ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JULY 29, 1946
LOCAL authorities have been instructed by the Home Office to collect all Morrison and Anderson shelters, unless purchased by the owner. Millions of people thought that in the absence of any official ruling since the war ended that the shelters, given out free, were their property, and are using them as chicken houses, pram sheds and coal-bins.
JULY 29, 1953
CHRISTIAN DIOR, the acknowledged leader of modern fashion, is setting women a pretty hard task. His autumn collection, seen in Paris this evening, is moulded for figures with no spare tyre round the middle and virtually nothing to sit on. Get out your diet charts — if it is Dior you’re after.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
FERNANDO ALONSO, 36, right. The Spanish double Formula One world champion started karting aged only three and was world karting champ in 1996. Now with McLaren, Alonso is sixth on the all- time Grand Prix winners’ list with 32 victories, the last coming with Ferrari in 2013. He has set up a museum in his home town of Oviedo and his contracts state every car he drives will end up there. SIMON NYE, 59. The Sussex-born writer created sitcom Men Behaving Badly and, latterly, has written ITV’s The Durrells. Nye said: ‘Sitcom is more important than some people think: it is the sound of the nation laughing.’ He says he knows the entire script of Evita, after once working in a theatre box office.
BORN ON THIS DAY
JIM MARSHALL (1923-2012). The Londonborn singer and drummer became known as the ‘Father of Loud’ thanks to his creation, the Marshall guitar amplifier. The former drum shop owner saw a gap in the market after chatting to a customer, Pete Townshend of The Who. WILLIAM POWELL (1892-1984). The cultured U.S. film star was best known for The Thin Man films. He was married to actresses Carole Lombard and Diana Lewis and had a relationship with co-star Jean Harlow. He was distraught when she died in 1937, the same year he was diagnosed with cancer, for which he had experimental radium treatment. He lived a further 47 years.
ON JULY 29…
IN 1945, BBC radio’s Light Programme was launched, replacing the General Forces Programme that had run during the war.
IN 1981, Prince Charles married 20- year- o l d Lady Diana Spencer (right) at St Paul’s Cathedral.
IN 1987, The Treaty of Canterbury between Britain and France to build the Channel Tunnel was ratified.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION Podsnap (coined from the character in Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend, 1864) A) Old man given to telling anecdotes. B) A greedy sponger. C) Self-satisfied person who refuses to face unpleasant facts. Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED To have a hunch:
Having an instinctive sense about something. Comes from a gambling superstition that rubbing the lump of a hunchback brought good luck.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
THE man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. Edward John Phelps, U.S. diplomat (1822-1900)
JOKE OF THE DAY
I HAVE poor knowledge of Greek mythology. It’s my Achilles’ elbow. Guess The Definition answer: C.