OCTOBER began with the news that Steam, the GWR museum which is Swindon's most impressive tourist attraction, had slipped further into the red.

Council tax payers faced the prospect of having to pump in £500,000 to keep it afloat, in spite of having put in £470,000 the previous year.

The £11 million museum had attracted nothing but praise from visitors since its official opening by the Prince of Wales in June of 2000, but the numbers passing through the turnstiles had fallen far short of expectations.

Some 200,000 had been predicted for the first year, but the final figure was around half that, and about 105,000 were predicted for the second year.

Swindon Council's Tory group leader, Mike Bawden (Old Town and Lawns), summed up the problem when he said: "From a museum point of view, Steam has been a great success, but from a financial point of view, it has been an unmitigated disaster."

A further affront to the town's aspirations as a tourist attraction came when it was left out of a Rough Guide to England because the publishers felt it wasn't pretty enough and lacked history.

Meanwhile, the council was still rudderless following the ousting of Coun Sue Bates's (Lab, Gorse Hill and Pinehurst) Labour administration in the Tory and Lib Dem no-confidence coup which followed the disastrous Ofsted report into the authority's education service.

Still more bad news for the town consistently rated as one of the most prosperous in Europe came in the form of a report from children's charity Barnardo's, which concluded that one in four of Swindon under-16s, or almost 9,900 young people, were living in poverty.

And in the midst of the tribulations, Swindon unveiled its latest bid for city status at the Lord Chancellor's Department in London.

"Look below the surface of Swindon's business and industry, and you'll soon discover a town of enchanting treasures," said the document.

Shortly afterwards, Mike Bawden became the head of the first Conservative council administration to run Swindon in 23 years, ending weeks of uncertainty. Labour leader Sue Bates was given a seat in the new cabinet.

On October 15, the Evening Advertiser reported the tragic and frightening story of Darren Jones, a Swindon man who died just six months after being diagnosed with CJD.

His mother, Mary, said: "Six months ago he was an ordinary lad and full of life. It is awful to watch your own child deteriorate like that."

And as the cold weather drew on, Princess Margaret Hospital warned of possible problems in finding beds for people, amid increasing demand.

And on the last day of the month, the Tesco supermarket in Ocotal Way was brought to a standstill all because somebody decided an Asian man posting a letter looked suspicious.

It was one of a rash of anthrax scares following the September 11 attacks others were at Npower's Eldene plant, Book Club Associates in Groundwell and the Royal Mail Sorting Office at Groundwell.