Soap killers had us in a lather
QUESTION Is it more dangerous to live on Coronation Street or EastEnders’ Albert Square?
IT’S more dangerous to live in Albert Square where the murder rate is twice that of Coronation Street.
Corrie’s official toll of on-screen murders is 29 since it launched in 1960, a rate of less than one every two years. EastEnders has witnessed 39 murders since it first aired in 1985 – one a year.
The first murder in Weatherfield took place in 1968. Steve Tanner, an American GI and the second husband of Pat Phoenix’s redoubtable Elsie Tanner, was pushed down the stairs by a fellow soldier, Joe Donelli, in a row over a gambling debt. Donelli shot himself some time after confessing to the murder. Neither of these deaths was shown on screen.
It wasn’t until 1975 that Corrie saw its next killing. This one caused a sensation when Lynn Johnson became Corrie’s first onscreen murder victim when her husband, the physically abusive Roy, beat her to death inside Len Fairclough’s house at No9, Coronation Street.
Although it is implied some characters have been multiple murderers in the past, soapland’s most prolific on-screen villain was the evil Pat Phelan. Played by Connor McIntyre, he was a businessman and con artist who first arrived on Corrie in 2013. Over the next few years, he committed four murders and attempted three more.
Also of note was Richard Hillman (played by Brian Capron), who killed three characters and tried to murder two others and then his family in a car crash.
EastEnders got stuck in straight away. In the first episode, aired on February 19, 1985, Reg Cox was found dying in his flat after being beaten with a lead pipe. The perpetrator was ne’er-do-well Nick Cotton (played by John Altman), who went on to commit two murders and two manslaughters.
Luke Ashworth, Manchester.
QUESTION Why did sailing ships so often employ Chinese cooks?
THE Chinese community is one of the oldest in London. Britain began trade with China in the 17th century, and Chinese sailors arrived in London in 1782 on East India Company ships. The earliest community settled in the Pennyfield and Limehouse Causeway near the marina.
By the end of the 19th century, there were over 500 Chinese Wharf communities in London. Chinese sailors were hired to do domestic jobs on board, such as being cooks, stewards, cabin boys, mess boys, storekeepers, bakers, porters and waiters. However, when the Chinese worked in perceived ‘masculine’ jobs, such as in the rigging or the engine room of steamships, it caused resentment among the British seamen.
During the war, as many as 20,000 Chinese seamen worked in the shipping industry out of Liverpool.
Many of these were shamefully deported after the war.
The Royal Navy has employed Chinese laundrymen for nearly 100 years, beginning in the interwar period. Most were recently dismissed following a security review and replaced with Nepalis.
S. K. Bowman, Formby, Lancashire.
QUESTION How did Edward Oxford, the man who attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria, escape the gallows?
ON JUNE 10, 1840, as Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were driving up Constitution Hill in an open carriage, she was fired at twice by 18-year-old Londoner Edward Oxford, a pot boy at the Hog-inthe-Pound pub on Marylebone Lane near Oxford Street.
He missed, and the couple continued their journey. No bullets were found, and neither were any bullet holes, and it is likely that there was only powder in the two guns Oxford carried. He made no attempt to escape, and was put on trial for ‘maliciously and unlawfully discharging two pistols at the Queen and Prince Albert’.
He was tried at the Old Bailey, where he pleaded not guilty to the charge of ‘traitorously and maliciously shooting at Her Majesty the Queen’.
Witnesses came forward who attested to Oxford’s poor mental state. As a child he was given to fits of manic laughter or bursting into tears. Neighbours described ‘a very peculiar boy’ of ‘decidedly unsound mind’. He had created a fictitious revolutionary group called Young England, of which he considered himself the leader.
The jury found Oxford ‘not guilty, by reason of insanity’ and he was sent to Bethlehem Hospital. After his arrest, Oxford had written to a friend: ‘I dare say you are surprised to hear of this little bit of a scrape that I’ve gotten into.’
At Bethlehem, he made a remarkable transformation. He became a sane, talented individual who taught himself multiple languages, how to knit, play the violin, and draw, paint and play chess. His case notes read: ‘With regard to his crime he now laments the act which probably originated in a feeling of excessive vanity and a desire to become notorious if he could not be celebrated.’
He was moved to Broadmoor in 1864. He carried on his diligent industry there, working as a wood grainer and a painter. UK home secretary Gathorne Hardy agreed to Oxford’s discharge in 1867, on condition he went to one of the colonies and never returned.
On November 27, 1867, he sailed to Australia and made a success of his new life. He married, served as a churchwarden and published a book called Lights And Shadows Of Melbourne Life in 1888, under the pseudonym of John Freeman. He died in 1900.
Sarah Keehan, Chepstow, Monmouthshire.
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