NOVEMBER began, as had the previous month, with Steam in hot water. It emerged that building costs had gone £2 million over budget. Now Swindon Council found itself in a row with the Heritage Lottery Fund, one of the funders of the museum, over who should foot the bill.

Meanwhile, turmoil reigned at Swindon Town FC, where shareholders were given authority by the High Court to appoint their own board of directors effectively leaving the club without chairman Danny Donegan or a board of directors.

NTL, the cable television company whose standards of service are regularly criticised by desperate customers who contact the Evening Advertiser, announced the closure of its shop in the town centre.

Company spokeswoman Liz Nicholson claimed customers asked for the change, and added that they could now deal with NTL on an ear-to-ear instead of eye-to-eye basis.

But the Evening Advertiser found that callers faced at least a 30-minute wait before speaking to a human being at the call centre.

The town's Remembrance Day commemoration was lent added poignancy by the presence of World War Two veteran Percy Dunn, 79, who proudly wore the beret and medals of his late son, Raymond.

Raymond was a 20-year-old private when he and 17 comrades were murdered by the IRA in the 1979 Warren Point atrocity.

Percy said: "I shall be proud to stand there and remember Raymond, along with other ex-servicemen and women who have their own memories."

The first real good news and excitement in weeks came with the emergence of Pottermania in Swindon.

Thousands of Harry fans crammed both the town's cinema complexes in a bid to be among the first to see the new film of JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

The other main source of excitement was the opening of the biggest hypermarket in the South West.

The 100,000 square feet of shopping space at the Asda Wal-Mart store in Abbey Meads offered everything from baked beans to bicycles.

As the war against terrorism gathered pace in Afghanistan, 89-year-old Stratton St Margaret Army veteran Thomas Walters shared his own memories of serving in the region.

He said: "The tribesmen were rough and ready, and some of them were very brave fighters, but the main problem was seeing them, because they could easily disappear into the mountainous background."

With the annual Christmas shopping scramble getting into gear, the Designer Outlet Village in Churchward announced that it was on course to receive a record four million visitors by the end of the year.

The death of former Beatle George Harrison, 58, of cancer, prompted tributes and sorrow worldwide, not least from the band's producer, Sir George Martin, who lives near Highworth.

He praised Harrison for his musicianship, songwriting, and as a human being and friend.