Sunday 1 September 2013

De Gaulle Drama

Evening Standard dated Tuesday May 27th 1958
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Algeria in North Africa had been a French Colony since the mid 19th century and a war for independence had been going on since 1954. In May 1958 the French military in Algeria were so fed up with Pierre Pflimlin and President Rene Coty’s French Government not fully committing to crushing the Algerian rebels that they staged a coup d'état. The military supported the return to political power of war hero Charles De Gaulle who they thought would reject any idea of French withdrawal and Algerian independence. De Gaulle was willing and able to end his 10 year political absence and on May 29th he took over the Presidency from Coty. Unfortunately for the right wing military leaders he could see that hanging on to Algeria would be a disaster and the country gained it’s freedom in 1962.

See this post which is a cutting about Jerry Lee Lewis and his troubles from the following day.

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Cont'd from Front
3 million cigarettes worth £35,000 – that’s about 1.2 new pence each. With cigarettes now retailing on average at 35p each, the haul would be worth about £1,050,000 these days, assuming you could find enough people who still smoke to buy them.

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Peter Manuel was born in the USA of Scottish parents and moved to Scotland when he was 5. He was arrested in January 1958 and confessed to killing 18 people, but he was only tried on 8 counts of murder. One of the charges was dropped due to lack of evidence but, despite conducting his own defence and almost convincing the jury of his insanity, he was found guilty of the other 7. He was hanged on July 11th 1958.

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Looks like Maggie Woolnough is using the same bike she had in 1893 when she started.

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This when you really did have to pull round a dial and wait for it to wind back for each number, so 13 would take a fair old while compared to today's push buttons.
Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) or Direct Distance Dialling dates back to 1951 in the USA and became available within the UK from December 1958.

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Mr James Studd is a man after my own heart – “I will go 10 miles out of my way rather than join a traffic jam.”  Prior to December 1958 when the UK’s first Motorway was opened there was less chance of getting trapped in a traffic jam with no way out.

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One look at the Home and Light radio programmes and you can see why Radio Luxembourg on 208m was so popular with the youngsters of the time.
Far too much cricket on TV for my liking – both channels all afternoon! 
I wonder what happened to Roger Moore who starred in ‘Ivanhoe’? Recently I watched a couple of episodes of ‘Mark Saber’ (ITA 6:10) starring South African born one-armed Donald Gray as a detective – it hasn’t really stood the test of time unlike ‘Dial 999’ for instance.

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Herbert Lom co-starred with Sylvia Syms in ‘No Trees in the Street’. The cast also included 17 year-old David Hemmings of ‘Blow-up’ fame. Miss Syms was recently seen in ‘Eastenders’ as Olive Woodhouse.

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Part of a 3 page spread of book reviews and adverts that promoted Foyle’s Bookshop in London’s Charing Cross Road rather more than is seemly. Christina Foyle was the daughter of the bookshop’s founder William Foyle.
Unlike Hitler, Mussolini and Goering, John Haigh only murdered 9 people so his literary pretensions are acceptable.

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I include this bit about Jack Dempsey because it mentions his New York restaurant where in 1973 I had the best steak I have ever had in my life.

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A strange and very dated look at the goings on at the Goodwood Motor Racing meeting. Hardly a mention of the cars, with name-dropping of Dukes and Debs taking priority. 

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