Click to Enlarge
Got a nice new 50" TV? Take a look at the beauty top right - that's a 60" wall-mounted 1953 projection TV. I saw one in a junk shop in Cardiff many years ago and didn't realise what it was.
Front pages (and usually back, middle or other pages) chosen at random (more or less) from my collection of mostly 20th Century mostly British newspapers. Weekly new posts on Sundays, a Random Cutting on Wednesdays and a Random Advert on Fridays.
Friday, 2 August 2013
Wednesday, 31 July 2013
Random Cutting - Imps League Alarm (1930's)
Click to Read
Change 'Irish' to West Indians or Indians or Pakistanis or
Polish or Rumanians or Vietnamese or even Huguenots, and it’s the same old
Right Wing bleating.
The Junior Imperial League was the forerunner of the Young
Conservatives.
Sunday, 28 July 2013
Sir Winston Churchill Funeral Plans
Evening Standard dated Monday January 25th
1965
Click to Read
Click to Read
Sir Winston Churchill, ex Conservative Prime
Minister, ex Home Secretary, ex First Lord of the Admiralty, ex Secretary of
State for War, ex Secretary of State for Air, ex Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Nobel Prize winner, author, war correspondent, polo player, front line soldier,
prisoner of war, speech maker, diplomat, artist, butterfly breeder and amateur
bricklayer died on January 24th at the age of 90.
Click to Read
Click to Read
Churchill’s death was front-page news around the
World.
Click to Read
Click to Read
His state funeral was attended by representatives from 110
nations. US President Lyndon (LBJ) Johnson didn’t make it. David Ben-Gurion of
Israel walked from the Savoy Hotel in the Strand. The Queen, Prince Philip,
Charles, Princess Magaret and the Queen Mother attended, as did Prime Minister
Harold Wilson and French Premier Charles De Gaulle.
Click to Read
Born in Saint Lucia, Emile Ford came to Britain in the mid
1950’s and, along with his backing band The Checkmates, had a number 1 hit with
‘What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?’ in 1959. He had 3 more top 20
hits but hasn’t reached number 1 again, yet.
Click to Read
John Heenan became the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster on
September 2nd 1963 and was created a Cardinal by Pope Paul VI
February 2nd 1965. He died of a heart attack at the age of 70 in
1975.
Click to Read
I can’t quite understand this item. Is it sloppy reading on
my part or sloppy writing on their part? Was Mr Arcadius Skidelsky dead in
1965? If he gave her the jewels, when did he pawn them? Why use the word
‘boudoir’? Is it used to imply a relationship between the woman and the Mr
Skidelsky? But surely his executors chose her. But wouldn’t they wait until he
was dead before executing the Will? It wasn’t immediately obvious but
presumably the word ‘Image’ in the headline refers to he resemblance to his
late wife. I’ve had to read the item half a dozen times to come up with this
drivel. Was it worth it? Who cares?
Click to Read
Abram (Bram) Fischer had been a long time member of the
Communist Party and supporter of Apartheid in South Africa. He was arrested in
November 1965, and in March 1966 was put tried for promoting communism and
conspiracy to overthrow the Government. He was found guilty and sentenced to
life imprisonment. He died in May 1975.
In December 2012 Bloemfontein Airport was renamed Bram
Fischer International in his memory.
Click to Read
Sounds like the record buying public had good sense, and an
ear for music, when they put the Righteous Brothers’ unforgettable version of
You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ at number 1 rather than the Cilla Black
offering.
Click to Read
As it turned out Terry Downes first fight with
Willie Pastrano on November 30th 1964 turned out to be his last
professional bout. Pastrano only had 1 more fight – he lost against José Torres
in March 1965.
Click to Read
A full-page advert for the European Premiere of that
perennial favourite ‘The Sound of Music’ to be held on March 29th.
It had already been premiered in New York and Los Angeles and was nominated for
10 Oscars; winning 5.
Friday, 26 July 2013
Random Ad - Hell is a City (1960)
Click to Enlarge
A superb crime thriller, 'Hell is a City' starred Stanley Baker (who was in one of my all-time favourites 'Hell Drivers') and John Crawford (the obligatory American 'star'). Supringly it was made by Hammer Films who are, of course, best known for horror flicks. It was partly filmed on the streets and buildings of Manchester.
Wednesday, 24 July 2013
Random Cutting - RADAR Secrets revealed (1945)
Click to Read
The idea of Radar had been around since the late
19th Century and theorised by Nikola Tesla during World War 1, By
1934 it had become feasible to locate and calculate the range of an object
using radio waves, but it wasn’t until World War II that it came into its own.
Sunday, 21 July 2013
Valentino admirer's suicide
Evening Standard dated Thursday August 26th
1926
Click to read
Rudolph Valentino had died the previous Monday. See this post.
