Wednesday 31 October 2012

Random Cutting - Pablo Picasso's fortune (1973)


The world famous artist Pablo Picasso died on April 8th 1973 at the age of 91 leaving a large fortune. He had been married twice and had had 1 child with his first wife. 3 more followed, but none of them with his second wife. She committed suicide in 1986. His financial affairs were, to put it mildly, complicated.


Sunday 28 October 2012

Franco surround Madrid

Daily Sketch dated Saturday November 7th 1936
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The real news is on page 3 as indicated by the top line about the British Embassy in Madrid being threatened.
The Duchess of Gloucester was the wife of Henry who was the 3rd son of George V.

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The Spanish Civil War started in July 1936 with a military mutiny in a Spanish garrison in Morocco and quickly spread through Spain itself, which became divided into Republicans (Anarchists, Communists, The International Brigade and Soviet Russian advisors and suppliers) and Nationalists (under the Fascist General Franco with help from Germany and Italy).
On November 6th Franco’s forces surrounded Republican held Madrid and began a siege that would last for 29 months. In November 1936 the German Luftwaffe began a campaign of bombing to help Franco, the most famous incident being the bombing of Guernica in April 1937. 

The War ended in April 1939 with the Nationalist defeating the Repulicans.

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Stan Laurel married 4 women, one of them twice. In 1935 he divorced his 1st wife Louis and married Vera Rogers but they were divorced by 1937, meanwhile Mae Dahlberg who Stan lived with from 1918 until 1925 was demanding alimony for their ‘common-law marriage’. And yet he still found time to be half of the funniest film comedy teams ever – Laurel and Hardy - hence the hilarious pun in the headline.

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Then as now, only then Britain was in the middle.

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On November 26th 1922 archaeologist Howard Carter broke into the tomb of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun and, according to some people, brought down on himself, and his kith and kin, the Curse of the Pharaohs. Blaming the breakdown of a romance 14 years later on the Curse is stretching credibility.

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Not unlike something from Sherlock Holmes. In fact very much like the incident in the short story ‘The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans’ in which Holmes deduces that a body found in the Underground system was dropped onto the roof of a train from the back window of a house overlooking one of the uncovered sections of the track, the body then sliding off on a corner.
I can’t find out how the case of Jessie Austin turned out. Maybe some one out there knows?

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On December 10th 1936 Peake was found guilty of murdering Noyce.

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Those sneaky policemen resorting to modern technology to solve a crime. They’ll be using DNA next.

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If they didn’t get their wish to be in the Army then, they certainly would 3 years later when WWII broke out.

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Gef the supernatural talking mongoose first manifested itself in 1931 at a small farm on the Isle of Man. Only the family ever saw the creature although supposed photos were taken. 
It was back in the news in 1936 because of a high profile libel case in which the editor of The Listener received £7500 damages for libel against Sir Cecil Levita. Sir Cecil had ridiculed the editor for his belief in such things as the talking mongoose. 





Friday 26 October 2012

Random Ad - House buying (1920's)


I'm not sure if the drawing is of the old Manor House which is about to be obliterated by Mr Atkinson's bulldozers, or a picture of what he intends to build. I suspect the former. In fact looking at the area online the Pope's Lane end of Gunnersbury Lane appears to be an estate of, what are now, classic 1920's semi-detached villas.

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Random Cutting - Poem by Arthur Conan Doyle (WWI)

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for his 8 Sherlock Holmes books. He also wrote 3 Professor Challenger novels, 33 other fiction books and 13 non-fiction books. Oh yes, and some poems. One of which, ‘The Guns in Sussex’ is in this newspaper cutting from World War 1.


Sunday 21 October 2012

SOS after murder attempt at sea

Evening Standard dated Tuesday September 9th 1958

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A very busy front page. An SOS is sent from the cargo ship Brockleymoor reporting an attempted murder aboard; film star Mamie Van Doren sues for divorce; rock’n’roller Terry Dean is done for travelling without a ticket; Prince Rainier of Monaco refuses Lady Docker a visa; football pools winners ‘work on’; 2 men saved from a factory fire; and the US pledge support for Quemoy.

Mamie Van Doren finally divorced her 2nd husband Ray Anthony in 1961 then went on to have three more.

After early success as a pop singer Terry Dene turned his back on the scene in 1964 and became a Christian Evangelist preacher.

Lady Docker and her husband Sir Bernard Docker  were invited to the christening of Prince Albert of Monaco in April 1958. After an incident in which she tore up a Monaco flag Prince Rainier had her expelled. Due to a treaty with France the ban was enforced throughout the French Riviera. 
Before the Lottery the weekly Football Pools was the only way to an instant fortune for normal law abiding citizens.

After the Communists took control of mainland China in 1949, the non-communist Nationalist government of General Chiang Kai-shek set up shop on the island of Taiwan. Quemoy Island, although closer to the mainland than Taiwan was owned by Taiwan and became the focus of a long running dispute between the governments.

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Juvenile delinquency was a big issue in the 1950’s and everyone had cure, from more youth clubs to capital punishment.

