Coronation Day 1953

Daily Mirror dated Wednesday 3rd June 1953

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Seems the good folk at the Mirror couldn't decide which was the happiest picture of them all.

George VI had died in February 1952 and his eldest daughter Elizabeth had succeeded him.  In June 1953 she was crowned Queen Elizabeth II and she’s still is.

Not a lot else to say really.

Well this was before HD TV. And colour TV. And wide screen TV. And flat screen TV. And digital TV.  And 625 line TV.  It was black and white 405 lines probably watched on a 12 inch or 14 inch screen, so you’d be lucky to see anything at all.

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The only other story to get a look in was the Conquest of Everest.  Although Hillary and Tensing had reached the summit on May 29^th, the news came through from Nepal on the eve of the Coronation.

This extract from an article in the previous day’s Daily Mirror mentions Everest climber George Mallory.  Some people now claim that Mallory, whose body was found perfectly preserved on Everest in 1999, may have reached the summit in 1924.  

They may be indecisive but could never be accused of modesty

Man on the Moon

Daily Mirror dated 21st July 1969

 

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Only 12 men have ever walked on the Moon - Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, James Irwin, John W. Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt.  The last walk was in December 1972. 

Neil Armstrong retired from NASA in 1971.

Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, a Freemason, carried to the Moon a special depusition from Grand Master J. Guy Smith, with which to claim Masonic territorial jurisdiction over the Moon on behalf of the Grand Lodge of Texas.  A Tranquillity Lodge was later set up and meets in Texas until such time as it can hold its meeting on the Moon.

The 3^rd member of the crew, Michael Collins never got to walk on the Moon as he had to pilot Apollo 11 in orbit until the Lunar Landing Module re-joined it. He left NASA later in 1969.

This summary of the TV coverage of the Apollo 11 mission foreshadows the 24-hour news coverage that we take for granted today. 

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Senator Edward Kennedy, brother of JFK and Robert Kennedy, was regarded as a good possibility for US President until he crashed his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island and Mary Jo Kopechne died.

On July 25^th he was sentenced to 2 months in jail but this was suspended.

In January 1970 an inquest into the death suggested negligent driving (by Kennedy) was a contributing factor.

A Grand Jury in 1970 issued no indictment and Kennedy carried on with his life until 2009 when he died of a brain tumour. 

Why is it that the name 'Crown Topper' just doesn’t conjure up the idea of a good quality discrete toupee?

Nuclear Nightmare

Today dated Wednesday April 30th 1986

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The World hears about the Chernobyl Nuclear accident, which had occurred on the 26^th April at the nuclear plant in the Ukraine just outside the city of Prypiat.  53000 people were evacuated from the city the next day.  They were told it would be for only 3 days so many left all their possessions behind.  The city lies within the 19 mile exclusion zone that still surrounds the Plant and is still empty except for those processions.  The journalist Dom Joly has a very good chapter in his book ‘The Dark Tourist’ in which he describes visiting Prypriat.

31 deaths were directly attributed to the accident at the time. This figure rose to 64 by 2008, but if deaths from cancer and other illnesses brought on by radiation exposure are taken into account the figure could be as high as a hundred thousand.

Suprisingly the other reactors not wrecked by the accident were kept in use, the final one being shut down in December 2000!

The story at the bottom of the page was the final chapter in the saga that began with the death of George V in 1936 and his son Edward VIII deciding that marrying divorcee Wallis Simpson was more important to him than being King.  After Edward’s abdication the couple became The Duke and Duchess of Windsor.  He died in 1972 and she followed in 1986. 

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This appeared on the Astrology page.  Quite good on the past (1960’s) – not so good on the future (1990s).  I wonder how he got on with predicting the by-election results.

Spot the mistake.  Yes, that’s Robert Hardy in the top picture and probably Bill Jordan in the bottom picture.

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If only today’s youth problems could be solved so easily.

German's Announce Hitler's Death

The Daily Telegraph dated Wednesday May 2nd 1945

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Adolph Hitler, the Fuehrer or Leader, of Germany from 1933 to 1945, committed suicide by cyanide poisoning and pistol shot on the 30^th April 1945 along side his new wife Eva Braun.  German radio announced the death on the evening of May 1^st and it appeared in the British daily papers on the morning of the 2^nd. 

