The Mayor of Weatherfield, together with his wife, the Mayoress, opened the new Community Centre in June 1971. He cut a ribbon outside the centre and dedicated it to the memory of Alderman Thomas Walsh. Problems were caused though by his arrival in the Mayoral Rolls, which was serviced by Billy Walker in a contract with his Canal Garage. In the previous February, Billy had taken Irma Barlow and Elsie and Alan Howard for a drive in the car when it was in his care and Irma had lost one of her earrings in it. She tried to chat up Reg the chauffeur outside the centre to get the earring back but the Mayoress, returning to see if she had left a glove in the car overheard her and immediately suspected that Irma was her errant husband's mistress. Things were not helped later in the centre when the Mayor took a fancy to Irma (who chatted to him in her best "cut glass" accent) and he told her to call on him anytime. His wife overheard and confronted Irma who dropped the accent and told her to get lost.