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This letter was provoked by 8 days of violence between black and white youths in the Notting Hill area of North-West London the previous week. The answer here is a damn good thrashing.

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As a result of the Notting Hill riots the police arrested over 140 people, 72 were white and 36 were black. 

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The BBC monopoly of TV had been broken by the introduction of the commercial channel in September 1955, but looking at this evening’s offerings I think I would have been off to the local flea-pit for a good film.

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Then as now, British soldiers patrolling some distant countryside attacked by terrorists. In 1958 it was Cyprus, a British colony since 1925 with a divided population of Greek and Turkish Cypriots. It gained Independence from the UK in 1960.

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Those were the good old days when young whippersnappers could go out and play all day long with only the risk of being blown to bits by discarded high explosives to worry about.

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The top 6 best selling books of the week included Boris Pasternak, Nevile Shute and H E Bates. Either we were better read in those days or there was very little choice. Certainly no Jamie Oliver cook-books or ghost written ‘celebrity’ memoirs.

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The driving alcohol limit wasn’t introduced into the UK for another 9 years, although it had been an offence to be ‘found drunk in charge of a mechanically propelled vehicle on any highway or other public place’ since 1925.
The Driving Test had been around since 1934.




Friday 19 October 2012

Random Ad - Colour TV (1970's)


None of your ultra-thin wide plasma screen rubbish here, just good solid heavy British workmanship. Colour TV had started in the UK back in 1967 but plenty of people, including yours truly, still had a black and white set in the early 1970's.

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Random Cutting - Coronation Stone Stolen (1950)

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The Coronation Stone, or Stone of Scone, was originally used at the crowning of Scottish kings and was kept at Scone Abbey near Perth until 1296 when Edward I pinched it and put it in Westminster Abbey in London. There it remained until Christmas day 1950 when 4 students stole it and took it back to Scotland. Despite a nationwide search it was not recovered until it reappeared in Arbroath Abbey in April 1951, and the English police returned it to Westminster. Or did they? There were rumours that the stone recovered was not the real one. But then there were also rumours that the stone taken by Edward I was not the real one. Who knows?


Sunday 14 October 2012

Last Issue of Today


Today dated Friday November 17th 1995

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The Today newspaper was launched in March 1986 by Eddie Shah, but changed hands 4 months later when Lonrho bought him out. It passed to Rupert Murdoch’s company in 1987. In 1986 it was the first national daily to use computer photosetting and full-colour offset printing.

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The comedian, actor, jazz musician and composer Dudley Moore died in 2002 of progressive supranuclear palsy, a terminal degenerative brain disorder. Early symptoms of the illness caused him to be wrongly thought of as a drunkard.

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Essex schoolgirl Leah Betts died after taking an ecstasy tablet and drinking 12 pints of water, Her death caused a tabloid paper outcry against the drug but the inquest found that it was the combination of the ecstasy and the large amount of water that killed her and on their own neither would have.

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Fred and Rose West were a married couple who between them murdered at least 11 young girls and women. Fred confessed but never came to trial because he committed suicide while on remand in Winson Green Prison. Rose was tried and was found guilty of 10 counts of murder.

Janet Leach was a social worker who also did duty as an Appropriate Adult - someone who could be called in by the police sit with youngsters or adults with learning difficulties. She spent many hours with Fred West listening to his confessions. The newspaper group mentioned in the article was the Mirror Group.

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Yitzhak Rabin was the Israeli Prime Minister and Defence Minister when he was gunned down on November 4th 1995. His assassin, Yigal Amir, was immediately arrested. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment plus 14 years for other related offences.

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You get to the final of ‘Pointless’ and the problem is to find an obscure Wesley Snipes film. You say, “To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar”. The big board clicks down to zero and you win!

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On June 12th 1994 O J Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and a friend, Ronald Goldman, were murdered. The ex-American football player and actor Simpson was tried for the murders but was acquitted.  Both Brown’s and Goldman’s families then brought Civil actions against Simpson. 1997 a Civil Court found Simpson guilty of wrongful killing and awarded the families $35.5million compensation, which due to legal wrangling has never been paid.
In 2008 O J Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison for armed robbery, kidnapping and conspiracy during a 2007 incident in Las Vegas.

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Having worked in offices and particularly IT departments for most of my life I really love Scott Adams’ cartoon strip ‘Dilbert’. Pointy Haired Boss, Alice and Wally join software engineer Dilbert in satirizing the madness that is life in an open-plan office. Books, board games, calendars, and even an animated TV series followed.

