The real-life Robin Hood
QUESTION Robin Hood actor Errol Flynn was in awe of his archery double Howard Hill. What is known of him?
I WAS impressed as a lad with Errol Flynn’s archery skills in 1938’s The Adventures Of Robin Hood. He was taught by Howard Hill, nicknamed the world’s greatest archer: he won 196 consecutive archery tournaments.
Hill had been a Southern League semi-pro baseball player, but when he married Elizabeth ‘Libba’ Hodges in 1922, she encouraged him to make a career out of his archery skills.
Errol and Howard were longtime friends and the actor pulled some strings at Warner Brothers to get Hill the job as his archery double and teacher.
Howard went on to star in hunting movies, such as Tembo, where he pursued leopards, lions and the elephant of the title, released by RKO in 1952. He produced 23 short films for Warner Brothers and wrote several authoritative books on archery and big-game hunting, including Wild Adventure and Hunting The Hard Way.
Howard was renowned for his archery tricks. His most famous was the re-enactment of the William Tell crossbow stunt of splitting an apple balanced on his son’s head – his version used a longbow from 40ft (12.2 metres) away and a foolhardy volunteer.
In the film The Adventures Of Robin Hood, there is a famous scene where Errol splits an embedded arrow in half with a direct hit. This trick was achieved with an invisible zip wire and the help of a sharp blade as the arrow’s tip. Howard did the shot successfully without these aids, but the director wanted a more precise split.
After his movie career ended, Howard retired to a mansion in Vincent, California.
He was honoured with the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame award in 1971 and the Bowhunters Hall of Fame award in 1975, the year he died. Elizabeth, always at his side, died the following year.
I like to think I had his spirit with me when I scored two distant bullseyes with my first go at archery in Burnham Beeches on the film Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.
My young nephew Adam could have done with some of Howard’s magic when he nearly hit his instructor at Center Parcs with his first ever attempt. Danny Darcy, Reading, Berks.
QUESTION Why does America celebrate Mother’s Day on a different date to Ireland?
IN Ireland and the UK this year, Mother’s Day will be celebrated on March 11, while in the US and many other countries around the world, it will happen on May 13.
Mother’s Day in this part of the world has its roots in the religious calendar, whereas the American Mother’s Day was created after a vote in Congress.
The origins of Mother’s Day in the UK go back to medieval times, when domestic servants were given the day off to return to their home towns and worship with their families.
On the way, the domestic servants would pick flowers, which they would either place in the church or give to their mother.
The date when all this happened is closely linked with Easter, which happens on a different date each year, as it is determined by the lunar calendar. It is even more closely connected to Lent and by long tradition, Mother’s Day always happens on the fourth Sunday of Lent.
Since many festivals celebrated in the UK were automatically applied to Ireland, the Mother’s Day traditions that developed cross-channel have also been long followed here in Ireland – so these days, when Mother’s Day is celebrated in the UK, it’s also celebrated here in Ireland.
In the US, Mother’s Day celebrations have their origins in the American Civil War. After that war had ended, Ann Jarvis started something called Mother’s Friendship Day, in an effort to reunite families that had been divided by the conflict.
Before this initiative, Ann had previously organised Mother’s Day efforts to try to improve health and sanitation in camps on both the Union and Confederate sides in the war.
After Ann died in May 1905, her daughter Anna made a huge effort to keep the Mother’s Day commemorations going, although she never mentioned the many other efforts that had been made during the last three decades of the 19th century to set up Mother’s Day celebrations.
But Anna Jarvis’s efforts paid off when, in May 1914, the US Congress decided to nominate the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. The day after that deci- sion was made by Congress, the then US president, Woodrow Wilson, issued a proclamation decreeing that the second Sunday in May would be the first National Mother’s Day.
Since then, the US Mother’s Day has been celebrated in May. Most other countries around the world followed the US rather than the UK example for Mother’s Day, so countries such as Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and many mainland European nations all decided in favour of the second Sunday in May.
Ever since Mother’s Day came into being in the US in 1914, it has been widely celebrated and has also become a very successful commercialised event.
In the US, it’s a big day for restaurants, as families have meals out, while giving cards and presents has also become the norm. Ironically, Ann Jarvis went on to become highly critical of the way in which the American Mother’s Day had become so commercialised.
Here in Ireland, Mother’s Day is also a time for giving cards and all kinds of presents to honour mothers and taking mammies out for a meal, but the celebrations remain two months in advance of those in the US. John Murphy, Galway.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, Embassy House, Herbert Park Lane, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles.legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.