Peggy Scott was variously described as an actress, dancer and scriptwriter but
I can’t find anything online about her career. She had claimed to know
Valentino but a representative of the late star attended Scott’s inquest and
denied any connection between the two.
Click to read
Cont'd from page 1
After the General Strike of May 1926 the coalminers were no
better off than before and continued their strike. By November it had fizzled
out as workers at mine after mine were forced back to work as their Unions ran
out of money. The tone of this article, especially the last ‘Down the Pit’
section is decidedly anti-miners and this may well reflect the opinion of the
paper’s owner Lord Beaverbrook.
Click to read
Valentino’s body was laid out for public viewing in the Gold
Room of Frank E Campbell’s Funeral Church in Manhattan, where others including
Oscar Hammerstein and Enrico Caruso had also been displayed. The circus
atmosphere that surrounded the lying-in-state, encouraged by the media
presence, offended George Ullman and he stopped it after only 2 days. It turned
out that the Fascist guards mentioned in the article were in fact a publicity
stunt concocted by the Funeral Home’s management and that the wreath from
Mussolini was bought in the Home’s own florists.
Click to read
Edward Creed had been the manager of a cheese
shop and on the night of July 28th his assistant left him to put the
day’s taking in the safe and to lock up the shop. Several hours later the
next-door neighbour thought he could smell gas coming from the shop and he
called the police. They found Mr Creed dead and the gas jets on but unlit. The
safe had been cleared of money. Witnesses placed 2 men loitering near the shop
on the day of the murder and the police published descriptions but no one was
found. The two women mentioned in the article were never traced and a verdict
of ‘murder by person or persons unknown’ was returned at the inquest. The case
remains unsolved.
Click to read
Krishna Murti (or Jiddu Krishnamurti) was born
in 1895 in India and at the age of 14 was taken under the wing of Charles
Webster Leadbeater and Theosophical Society who groomed him to be the new World
Teacher. After training and a European education he travelled the World
lecturing on esotericism, or hidden knowledge or wisdom that offers the
individual enlightenment and salvation. In 1929 he split from the Theosophical
Society, but continued teaching until his death in 1986.
Click to read
Presumably Sarah Carlisle was under 21, because I believe
that Thomas H Grater was 24, having been born, according to the FreeBMD
website, in 1902, and if they had both been over 21 they wouldn’t have needed
any parent’s permission. A further search at FreeBMD shows Thomas marrying in
1930 to a lady by the name of Broughton. Sarah Carlisle is too common a name to
pin her down.
Click to read
I remember hearing these SOS messages at the end of news
broadcasts and usually of the form ‘would so-and-so believed to be on holiday
in the Lake District please contact their mother who is seriously ill’. They
became redundant with the spread of mobile phones in 1990’s.
Click to read
Yes you guessed it – it’s the drawing that made
me post this, although a cold Barclay’s Lager would go down a treat today. It
was brewed by Barclay Perkins of Southwark, not by a bunch of merchant bankers.
Click to read
The term ‘bandit’ seems to refer specifically to motorised
smash and grab raiders. According to Robert Murphy’s very good book ‘Smash and
Grab – Gangsters in the London Underworld’ the most famous girl bandit was
Lilian Goldstein who drove for Ruby Sparks while they carried out numerous
raids between 1922 and 1927.
Click to read
Quite what this fashionable young lady is doing with a
coal-scuttle on her head is anyone’s guess, but then I know nothing about haute
couture.
Click to read
Tunnels Bathing Beach was, and still is, a
feature of Ilfracombe, North Devon. No helicopter rescues in those days.
Click to read
I remember that when I was a kid it was common knowledge
that stevedores at the London Docks, while unloading bananas from ships, were
forever being attacked by tarantulas. There again it was common knowledge that
if you trod on the cracks in the pavement the boogieman would get you.
Click to read
The famous songwriter Irving Berlin was a Russian-Jewish
immigrant and Ellin Mackay was a Catholic heiress and daughter of the head of
the Postal Telegraph Cable Company. Despite Mr Mackay’s objections, the couple
were married at the New York City Hall on January 4th 1926 and he
subsequently wrote her out of his will. It took another 5 years for father and
daughter to be reconciled.
Click to read
Nicholas Zographos was one fifth of the infamous
‘Greek Syndicate’ of gamblers who were a fixture of the great European casinos
of the inter-War period. A detailed article on the Syndicate can be found here.
Zographos died in 1953.
Click to read
An example of the art being created for the London
Underground in the 1920’s. Charles Paine, whose name adorns this advert,
produced posters and advertising artwork for the LU from 1920 until 1929. He
was born in 1895 and died in 1967.
Friday, 19 July 2013
Random Ad - Cafe au Lait (1917?)
Click to Enlarge
Coffee culture 1917 style. "Do yer want to supersize that, Love?"
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