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 Can you please explain how the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge was built? Someone must have been very brave!
Jill Davies, Gordon’s Bay, South Africa
AThis famous rope bridge on the Antrim coast in Northern Ireland, near to Giant’s Causeway, was built in 1755, suspended across a chasm 30m deep and 20m wide. It allowed salmon fishermen from the mainland to reach the rocky island of Carricka-Rede, where they would cast their nets from its east side. Due to the strong currents, reaching this prime fishing spot by rowing boat had been treacherous.
The bridge was nail-bitingly basic originally, with narrow boards laid across ropes and wide gaps in between, swinging wildly in the wind.Yet women and children would happily brave the bridge, some carrying sheep to graze on the island.
Keith Acheson, programming and partnership officer at Giant’s Causeway, says it would have been installed by throwing a weighted line across the chasm and the main ropes pulled across.
It was initially used from March to September to coincide with the salmon season. Back then, the price of a salmon could be more than a land worker’s weekly wage.
Up until the 1960s, catches of up to 300 salmon a day had been common but fishing pressure and pollution led to a decline and the final salmon was caught there in 2002.
The 18in wide bridge was maintained by fishermen until 1978, when the National Trust took over.
It is due to be replaced this month in readiness for the half a million visitors who walk across it each year. Only eight can cross at a time.
Q Whatever happened to Jane, the comic strip pin-up? Did she get married?
Phillip Lester, Bow, East London
A Jane was the creation of cartoonist Norman Pett. She appeared in the Daily Mirror six days a week, giving her all for the war effort and accidentally losing her clothes in the process. She became an RAF mascot, with her picture appearing on bombers, battleships, army huts and prison camps. Credited with inspiring the 36th Division to advance six miles through Normandy in a single day,Winston Churchill even went as far as saying Jane was Britain’s secret weapon.
She was based on artist’s model Chrystabel Leighton-Porter, who Norman spotted posing for a life class. Jane and Chrystabel were forever connected, with Chrystabel receiving thousands of love letters and 62 proposals of marriage in one week alone.
Once when it looked like Jane might get married in the strip, Norman had a cable from a ship’s crew saying she must be kept single. Chrystabel toured music halls with a saucy stage show but, unbeknown to her admirers, she was already wed to an RAF pilot, Arthur. This was kept secret for fear of damaging morale.
The strip came to an end in 1959, with Jane and boyfriend Georgie Porgie tying the knot.
Chrystabel and Arthur lived in Bermuda for several years then returned to Horsham, West Sussex, where she brought up their son, Simon. She died from cancer in 2000, aged 87.
Q In the late 1970s, I heard a news item on the radio concerning Clayton Moore, who played The Lone Ranger, but I can’t remember the details. Can you help?
R Rhead, Stoke-on-Trent
A Clayton became synonymous with The Lone Ranger after playing him from 1949 to 1957, in four of the five seasons, across 169 of the 221 episodes, as well as three films. Unlike other actors, he didn’t mind being typecast, embracing the role even after the show ended in 1957, wearing his mask and hat to charity events, fairs and for adverts.
You may be thinking about the 1979 legal action from Jack Wrather, who owned the rights to the character, and banned Clayton from making further appearances as The Lone Ranger.
Jack was making a new Lone Ranger movie and wanted to introduce a younger face, 30-year-old Klinton Spilsbury, to replace Clayton who was 66 by then. But Clayton had the hearts of the public and the film flopped.
The legal fight between the two men rumbled on until 1984, when Jack dropped the lawsuit, and allowed Clayton to ride again as The Lone Ranger.
Jack died of cancer two months later.
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