Cutting - Grand National and Lincoln Handicap (1923)

24th March 1923

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The 1923 Aintree Grand National was won by a 13 year-old horse, Sergeant Murphy, ridden by the Wodehousian named 'Tuppy' Bennett at 100/6. The three favourites were also rans. In December of 1923 Geoffrey 'Tuppy' Bennett was thrown during a race at Wolverhampton and kicked in the head. He died 19 days later and consequently protective headgear was made compulsory for all jockeys. You can watch the newsreel of the Grand National on the Pathé site or YouTube.

Cutting - Gordon Richards Wins St Leger (1937)

8th September 1937

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Gordon Richards won his first race as a jockey in 1921 and went on to ride a further 4869 winners before retiring in 1954. He was Champion Jockey in 26 years and was knighted in the Coronation Honours in 1953. This race, the 1937 St Leger, can be seen in a Pathe newsreel on YouTube.

Cutting - Tommy Farr from Happy! (1937)

8th September 1937

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If you thought punning headlines were a modern invention think again.

Tommy Farr was born in Blaenclydach in 1913 and had a boxing career from from the age of thirteen until 1953 during which he had 84 wins, 34 losses and 17 draws. He fought as a Light-heavyweight up until 1936 and then switched to Heavyweight. Ted Broadribb managed him from 1935 but they didn't get on and the American trainer Babe Culnan took over after the failed attempt to take the World Championship off Joe Louis in August 1937. Broadribb went on to manage (and become father-in-law of) Freddie Mills among others. 

Random Cutting - Carpentier Wins in 8 Rounds (1919)

July 1919

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Georges Carpentier was half was through a winning streak of 12 matches when he won by a knock-out against Dick Smith who had only won 3 of his previous 10 bouts. Carpentier finally fought Jack Dempsey in New Jersey in 1921 and his winning streak ended.

Random Cuttings - Football (1926)

17th October 1926

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Some football pictures from two games played on the 16th October 1926 to please those that like that sort of thing. More exciting info - South Shields FC went out of business in 1930 - Fulham ended the 1926/7 season in 18th place in the 2nd Division; South Shields 19th; Spurs 13th place in the 1st and Sheffield United 8th in the 1st.

Random Ad - Ali vs Foreman on the Big Screen (1974)

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Before Sky got the idea of charging to watch big sporting events live, the Odeon Cinema chain was beaming the Rumble in the Jungle Live to a sreeen near you. This ad was published on 16th September 1974 in the London Evening News and shows the original date for the fight (24th September) but in fact it was posponed to the 30th October after Foreman cut his eye during training.

Random Cutting - Football scandal (1918)

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From the Daily Chronicle 23rd March 1918. George Anderson had been playing for Manchester United since 1911until he tried to fix a match in December 1917 and was suspended for life. At the trial featured in the cutting he was sentenced to 8 months in prison. It is a sign of the times that someone can be refered to several times in the article by the term 'A Jew' or 'the Jew'.

Random Ad - Harlem Globetrotters Brighton (1958)

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A 1958 advert for the World famous Harlem Globetrotters Show at the Sports Arena, Brighton. These shows weren't so much Basketball matches as an excuse for the Globetrotters to show of their skills and clown around.

Random Cutting - Oxford wins the Boat Race (1923)

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In 1923 the annual Oxford vs Cambridge Boat Race was won by Oxford, whose crew included Andrew Irvine who along with George Mallory disappeared on Everest in 1924. Mallory’s body was found fully preserved in 1999.

P.s.  A Merry Christmas to you all!

Random Ad - Live Wrestling (1960's)

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This was the hayday of British wrestling with bouts being televised every Saturday afternoon on ITV's World of Sport. As well as Johnny Kwango, I remember enjoying watching Jackie Pallo, Mick McManus and Bert Royal among others going through their routines with commentary by Kent Walton. I only went to one live match and that was in a field behind the Merry Fiddlers in Beacontree Heath and the only name I remember is that of The Blimp.

