Random Ad - Lyons Ready-Cooked Dainties (1917)

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"By Gad, Sir! There may be War on but nothing is going to stop me enjoying a warm croquette! So stick that up yer spiked helmet, Wilhelm! Pass the brandy!"

The Coventry Street Corner House was the first to be opened by J Lyons & Co. in 1909.

Random Cutting - Towpath Murders (June 1953)

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On the night of May 31^st 1953 teenagers Barbara Songhurst and Christine Reed were seen cycling on the Thames Tow Path near Teddington Lock.

The next morning Barbara's body was found in the river Thames near Richmond, she had been beaten, stabbed and raped. Five days later Christine's body was also found.

At the end of the following month Alfred Charles Whiteway was arrested for raping a woman and assaulting another on Oxshott Heath.  During questioning he confessed to the Towpath murders.

He was tried at the Old Bailey in November 1953 and, despite trying to make out the police had forged the confession, he was found guilty.  He was hanged at Wandsworth Prison by executioner Albert Pierrepoint.

Nixon meets Brezhnev

Daily Mirror dated Tuesday May 23^rd 1972

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Richard Nixon has gone down in history as a liar and a disgraced President but this Summit meeting in 1972 between Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev did a great deal to thaw the Cold War and produced the SALT 1 (Strategic Arms Limitation) and  ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaties that may well have saved mankind from destroying itself.

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Nine days after this protest march by 500 women of Derry (aka Londonderry) the Official IRA declared a cease-fire, although the Provisional IRA continued their armed campaign off and on up to 2005.

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After 133 years as British colonial Ceylon and 24 years as the Dominion of Ceylon within the British Commonwealth, the island finally tore itself free from our influence and became the Republic of Sri Lanka; and the Daily Mirror gave the news less than 1 column inch on page 2. 

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The Vietnam War had been going on in one form or another since 1950. US combat troops had been active since 1965 and it was to go on until 1975. The cost of the War was about 637000 military dead and at least 250000 civilian dead.

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One of the frustrating things about doing this blog is finding an interesting story like this and not being able to find out what happened next. I can’t afford to subscribe to an online archive or travel to the British Library every time I want to check on something.

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Margaret Rutherford started professional acting in 1925 with the Old Vic Theatre Company and was 41 when she first appeared in a West-End production in 1933. She appeared in her first film in 1936 and will be remembered for her 4 outings as Agatha Christie’s Miss Marples, but she also appeared as Miss Quickly in Orson Welles Shakespeare adaptation ‘Chimes at Midnight’, in Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ and Noel Coward’s ‘Blithe Spirit’ in a role specifically written for her. 

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Who can forget ‘The Young New Mexican Puppeteer’ by Tom Jones? Or should it be ‘remember’? A zero answer on ‘Pointless if ever I saw one. Don McLean’s Vincent pops in at number 18 and was destined for the top spot.

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Traffic Wardens (now known as Civil Enforcement Officers) first appeared on UK streets as far back as 1960. A weekly income of £23.10p was about half of the average salary in 1972.

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Harland Sanders started the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise business in 1952 and in 1964 he sold the US business for $2million but kept the Canadian franchises. He died in 1980.

By the way, in 1970 he appeared as himself in a film called ‘The Phynx’ which is well worth looking up (if you’re a film fan) on the IMDB.com as it has the most amazing cast of ‘as themselves’ people ever.

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Poet and author Cecil Day-Lewis, the father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis, was the Poet Laureate from 1968 until his death. He wrote 20 crime novels under the name Nicholas Blake as well as 3 literary novels under his own name.

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George Best had been with Manchester United since 1963 but by 1972 was becoming unreliable and in December of that year was put on the list of players available for transfer. He left Manchester United in 1974 and retired from professional football in 1983. He died in 2005.

Random Ad - Brickwoods Prize Ale (1950's)

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Tommy Trinder promoting Brickwoods Prize Ale - Sunshine IPA. Trinder was a very popular comedian, film star and the first host of TV's 'Sunday Night at the London Palladium', but this was very much at the tail-end of his career. 

Random Cutting - Song-Pluggers (1934)

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Scandal at the BBC? Whatever next? A lot of the prime-time broadcasting on BBC radio in the 1930’s was made up of live relays of dance orchestras from popular London nightclubs. Great publicity for the bands and the clubs but also the songs or tunes they played, which was then reflected in the very lucrative music-sheet business. No wonder there was a certain amount of skulduggery involved.

Jack Hobbs equals W G Grace's record

Daily Graphic dated Tuesday August 18^th 1925

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It’s time to make up for my various ignorant (in the sense of un-informed) comments on sport by posting a sport-themed front page.

The cricketer Jack Hobbs equalled W G Grace’s 126 centuries in 1925 but went on to get 197 first-class cricket centuries before his retirement in 1934, and this still stands as the record.

For those who, like me, didn’t know, W G Grace’s cricket career ran from 1864 until 1908, he was 50 years old when he retired and he was a qualified and practising medical doctor.

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King Feisal (now normally spelled Faisal) became King of Iraq after a plebiscite ‘rigged’ by British business interests, in 1921. Alec Guinness played him in the 1962 film ‘Lawrence of Arabia’.

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Typical of 1920’s tabloids, several pages are taken up with these short news items.

I presume the ‘manifesto’ distributed to the Limehouse householders was created by a painting and decorating firm.

The first automated traffic lights at junctions didn’t appear until 1927.

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This was the time when it was still seriously predicted that many people would use aeroplanes to get around the country instead of cars, buses or trains.

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Gertrude Ederle had been part of the US 4x100m Relay Gold Medal winning team in 1924. This attempt to swim the Channel ended badly when she was disqualified after a misunderstanding. Her support thought she was drowning and pulled her out. She said she was resting by floating face-down. She returned in 1926 and successfully completed a France to England crossing. She died in 2003 at the age of 98.

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The British and the weather! If it’s hot then it’s too blasted hot or they are worried its not going to last.

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Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party governed Italy from 1922 until 1943 with Mussolini as Dictator from January 1^st 1925. Soldiers with funny hats and bicycles may look like something out of a Carry On film but the Abyssinians (Ethiopians) weren’t laughing when Mussolini’s army and airforce invaded in 1936.  

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I don’t know how this story panned out but I suspect it was either suicide or an accidental overdose. Prussic acid is another name for Hydrogen cyanide and is extremely poisonous to humans.

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Radio broadcasting for entertainment in Britain, i.e. the BBC, was a little less than 3 years old in August 1925. The London transmitter was known as 2LO and Daventry was 5XX. Exciting trivia fact – the famous BBC Shipping Forecast began life on 5XX.

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This illustration accompanied the daily fiction serial in the Graphic. Two things, pen and ink illustration and fiction stories, which no longer enhance our tabloids.

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“By Gad, Sir! It may be cheap but it’s probably some damned foreign chow. Gives the memsahib Delhi-belly just to look at it. Pass the HP Sauce!”

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I never realised that we grew tobacco here in England. This picture was probably taken on Mr Brandon's Church Crookham tobacco farm, which was active from 1911 until 1937.

Random Ad - Mailgear (1974)

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Unfortunately an eager letter to Mailgear will no longer get you a stylish plastic, sorry PVC jacket and blonde lady looking up your right nostril. Note the lack of a web address, it was snail-mail all the way in those days. Try Google'ing Mailgear now and it seems to be all about something called online war-gaming, which the guy in the photo looks to me like an enthusiast.