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Following the violence both on the field and in the tunnel during and after the Birmingham City game against Italian team Ancona, lawyer Henri Brandman, advised that the City players involved ignore all requests to attend hearings in Italy. The investigation into the incident carried on, and the threat of extradition and possibly prison hung over Liam Daish, Michael Johnson and David Howell for years. The three men were ordered to stand trial in May 2000 but they refused to return to Ancona. In 2001, goalkeeper Ian Bennett was called to give evidence for the investigation, and he too failed to attend.
(info paraphrased from the http://thetwounfortunates.com website)





Friday 12 October 2012

Wednesday 10 October 2012

Random Cutting - H G Wells warns of Fascism (1934)

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H.G. Wells, the author of classics like ‘The War of the Worlds’, ‘The Invisible Man’ and ‘The Time Machine‘, succeeded John Galsworthy as President of the P.E.N. Club in 1933. The Club had been founded in 1921 to promote ‘friendship & intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere’.
Wells was a complicated man, basically a Socialist who, like many intellectuals of the 1930’s, let his hatred of Fascism lead to a blind approval of Stalinist Russia, but he was also anti-Semitic and believed in eugenics; both Fascists traits.


Sunday 7 October 2012

Ringo Starr gets married

Sun dated Friday February 12th 1965
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This is from before the Sun newspaper became a tabloid. It had evolved out of the old broadsheet Daily Herald in September 1964 and the first tabloid sized edition wasn’t until 1969.
Richard ‘Ringo Starr’ Starkey, the drummer with the popular beat combo The Beatles, married Maureen Cox in 1965 and they went on to have 3 children, but divorced in 1975.  Later he married actress Barbara Bach and she married American businessman Isaac Tigrett. Maureen died of leukaemia in 1994.
The honeymoon in Hove was cut short because Ringo had to return to London to begin recording the soundtrack for the Beatles’ second feature film ‘Help’ which they started filming later in the month in the Bahamas.
Other Beatles, John Lennon and George Harrison, appear in the wedding photos but Paul McCartney was on holiday in Portugal with Jane Asher.


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Ex-Conservative MP Lord Robert Boothby was bisexual at a time when male homosexuality was a criminal offence. In 1963 he had an affair with an East End criminal, Leslie Holt, who introduced him to the gangster Ronald Kray. Kray supplied Boothby with young men and received personal favours from him in return.
In 1964 the Sunday Mirror exposed Boothby’s underworld associations. He denied the stories and threatened to sue the paper’s publishers. Because Tom Driberg, a senior Labour MP, was also involved, neither the Labour nor Conservative Parties wanted the story followed up, consequently the Sunday Mirror’s owner, Cecil King, backed down under political pressure and paid Lord Boothby £40,000 in an out-of-court settlement.
Boothby went on to embarrass the Conservative Party by his continued support and campaigning for the Krays even after they’d been jailed.

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An extra large amount of gold bullion was being carried on this trip from Cape Town to England, so a temporary storage area had been constructed in the hold of the ship. Two members of the crew had found that a ventilation shaft into this temporary area had not been sealed off and used it to steal boxes of gold bullion valued at about £100,000. The loss was discovered when the ship unloaded in Southampton. The police had no clues or suspects but believed that it had been an inside job and decided that the gold had never left the vessel.
Undercover officers posed as crew but nothing happened for a few months. Finally a seaman tried to sell a couple of the gold bars in Durban. The rest of the gold was discovered hidden in the false base of a storage locker on deck. Two seamen were sentenced later to ten years in jail.

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The Queen and Prince Philip were on a 12-day State Visit to Ethiopia and The Sudan arriving in Khartoum on February 8th. During a motorcade a student threw the tomato (the Queen was later reported to have said that it was red) at the Royal car. The student was detained by other students and handed over to the police.

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The death penalty for murder was still in force in 1965 so a manslaughter verdict for Philip Meech meant the difference between life imprisonment and being hung. Luckily for him the court decided that an attack with an iron bar and stabbing his wife 49 times was still not strictly murder because it was not premeditated.

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Do that these days and you’ll probably get stabbed 49 times.

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These were the dark days of Civil Rights unrest in Alabama and the rest of the South. Sheriff Jim Clarke of Selma, Alabama was notorious enough to warrant his own entry in Wikipedia and died at the age of 85 in 2007.

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Well we still have a delivery, to our doorstep, of milk in bottles 3 times a week, so stick that up your plastic container Stuart Allen!

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The Initial Teaching Alphabet (ita) was invented in the early 1960’s to help children start reading. The idea was to then switch to the normal alphabet. Some children found the switch difficult or confusing and its use died out, although it was still around in the early 1980’s when my two sprogs used it.


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‘The Prime Minister, The Boxer and The Footballer’ This time it’s personal.





Friday 5 October 2012

Random Ad - Rowntree's Cocoa (1940's)

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A typical 'picture strip' advert from the 1940's. Interesting budget - I wonder what 'husband's exrs' are? Or is it 'exes'? Alimony?

Wednesday 3 October 2012

Random Cutting - Baird TV (1927)

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This 1927 cutting shows the genesis of the British television industry we all know and love.
On January 26th 1926 the scientist and inventor John Logie Baird gave the world's first demonstration of a working television system, showing live transmission of a moving object, to members of the Royal Institution in London. The resolution of the screen was only 30 vertical lines (later analogue TVs were 405 and, even later, 625 horizontal lines).
When the BBC started transmitting TV programmes in 1936 they alternated the Baird system with one developed by the Marconi-EMI Company. Unfortunately the Marconi System proved to be superior and it was adopted and the Baird System dropped.