Chamberlain's Last Plea for Peace

Daily Mirror dated Tuesday September 27^th 1938

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On September 12^th 1938 Adolf Hitler gave a speech in which he demanded the return of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. On the 15^th the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to Berlin for talks with Hitler, but couldn’t resolve the crisis. They had further meetings on the 18^th and 22^nd. On September 29^th Chamberlain, Hitler, Mussolini and the French President Daladier met in Munich and decided, without consulting the Czech government, that the country should be partitioned and Hitler should have control of Sudetenland. Chamberlain arrived back at Heston aerodrome with his piece of paper and ‘peace in our time’ speech. War had been averted – for the time being.

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Roosevelt did what he could to help avert a European war despite the overwhelming isolationist views of the majority of Americans. They were quite willing to supply arms and food to England but did not want any ‘on the ground’ involvement until Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in December 1941.

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Read with hindsight this is a terrible story of a Polish Jew being deported back to almost certain death, but at the time the general public in Britain were generally xenophobic and to some degree anti-Semitic. It should also be remembered that they didn’t really know at this time what was going on in the concentration camps.

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RMS Queen Elizabeth was the sister ship to the Cunard liner RMS Queen Mary and was launched later this day at the Clydebank shipyard by the Queen herself. She wasn’t ready for her maiden voyage until after the War had broken out so her first trip to New York was done in the utmost secrecy. The ship was painted grey and the crew didn’t know its destination until after it had left port.

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There’s a word you don’t see in tabloid headlines these days – ‘repudiates’.

Two words I wouldn’t expect to find in a 1938 tabloid – ‘      ‘ and ‘        ‘.

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Coin operated vending machines appeared in the UK in the late 1880’s. In my experience the most common products available were sweets, particularly chocolate bars, and cigarettes. I’d have thought that keeping fish and chips hot for any length of time would result in soggy chips and soft batter. They certainly didn’t catch on in any great numbers. 

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Just shows how dangerous it was in the 1930’s to be a woman of loose moral habits. According to The Times for November 5^th 1938 David Leonard Knight was found not guilty and discharged

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Despite the War in Europe the 1939/40 New York World’s Fair went ahead. The British Pavilion displayed an original copy of the Magna Carta, but by the end of the Expo it was thought too risky to transport it back to England so it stayed in Fort Knox until 1947. Germany didn’t attend the Fair.

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A happy story for a change. A young couple in love and destined to marry? Maybe not. The only entry in the FreeBDM marriage records for Doris Deciacco has her hitching up with a Robert Jack in 1947. What happened to William?

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T.R. Newton may have been Cheshire’s strongest man and capable of swimming across Morecambe Bay but could he eat three shredded wheat?

England scores 280 first innings

Sunday Pictorial dated Sunday August 15^th 1926

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I must admit that on reading this headline ‘England scores 280 first innings’ I had no idea whether it was a ‘Hooray for England’ or a ‘England team let us down again’ headline. I don’t understand cricket scoring.

A look on this web page told me England won the 5^th Test in 1926 by 289 runs.

Ask me in 5 minutes who won and by how many runs and I will have forgotten, but I am sure there are people out there that will find these pages interesting. 

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The death of John Thomas Derham resulted from a fight with his friend Alphonso (or Alphonse) Smith over Smith’s wife Catherine.

Smith was found not guilty of murder or manslaughter in November 1926 but sentenced to 12 months for possession of a firearm with intent to injure. The comparatively lenient sentence was passed because the judge believed that Smith only intended to kill himself.

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In fact the Reverend John Alexander Smith died of his head wound the next day. 

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At least this fire in a paint factory in Southwark ended without loss of life and even three cats were saved.

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In June 1916 Lord Kitchener sailed on the battle cruiser HMS Hampshire for a diplomatic mission to Russia, but the ship struck a mine laid by U-boat U-75 and sank. Kitchener, his staff, and 643 of the crew of 655 were drowned or died of exposure. His body was never found.

In 1926, a hoaxer, Frank Power, claimed that a Norwegian fisherman had found Kitchener’s body. Power brought a coffin back from Norway and prepared it for burial in St. Paul's. At this point, however, the authorities intervened and the coffin was opened in the presence of police and a distinguished pathologist. The box was found to contain only tar for weight. Power was never prosecuted.

