Bournemouth Daily Echo dated Friday October 10th 1952
Click to Enlarge
This 3 train pile-up happened on 8th October 1952
at Harrow and Wealdstone station when a stationery train waiting in the station
was hit by a through express. The resultant wreckage was then hit by another
express travelling in the opposite direction. The final death toll was 112 with
340 people injured,
Click to Enlarge
Continued from Page 1
19 year-old trainee footman Harold Winstanley
bought an ex-World War II 9mm Schmeisser machine pistol and some ammo from a
friend to hunt rabbits, but instead walked into his employer’s house, Knowsley
Hall, and murdered 2 people and wounded 2 others including Lady Derby. He then
had a pint at the local before giving himself up to the police. He was found
guilty but insane and sent to Broadmoor Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
Click to Enlarge
Pianist Leslie ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson was one of the
World’s biggest cabaret stars during the 1920s and 30s. Finding fame in New
York he moved to Paris and then London where he became notorious as the black
man who had affairs with various white actresses and even, it was rumoured,
Royalty. He died in comparative obscurity in 1969 and only a handful of people
attended his funeral.
Click to Enlarge
You have to remember it was a different age – innocent but
cruel.
Click to Enlarge
Those were the days when throwing an iron bar into a tree
and having it land on your head didn’t lead to your parents suing the Local
Council for letting a tree grow there in the first place; just a wiser kid.
Click to Enlarge
“By Gad, Sir! Bopping and jiving in Bournemouth!
Whatever next? What’s wrong with the Black Bottom? Never did me and the
memsahib any harm. Pass the hip-flask!”
Click to Enlarge
And what would Wernher Von Braun know about rockets? Well he
did design and oversee the building of the V1 and V2 German rockets that killed
so many people in London during World War II. Luckily for the US Space Program
he was whisked off to America by the OSS before British Military Intelligence
could get hold of him and wring his neck.
By the way his prediction was 8 years and about $23billion out.
Click to Enlarge
The joy! The tears! The spectacle! Who can forget the 1952
version of that agricultural blockbuster (loud fanfare) ‘Soil Fertility’?
Click to Enlarge
This was before the great boom in TV sales
brought on by the Coronation in 1953, so the TV salesmen really had to work at
it. But what could they show potential customers to lure them into parting with
the equivalent of 6 months’ wages?
Click to Enlarge
Not a lot! 1 channel, black and white and broadcasting for
less than 5 hours a day.
Click to Enlarge
And only this to watch it on.
Click to Enlarge
As Francis Urquhart often said, "I couldn't possibly comment."
No comments:
Post a Comment