Hurricane in UK and Reagan's Revenge in Lybia (1986)

Daily Express dated Tuesday March 25th 1986

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This hurricane on March 24th 1986 was not the hurricane of October 15th 1987, which weatherman Michael Fish failed to warn us about, but was till pretty drastic. If you try to Google this 1986 hurricane all you get is references to 1987.

In 1973, Lybian Leader Kadhafi (now normally spelt Gaddafi) claimed much of the Gulf of Sidra to be within Libyan waters with an exclusiion zone of  62 nautical miles. Gaddafi declared it 'The Line of Death', the crossing of which would invite a military response. The US claimed its rights to conduct naval operations in international waters using the standard of 12-mile territorial limit. On March 23rd 1986 several US warships tested Gaddafi's resolve by crossing the Line. The ensuing skirmishes resulted in 35 non-US dead, a Lybian corvette and a Lybian patrol boat sunk. Some SAM missile sites on the mainland were also damaged.

Cigarette Price Battle

Daily Mirror dated Tuesday September 24^th 1968

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When the front page of a newspaper features a story about a dancing mouse you can rest assured that no wars have broken out, no Popes assassinated, no famous film stars died and no planes have crashed. To a lesser degree the same can be said for a paper that leads with a headline about the price of cigarettes. Combine the two and you have a ‘slow news day’.

I’ve never been a smoker. I tried but nearly choking and watering eyes just didn’t appeal and, as my grey-haired old mother used to point out, I’ve always been ‘as tight as a mackerel’s arse’, so I didn’t see any sense in paying for the displeasure. The prediction that small shops would suffer from supermarkets’ price-cutting was true and still is.

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Cont'd from Front

The Ford factory in Dagenham produced its first vehicle in 1931 and its last in 2002. Some say the Unions ruined the British car industry and some say the Unions were necessary because the employers put profits before people. I lived in Dagenham but never worked at Ford’s or in any other factory so I really couldn't comment. 

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Farmer John Derek James sought refuge in a derelict cottage near Weston-under-Redcastle, Shropshire, after being challenged by the police over the illegal possession of a shotgun. He took a woman hostage and held out against a combined force of police and soldiers for 17 days. The siege ended when the woman took the gun off him while he was asleep. At the subsequent trial he was sent to Broadmoor Mental Hospital.

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Dr Christian (or Christiaan) Barnard had performed the World’s first successful human heart transplant in 1967 on Louis Washkansky, who died 18 days later of pneumonia. I'm sure there is something to say about white South Africans receiving black South Africans' hearts but I'd rather not go there.

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Tony Blackburn and Ed Stewart posing with two young ladies. Let’s hope for the DJs’ sake the ladies are older than they look.

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British Rail and its French equivalent, SNFC, operated the Princess Margaret hovercraft from 1968 until 2000 jointly. The craft was seen in the Bond film ‘Diamonds Are Forever’. 

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These days I imagine that an insurance company setting a 25 mile limit on a driver would constitute a breach of human rights and be earning some lawyers a few bob in The Hague or Strasbourg. 

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In 1968 there were just over 18,000 drink-driving convictions in England and Wales. In 1988 there were over 105,000 but the figure has been stabilised at about 85,000 in recent years. Oddly the number of fatalities due to drink-driving dropped steadily between 1979 at 1640 to 430 in 2006, possibly due to a series of December TV campaigns have informed, cajoled and shocked drivers into not drinking and driving. 

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The General Certificate of Education exams were introduced in 1951 to replace the old School Certificate and Higher School Certificate exams. Results were originally graded 1 – 9 with 1 – 6 being passes, but this was later replaced with A – E for passes and U for fail. In 1988 the GCE’s were replaced by GCSE’s using A – G and U, but recently there has been talk of reverting to a number system of 8 – 1 with 8 being the top grade. Fun isn’t it?

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Jennifer Croxton only appeared in the 1 Avengers episode – she played Special Services agent Lady Diana Forbes-Blakeney in ‘Killer’ a story in the 1968/69 Linda Thorson season.

