The Saturday briefing
YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Is there anything you’re yearning to know? Send your questions, on any subject, to the contacts given below, and we will do our best to answer them...
Q Is Admiral Halsey Paul McCartney’s uncle?
AC Pope, Isle ofWight
Admiral Halsey isn’t Paul McCartney’s real uncle – but Uncle Albert was. Uncle Albert/ Admiral Halsey was a No.1 single in the US that featured on the 1971 album Ram, by Paul and Linda McCartney. It was made of fragments of unfinished songs.
The Uncle Albert section was Paul’s way of addressing the older generation and wondering what they would make of the baby boomers – hence the line “We’re so sorry, Uncle Albert”.
The uncle in question was Albert Kendall, who he remembered as being a fun-loving man.This section of the song was later used to great effect in the 1991 episode of Only Fools And Horses, He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Uncle, when the show’s Uncle Albert disappears.
The Admiral Halsey section was a separate song, and referred to William “Bull” Halsey, a US Navy Fleet Admiral in the Second World War. He took part in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history. Paul used Halsey as an authority figure who he felt should be ignored.
McCartney is fond of using family for inspiration. Most famously, “Mother Mary” in Let It Be was his own mother.
The Lovely Linda, the opening track on his debut solo album, was one of many about his wife.
In 2018, Paul’s second cousin, actress Kate Robbins, whose daughter is TV personality Emily Atack, said Paul hinted to her that Lady Madonna
may have been about her own mother, Betty.
Q
We have a good Wildlife Trust here in Essex. What year were they established and who purchased the rural areas, was it government or volunteers?
David Lodge, Epping, Essex
ABanker and naturalist Charles Rothschild sowed the seeds in 1912, setting up the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves to preserve habitat. He drew up a list of 284 sites – representations of everything from woodland to marshes, and many on his list are nature reserves today. He bought 339 acres of wild fenland in Cambridgeshire to save from development.
Other people had a similar vision and in 1926 the Norfolk Naturalist Trust was formed when 12 gentlemen bought 435 acres of marsh at Cley to save for bird life, heralding the start of the county Wildlife Trusts
movement.Your trust in Essex was founded in 1959 by volunteers, and its first purchase was Fingringhoe Wick. Around that time, Rothschild’s society took on the role of a national association to represent the trusts, of which there are now 47.
The Government finally accepted and boosted the vision after the war, setting up the first National Parks and protected Sites of Special Scientific Interest. The trust’s badger logo was brought in from 1995 – no trusts allow culling on their land and they have vaccinated around 1,000 badgers. Its 30 by 30 project hopes to raise £30million to help secure at least 30 per cent of land and sea in nature’s recovery by 2030 creating wildlife corridors, restoring woodland and wetlands and rewilding.
Q
Was it true playwright Harold Pinter wrote and sent a poem to the great batsman Len Hutton, but he never finished reading it? Kieran Wall, Cahirciveen, County Kerry
A
Pinter loved cricket and idolised Hutton, one of the greatest batsmen to have played for England. The Nobel Prize winning playwright grew up in
London’s East End but was sent to Yorkshire as an evacuee. It was at Headingley that he saw Hutton play, claiming that he became passionate about Yorkshire Cricket Club because of him.
Pinter was also captain and president of an actor’s wandering cricket team,The Gaieties CC, and in his play No Man’s Land, all four of its characters are named after famous cricketers.
In interviews, he admitted he had been too shy to meet Hutton.
But he did write a three-line ode to his sporting hero, “I saw Len Hutton in his prime/Another time/ Another time”, which he faxed to several of his friends.
After not receiving a response from playwright Simon Gray, he rang him, asking what he made of his mini masterpiece. Gray replied he had not finished reading it yet.
PLEASE SEND US YOUR INTRIGUING QUESTIONS ON ANY SUBJECT:
● By email: put “questions” in the subject line and send to kay.harrison@reachplc.com
● By post: to Any Questions, Daily Express, One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5AP
● Unfortunately we cannot reply individually, but we will feature the best questions on this page.
If you can’t remember the words to a favourite verse or song from yesteryear, send us a snippet and we’ll do our best to find all the wonderful words.