“I guess I just got lucky.”
Now he has a chance to win a sports car - all he has to do is return to the park in October and repeat the feat.
OWNERS BAFFLED AS CATS VANISH
THE great missing cats’ mystery is baffling residents in neighbouring streets.
Three cats living with 200 yards of each other have vanished in less than 24 hours - sparking fears that they have been stolen.
Seven others have disappeared from the same area in the last six months.
Simon Curley’s cat Pebbles - who has a distinctive long white coat - went missing from Pogmoor on Thursday night with his neighbour’s cat, William.
On Friday night another disappeared from a neighbouring street.
It is the third time one of Simon’s cats has vanished in the last 18 months.
Simon, who is a fosterer for the Cat Protection League, said: “I have a pen in the back garden where I used to keep cats I was fostering and last year it was broken into.”
His neighbour’s cat, William, had been with his owners for less than a month.
He was a black Persian with orange eyes and had had his coat on his body shaved to removed matted fur.
‘DUFF DAFFS’ BLOOM IN FLAMING JUNE...
SPRING has sprung again in soggy June - and daffodils are flourishing at Monk Bretton.
Last autumn, Audrey Caves planted some bulbs in her back garden.
When they failed to come up in the spring, she assumed the daffs were duff.
Audrey, 64, was amazed and experts were baffled when the daffodils flowered this month.
She never fed them with fertiliser nor used any special techniques to make them grow.
Sitting among the host of more than 20 golden daffodils at her home in Fish Dam Lane, she said: “I put plants in and if they grow they grow and if they don’t it’s tough.
“I thought it was funny when the daffodils started flowering when other people’s had wilted.
“Everyone else’s roses are in bloom but few of ours.”
A spokesman for the Silkstone nurseryman Tom Horsefield said: “It is remarkable that they have flowered so late.
“I have never heard of it happening before and cannot really explain it.”