Many people in Britain had been waiting for this news for nearly 6 years, but it is now thought by many historians that it happened at the right time.  Any earlier and Germany could well have found a new, stronger and possibly saner Leader who could have changed the course of World War II.

I recommend Stephen Fry’s novel ‘Making History’ in which he explores an alternative history in which Hitler was never even born.

The whole issue is taken up with the same news so I post 2 subsequent Daily Telegraph headlines from a few days later

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VE Day or Victory in Europe Day was held on Tuesday May 8^th 1945.  Celebrations, particularly in America were, tempered by the fact that fierce fighting continued in the Far East against the Japanese, and in fact it was another 3 months before VJ Day and the final end of War on August 15^th. 

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Murder Mystery of Locked Garage - Vivian Messiter

Daily Mirror dated Saturday January 12th 1929

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On January 10, 1929 the body of Vivian Messiter was found in a locked garage used as a storeroom by the Wolf's Head Oil Company in Southampton.  He had been missing for 9 weeks.

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At first the police thought he had been shot but Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the famous Home Office pathologist, discovered that death was caused by hammer blows.

Various clues led to the arrest of William Henry Podmore, who was known to the police, being wanted for a charge of fraud in Manchester. He was brought in for questioning but there was not enough evidence to charge him with the murder, so he was tried on the fraud charge and jailed. In the meantime the police continued investigating and fourteen months after the murder finally had enough evidence to try Podmore.

The murder trial was held in Winchester and William Podmore was found guilty and was hanged on April 22, 1930 despite some public outcry against the verdict.

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The idea of a tunnel to join England to France was original proposed as far back as 1802.  In 1881 exploratory tunnels were started at each end, but abandoned when Britain pulled out of the project amid fears that the tunnel would be an invasion risk.  The Channel Tunnel was finally opened in May 1994, and, as far as I know, Hasting has yet to be overrun by Frenchmen. 

I just hope no phone hacking was involved in getting this story.  

Frederick Atkinson was an artist who committed suicide when told by friends of the unfaithful ways of his girlfriend, the artist’s model Dolores.  She’d had 2 other lovers commit suicide before Frederick, had modelled for Jacob Epstein and Augustus John among many others, had been married 4 times, appeared on the stage in a self penned melodrama of her affair with Atkinson and ended up as a side-show exhibit as ‘The Fasting Woman’ – she was actually dying of cancer.  She was 40 years old when she died in 1934.

George Harrison dies

The Mirror dated Saturday 1st December 2001

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George Harrison was born on 25th February 1943 in Liverpool and died of throat cancer on 29th November 2001 in Los Angeles.  He was the youngest of the Beatles pop group, playing rhythm and lead guitar.  He was an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other Beatles.  Following the band's break-up, he had a successful career as a solo artist and later as part of the Traveling Wilburys with Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Jim Keltner.

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As well as acting in the Beatles films ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Help!’, he was also executive producer on a couple of dozen films including classics like ‘The Long Good Friday’, ‘Mona Lisa’, ‘Withnail & I’, ‘The Raggedy Rawney’… oh and ‘Nuns on the Run’.

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And you thought pressing ‘Del’ when you didn’t mean to was annoying.

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I left the newspaper name and date on this in case you thought I had culled it from some dubious magazine I happened to have laying around.

Nowhere in the advert does it say what it is selling, but we are told that it is used by both horses and tigers. The only thing I can come up with is that they both scratch their backs on tree bark.  Maybe there’s a tree called the Goat Weed.  Or not.  Who cares – for £9.95 it’s got to be a bargain.  Hasn’t it?  

Roosevelt Responsible for the War

The Star (Guernsey) dated Wednesday May 21st 1941

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The inhabited islands of the Channel Islands are Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm, Jethou, Brecqhou and Lihou, and they were all occupied by the German Army from the summer of 1940 to May 1945.

Guernsey was occupied from 30^th June 1940 to 9^th May 1945.  Some 17000 people (mostly women and children) evacuated before the invasion leaving about 25000.

This single sheet (folded to give 4 pages) edition is from just over a year later and rather than try to pick things out I thought I might as well post the whole issue.

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