Random Ad - Keyboard (1910's)

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Apparently compatible with the latest Ipod for those who hate those on-screen virtual keyboards. I assume they were used for training ‘typewriters’ as typists were once known.

Random Cutting - American Action against Villa (1916)

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No, this is not a grudge match between a USA football team and Aston Villa. This is the American Army vs. Pancho Villa.

On the 9^th March 1916 the Mexican revolutionary (or freedom fighter or terrorist depending on your point of view) Francisco ‘Pancho’ Villa crossed into the USA and attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico. Then as now, the US Government was none too pleased and in effect invaded Mexico on March 14^th with 4800 troops with orders to capture or kill Villa. They were active in Mexico for a year but failed to get him and withdrew in February 1917.

Nixon Returns to Washington

Daily News (New York) dated Tuesday January 17^th 1978

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Following the Watergate Scandal and his resignation, Richard Nixon left Washington in disgrace in August 1974 and faced the possibility of criminal charges, but in September of that year his successor Gerald Ford issued a Presidential pardon. Hubert Humphrey’s funeral was Nixon’s first time back in Washington.

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Despite being 11 degrees of latitude further south than London, New York has a far greater variation in weather – from stifling heat waves in summer to snow bound winters. The Guardian newspaper in the UK used be ridiculed for it’s frequent typographical errors, but I don’t think I have seen so many typos in one article as in the above.

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Hubert Humphrey was the US Vice-President under Lyndon B. Johnson from 1965 to 1969, and ran for President in 1968 but lost to Richard Nixon.

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The Anglo-French supersonic passenger airliner Concorde went into service in 1976 on the London to Bahrain route. Landing in the USA was banned except for Washington Airport until February 1977, but New York refused to allow Concorde into JFK until November 1977.

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Presumably the accusations against Michael Kan of stealing from the Brooklyn Museum came to nought because in 1996 Kan was still at the Detroit Institute of Art, which he had moved to 2 years before this case, and was chairing the Selection Committee for an Exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum.

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Ex-New York Police Officer Thomas Ryan was convicted of criminally negligent homicide for the beating death of Israel Rodriguez in July 1975. Despite attempts by several jurors to change their verdict, Ryan was sentenced to 4 years at this hearing in January 1978.

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The politically right wing, anti-communist, pro Iraqi War, anti-Gay, Christian, anti- Barack Obama singer Pat Boone had 12 top ten hits between 1955 and 1962 in the UK.

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In December 1969 Joseph Yablonski, his wife and their daughter were murdered by gunmen hired by William Anthony ‘Tony’ Doyle whom Joseph had challenged for the leadership of the United Mine Workers of America union. In 1973 Doyle was convicted of arranging the murders and sentenced to 3 life terms but in 1977 his conviction was overturned and a new trial was set.

In February 1978 he was again found guilty and died in prison in 1985 at the age of 80.  

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Of the black Astronauts named all 3 went into Space, Guion Bluford being the first in 1983. Ronald McNair had one mission in the Space Shuttle in 1984 but was killed in the Challenger disaster in 1986.

All the women astronauts mentioned had Space flights. Sally Ride was the first US woman in Space and Kathryn Sullivan was the first woman to partake in a Space Walk. Judith Resnik also died in the Challenger disaster.

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The Pat Buchanan referred to in this letter was the American conservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician, and broadcaster of whom Richard Nixon said that he was neither a racist nor an anti-Semite nor a bigot or "hater," but a "decent, patriotic American." He was also accused of Holocaust denial and having affiliations with White supremacists.

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Created by Jeff MacNelly in 1977, the cartoon strip ‘Shoe’ is about a group of newspapermen who happen to be birds. The editor P. Martin "Shoe" Shoemaker is a cigar-chomping martin. A recurring character is the aptly named Senator Batson D. Belfry. MacNelly died in 2000 but the strip has been continued by his wife Susie and others.

Random Ad - British Rail (1950's)

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'Cheap' and 'Railway' in the same advert! Must be from way back when. They don't run many Ramblers' Excursions these days.

Random Cutting - Sunday Opening (1986)

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This 1986 attempt by the Margaret Thatcher's Government to greatly relaxed the Sunday Trading restrictions of the 1950 Shops Act failed and it wasn't until 1994 that large shops such as Supermarkets could open on a Sunday. 

