Speedos for Victorians
QUESTION
Why are swimming shorts called ‘trunks’?
BY THE end of the 19th century, men’s swimwear consisted of long, loose woollen undergarments. These covered the entire body or ‘trunk’, hence the name.
The word ‘trunk’ comes from Old French derived from the Latin
truncus, meaning the main stem of a tree. This sense is directly related to its use to describe the human body. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, men wore trunk hose, full breeches extending to the upper thighs and sometimes padded, worn over tights.
Men’s swimming clothes, and similar garments for boxing, borrowed the term.
Even as men’s swimming trunks became progressively smaller throughout the 20th century, the name was retained.
Suzanne Davies, Tenby, Pembrokeshire.
QUESTION
What was the
Broederbond?
THE Broederbond (‘society of brothers’), also known as the Afrikaner Broederbond, was a secret society that played a significant role in South African politics during the 20th century.
It was founded in 1918 and comprised mainly Afrikaner men who sought to advance the interests of the Afrikaner people, who were primarily descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa.
The Broederbond had a considerable influence on the political, economic and social spheres of South Africa. The organisation was influential in the formation and leadership of the National Party, which was the political party responsible for implementing apartheid, a system of racial segregation and discrimination from 1948 to the early 1990s. Several South African prime ministers, including Pieter Botha, Daniel F. Malan and Hendrik F. Verwoerd, were brothers.
The Broederbond bore many of the hallmarks of secret societies. Only men could join, and then by invitation only. There was a secret initiation ceremony held in a semireligious atmosphere where passages were read from the Bible, hymns sung, and vows taken to hold the secrets of the Broederbond until death.
Its 12,000 carefully chosen members were grouped in about 800 cells. Members of the Broederbond held key positions in government, business and various institutions, allowing them to shape policies and decisions in favour of Afrikaner interests.
Its influence should not be underestimated. As Ivor Wilkins and Hans Strydom put it in their exposé Broederbond: The Super Afrikaners (1978): ‘The South African government today is the Broederbond and the Broederbond is the government. No Afrikaner government can rule South Africa without the support of the Broederbond. No nationalist Afrikaner can become prime minister unless he comes from the organisation’s select ranks.’
Despite its association with the conservative Dutch Reformed Church and the apartheid-promoting National Party, the Broederbond gradually began to change its position and in 1990 began to actively support President F. W. de Klerk’s reforms and the dismantling of apartheid. It was officially disbanded in 1994.
Stuart Rey, London.
QUESTION
Who were the singers on The Alan Parsons Project? Did any of them become famous in their own right?
THE Alan Parsons Project (APP) were a British progressive rock band, a collaboration between musician and producer Alan Parsons and songwriter, singer and piano player Eric Woolfson.
The band, active from 1975 to 1990, were known for their concept albums and symphonic rock sound. Some of their popular albums include Tales Of Mystery And Imagination; I, Robot; and Eye In The Sky.
Alan Parsons had been an engineer at the Abbey Road studios, where he worked on several Beatles records and was chief engineer on five Hollies albums. In 1974 he was nominated for a Grammy award to recognise his engineering work on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon.
At Abbey Road he met Woolfson, who was composing material for a concept album based on Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales Of Mystery And Imagination. Woolfson’s idea was to make albums along equivalent lines of development to the film business, where directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick were the focal point of the film’s production, rather than the film stars.
The albums were led by Parsons’s production and engineering techniques, with guest singers supplying vocals.
Woolfson himself was lead singer on some of APP’s biggest hits, such as Time, Don’t Answer Me, Prime Time and the band’s signature tune Eye In The Sky, which peaked at No.3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982.
Strangely, APP was a much bigger band in the US, barely troubling the British charts.
APP collaborated with several famous singers. Colin Blunstone had already had a stellar career as lead singer of The Zombies, of She’s Not There and Time Of The Season fame. He sang lead vocals on several APP tracks, notably Dancing On A High Wire, Somebody Out There, The Eagle Will Rise and Old And Wise.
John Miles, a respected singer who’d had a hit with Music in 1976, was also a frequent guest.
He sang on songs such as The Cask Of Amontillado, Shadow Of A Lonely Man, and La Sagrada Familia. Miles and his band would regularly support other famous artists, such as Fleetwood Mac,