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I have a funny feeling that whoever tried to fill this in didn’t stand an chance of winning that rather nice Bullnose Morris Cowley, and should have sent off for the 64 page booklet on how to complete crosswords. Rather an odd feature of this grid is the use of clues marked ‘actual’ so R.T.B. (actual) is literally RTB. The other oddity I’ve noticed is 20 across and 20 down is the same isolated square with a ‘D’ pre-printed.

The first crossword to appear in a UK newspaper was only 2 years previously in 1924.

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Arthur Ferrier was born and started working as a cartoonist in Glasgow, then he moved to London and drew joke cartoons for newspapers and  magazines.

In 1930 he created Britain’s first ‘glamour’ cartoon strip called ‘Film Fanny’. The most famous ‘glamour’ strip was the Daily Mirror’s ‘Jane’. The Sunday Pictorial also published his ‘Our Dumb Blonde’ strip, which ran from 1939 to 1946, followed by ‘Spotlight on Sally’ and ‘Eve’.

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“By Gad, Sir! Whatever next? They’ll be teaching the little blighters to use the Interweb, what ever that it. A damn good thrashing would do them a sight more good. Pass the cane!”

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Only 13 years before World War II and, apart from talk of getting rid of horses, this could be from World War I.

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Probably the Bristol Bulldog single seater biplane fighter introduced into service in 1927.

The racing seaplane mentioned here is the Gloster VI, which was entered for the 1929 Schneider Trophy race, but was beaten by the Supermarine S6. 

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Ah, the old ‘daring-short-skirt-flat-chested-coal-scuttle for a hat’ look. Although the one on the right has gone for the mis-tossed pancake hat. Nice drawings though by Renee Maude.

Random Cutting - Cliff Thorburn wins Championship (1980)

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Canadian Cliff Thorburn beat Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins to win the Snooker World Championship in 1980, but lost to Steve Davis 3 years later despite getting the first maximum break of 147 in the World Championships.

Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

The Mirror dated Wednesday January 29^th 1986

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The front and back covers of this edition of The Mirror (as the Daily Mirror called itself for a while) were unusual in that they were printed sideways.

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This was the 25 launch of the Space Shuttle since the first orbital flight in 1981 and the 10^th using Challenger. The special commission appointed Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident found that NASA management were to blame for not heeding scientists’ warnings that the component that failed would be at risk if the launch was made in the weather conditions that prevailed on January 28^th and that they had known of a potential fault with the component since 1977. A U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology investigation came to the same conclusions.

The Shuttle program was halted until September 1988 when the program was resumed. All went well until January 2003 when Columbia broke up on re-entry. The Space Shuttle program finally came to an end in July 2011.

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L Ron Hubbard died on January 24^th 1986 following a stroke. He had made a living as an author of pulp fiction in the 1930’s and 40’s but then developed Dianetics - a way of improving an individual’s physical and mental health. Later he went on to expand these ideas into Scientology. He has been called both a messiah and a pathological liar, but what can’t be denied is that he led a fascinating life and is well worth Google’ing.

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I like the comment ‘if he hadn’t been there he wouldn’t have got hurt’. I am surprised though that he got away with keeping an axe under his bed for just such an event.

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Anne Robinson (yes, the Weakest Link Anne Robinson) waxing lyrical about Prince Charles.

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I could imagine this happening in the 1950’s but in 1986 it’s unbelievable. Could there be more to the story than is printed here, or was the Landlord really that out of touch with the world of the 1980’s? 

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Paul McCartney, Roger Daltrey, Bob Geldof and some other bloke. It says four stars but I say three stars and Phil Collins. 

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The Top 40 in all its variety. Number 3 should be ‘Walk of Life’. Number 39 is a version of one of my all time favourite Animals tracks ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’ by a group even Google hasn’t heard of - Coltello Show Confederates.

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Palace intrigue just like in the olden days. Did Princess Anne really call Princess Dianna ‘the Dope’, or not? We commoners will never know. Or care.

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The usual pre-World Cup optimism. In fact England were pushed out of the Mexico World Cup in the quarter-finals by Argentina and more specifically by Diego Maradona and his ‘Hand of God’ goal. Argentina went on to win the tournament. Gary Lineker won the Golden Boot as the leading scorer.