1971 was the year Britain went decimal – and the shilling, florin, sixpence and half crown were lost forever!

Closer to home, your Mail reported on the opening of new Rasen facilities – the Festival Hall, the library and the health centre.
One annual event was the Market Rasen Show which ran from 1971 to 1978 and attracted thousands to the racecourse.
In the mid '70s there were confident claims Rasen would finally get its pool – we all know what became of that!
We reported on the closure of old Rasen shops, including Lacey and Clark and the International Stores, which had served generations of townspeople.
And who can forget the terrible blizzard of '79 and the sweltering summer of '76?

Hot stuff: Melanie Day won the Caistor Miss Hot Pants title in 1971. Here she is receiving her prize of a handbag from Mrs M Knox at the town's Youth Club.

Trouser suits were all the rage in the '70s! Here Jill Dickinson models one at a fashion show staged by Cynthia Marshall and Albert Rhoades in the Festival Hall in 1974.

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1970's - Get ahead with Audrey's

Audrey's hairdressing salon advert

The hairstyle in this advert was popular in the early '70s. The sign for the famous Audrey's hairdressing salon hangs preserved forever in the Waverley Court Centre in Rasen.

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April 1971 - Rasen's Top of the Pops wedding

Back in April 1971 Market Rasen came to a standstill for the showbiz wedding of the year! Crowds pressed around the Holy Rood Roman Catholic Church to see a colourfully-dressed Elton John arrive with the groom, songwriter Bernie Taupin.


BERNIE Taupin (21) remembered not so long ago as a rather shy and unassertive Market Rasen schoolboy returned to the town again on Saturday as the song writing hero of the pop world who was marrying a sweet girl from Los Angeles – who arrived at the Holy Rood Roman Catholic Church in a lilac-coloured Aston Martin.

With its style and flamboyance, its white toppers, and its accompaniment of scholars from Market Rasen Secondary Modern School crowding round afterwards and asking for autographs it all seemed so much like a romance of a fairy tale.

You rubbed your eyes and asked: "Can this really be happening at Market Rasen?"
Mr J W. Houlton, who taught Bernie when he was at the Modern School about six years ago, said after the wedding: "Yes, I remember Bernie well. In a sense he was a typical boy of the school but he was whimsical. His writing always had character.
"He always seemed able to write vividly about anything, stringing words together so as to make a picture for you. In a way I wasn't surprised to find he had gone to London. But you never really think this sort of thing is going to happen."
Several teachers and old school friends were present in the congregation which packed the church.
The double glass doors leading into the church from the porch were thrown open so that those who could not get in were able to join in the service.
The marriage service of Bernard John Taupin, of Owmby, and Maxine Feibelman, of Los Angeles, lost nothing of its solemnity from the fact that the bridal group was easily the most bizarre in the history of the church.

The eye-catching quality of male attire at this wedding meant that for once the bride, in her simple Tudor style dress, did not stand out as the central figure in the ceremony.
Bernie wore a white velvet suit, a lilac shirt and ear rings.
Elton John, Bernie's pop star partner, was also in white as the best man outshining all Rasen best men who ever were.

He had a top hat of silver silk and his white silk 250 guineas wedding suit was embroidered with large blue, red and yellow flowers made of rhinestones.
In the congregation were familiar figures of the world of pop, giving the scene an appearance almost of showbiz unreality.
With three policemen outside directing the traffic, and with many Rasen people lining the pathway up to the church, it was about as far away as you could ever get from the traditional type Market Rasen wedding.
Father J Hoban officiated and over 150 guests were received at a reception at Market Rasen racecourse clubroom which followed. In the evening a private dinner was held at the Limes hotel.

Two days later the bride and bridegroom flew out to the States with Elton John with whom they are now on tour.

Elton's recognition in the States as an up and coming star of the '70s has been remarkable.
The two of them working together, Elton and Bernie, are now accepted as top contenders among the melody makers.

Bernie Taupin, his bride, and Elton John leaving the church.

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