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Strange how our attitude to words change. The word ‘cripple’ would never appear in a headline these days and is even mildly shocking when seen in print, but in 1968 you, and I, would probably not have even noticed it. At least the policeman was convicted and received a jail sentence, which is surprising.

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This could well have been printed last September following the appallingly wet summer we had in 2012.

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Let me get this straight – printer Edward Wilson forged £1.25million to sell to Argentine rebels and planned to use the proceeds to help the needy in Nigeria, and was talked into this by a ‘total stranger’. Was Jonathan Routh doing ‘Candid Camera’ in 1968?

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The Larks, drawn by Jack Dunkley lasted from 1957 until 1985. I liked it because the father character looked just like my brother-in-law did at the time. Its demise can be added to the list of crimes committed by Robert Maxwell who took over the Daily Mirror in 1984.

I can’t find out anything about ‘The Flutters’ but I thought I’d give it an airing.

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The great Roy Kinnear who did everything from Shakespeare, Hammer Horror, ‘The Avengers, ‘That Was The Week That Was’, Sherlock Holmes, The Beatles’ ‘Help!’, Dickens, ‘Sparrow Can’t Sing’ and ‘Jackanory’ to ‘The Return of the Musketeers’ in 1988 during the filming of which he fell from a horse and died in hospital the next day. His son Rory Kinnear was in the recent Bond films ‘Quantum of Solace’ and ‘Skyfall’.

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In August 1968 the Soviet Union had invaded the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic because the Communist government of Alexander Dubček was contemplating liberal reforms. When there is nothing else you can do humour can help.

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The Queen’s sister Princess Margaret Rose had married the society photographer Anthony (or is it Antony?) Armstrong-Jones in 1960. They were divorced in 1978. 

Wikipedia calls him  ‘Antony’, the BBC ‘Anthony’, the Telegraph ‘Antony’, Pathe News ‘Anthony’.  All together now - “You say Antony, I say Anthony, You say Christian, I say Christiaan, Let’s call the whole thing off.”

Random Cutting - Queen Mary driven aground (1949)

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Severe weather is nothing new so don't believe everything Channel 5 tells you. This cutting dates from January 1949 when RMS Queen Mary ran aground on leaving Cherbourg for New York in a storm.

As for the bus - I found this online at a site run by the Lancing & Sompting Pastfinders Local History Group -

Some of you may remember the terrible storm of 1^st January 1949 when a “miniature whirlwind“ left a trail of destruction from Worthing to Shoreham and caused a double-decker bus to be blown off the Old Shoreham Toll Bridge at approximately 6.30 p.m.  The No. 9 Southdown Bus had left Worthing at 5.55 p.m. on it’s way to Brighton and as the vehicle approached the bridge the storm intensified with hailstones battering the bus and the wind reaching speeds of 80–90 mph.  Just as the driver drove on to the narrow bridge, a gust of wind wrenched the steering wheel out of his hand and swept the bus off the bridge into the river Adur, 25ft below.  The conductor managed to jump clear and run to the Red Lion to telephone emergency services.  Ladders were laid down from the bridge to the bus, which was lying on its side half-submerged in mud, amazingly with lights still on and engine running.  Luckily the tide was out. Nine passengers managed to climb up to the bridge, while the remaining eleven passengers had to be released by fireman. Three Worthing passengers and two Lancing residents were retained in hospital.  Miraculously there were no deaths and only one serious injury of a lady, Miss Anna Vuls, who was a Latvian chambermaid and who had worked for the Spaniard Hotel in Worthing.  More than 3 years later, she sued the Southdown Bus Company and was awarded special damages of £680 even though the bus company had claimed it was an “Act of God”.  She appealed, and was later awarded £2680.

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 Cutting - New York Snow (1947)

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New York City had at least 7" of snow on the ground from December 26th 1947 until February 14th 1948. In the UK we'd had more than our fair share during January and February 1947, followed by widespread flooding in March.