Prince George Wedding

Daily Mirror dated Friday November 30^th 1934

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Prince George Edward Alexander Edmund, Duke of Kent was the younger brother of Edward who became Edward VIII, Albert who became George VI and Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester.

His bride was Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark who was a first cousin to the future Duke of Edinburgh. Her father was cousin to Czar Nicholas II of Russia. “Why Greece and Denmark?” I hear you ask. ‘Twas because her Grandfather George I of Greece was actually Danish and was elected to the position of King of Greece by the Greek National Assembly.

The marriage lasted until George was killed in a RAF Short Sunderland flying boat on it’s way to Iceland in 1942. Marina died in 1968 of a brain tumour.

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Prince George was the black sheep of George V’s Royal Family. He was bi-sexual and addicted to cocaine. Before and after his marriage he had a string of affairs that included novelist Barbara Cartland, musical actress Jessie Mathews, the son of the Argentine ambassador, future Russian spy Anthony Blunt and, it is rumoured, Noel Coward. He was blackmailed by a male prostitute and had at least one illegitimate son.

George's interest in Jazz music was portrayed in the recent Stephen Poliakoff TV production ‘Dancing on the Edge’.

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Wedding or no wedding, life goes on then as now - tobacco smugglers, rail crossing deaths, hand-bag snatching, a bus crash, factory blaze, a Judge who could face the afternoon session and a gas leak.

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This piece about the son of Sir Hector Murray Macneal certainly doesn’t tell the whole story. The boy, Carroll Livingstone Wainwright Jr, was in fact Sir Hector’s stepson and had been born in America. His mother married Sir Hector in America and for the first two years the family, including Carroll’s older brother and sister, travelled America and Canada. In November 1934 they left the eldest boy in school in New York and moved to Bermuda. This was when Carroll stowed away on the ship Queen of Bermuda on route for New York where he was reunited with his real father and his grandparents.

I don’t know what happened after that but in 1981 the United States Trust Company of New York elected to their board a Carroll Livingston Wainwright Jr who was a partner in the law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy who apparently was in the Havard Law School Class of 1951.

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On December 8^th 1934, a regular London to Brisbane Air-Mail service began using the Imperial Airways’ C Class Empire Flying Boats from the UK to Karachi then Indian Trans-Continental aircraft to Singapore and finally Qantas planes to Australia. The journey of 12,700 miles was the world’s longest air route and took around 12 days.

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The Jane’s Journal comic strip was started in 1932 by Norman Pett in the Daily Mirror and lasted, although renamed 'Jane' until 1959.

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Although proposed 10 years earlier in the Cadogan Report, corporal punishment in UK prisons as part of a criminal’s sentence was not abolished until September 1948. It continued to be used as punishment for prisoners who injured prison officers up until 1962 and was officially abolished in 1967.

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In just less than 5 years Britain’s efforts to re-arm against German re-arming turned out to be prudent but inadequate. By 1950 we were indeed into another and probably more deadly arms race as the Cold War saw the West stockpiling nuclear weapons against the threat of Soviet nuclear attack. 

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This was not the infamous anti-Semitic 1940 German version of the 'Jew Suss' but a more sympathetic treatment filmed in England. It was known as 'Power' in the USA.

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No television - just good old fashioned steam radio. The BBC, broadcasting National and Regional programmes, was obviously under the strict dictatorship of John Reith. Classical recitals, light orchestral music and informative talks were the order of the day. You would have had to tune into Warsaw to find any of that scandalous Jazz music. 

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Records? Big round things that revolved at 78 rpm with a hole in the middle. It can’t be a co-incidence that this advert appears on the Radio page with the tag line “Hear what you like – when you like”. I have Rex 8252 Primo Scala’s ‘Isle of Capri’ in a cupboard somewhere. I must dig it out. 

Random Ad - Parkinsons' Pills (1940's)

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The Rolling Stones wrote the soundtrack to this 1940’s advert for Parkinsons’ Pills -

I hear every mother say

Mother needs something today to calm her down

And though she’s not really ill there’s a little yellow pill

She goes running for the shelter of a mother’s little helper

And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day 

(Mother’s Little Helper 1965)