ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE SEPTEMBER 6, 1946
AFTER a request from the National Farmers’ Union, a Day of Prayer for fine weather to save Britain’s harvest from complete ruin is to be held on Sunday. The Archbishop of York has asked for special prayers in all churches. ‘The position is very serious. Scores of thousands of acres of rye, oats, wheat and barley have been flattened by this continual rain,’ said an NFU official.
SEPTEMBER 6, 1951
MEASURES to stop American servicemen selling duty-free cigarettes to civilians are being tightened up at camps in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. U.S. troops can get 300 duty-free cigarettes each week.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
NAOMIE HARRIS, 41. The Oscar-nominated Londonborn actress (right) has only met her father twice. He’d been dating Naomie’s mother for three years, but vanished when she became pregnant at 19 while studying for her A-levels. Naomie was the first black actress to play Miss Moneypenny (in Skyfall and Spectre), and portrayed Winnie Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, sharing her birthday with co-star Idris Elba (45 today). ROGER WATERS, 74. The Pink Floyd co-founder, bassist, singer and lyricist based the group’s first single, Arnold Layne, released in 1967, on a man he knew who would steal women’s clothes and underwear from washing lines.
BORN ON THIS DAY
NORMAN JOSEPH WOODLAND (19212012). The American mechanical engineer invented the barcode along with a friend, but the pair made only $15,000 from it. He was on the beach, trying to come up with a way of encoding product data. Reflecting on his boyhood love of Morse code, he drew a series of lines in the sand, which formed the basis for his invention and went on to transform the way we shop. BILLY ROSE (18991966). The American composer and nightclub owner, who wrote hit songs including Me And My Shadow, acquired fame for his marriage to actress Fanny Brice ( right, with Rose), who inspired the Barbra Streisand musical Funny Girl. Rose was repeatedly unfaithful and Brice once said he was the most evil man she’d ever known.
ON SEPTEMBER 6…
IN 1916, the world’s first self-service grocery shop, Piggly Wiggly, opened in Memphis.
IN 1997, Princess Diana’s funeral took place. More than a million people lined the route of the cortege in London, while an estimated 2.5 billion watched on television.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION Griddle (coined around 1851)
A) To fish, often for eels, by thrusting a stick with bait on it into holes in the river bed. B) Poke around with one’s nose, as dogs do. C) To sing in the streets. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED Wild goose chase:
A hopeless search for the unattainable; ie, geese are hard to catch and of little worth when caught. First recorded citation: Romeo And Juliet, 1592.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
DEATH and taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them. Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With The Wind (1900-49)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you get if you cross a rabbit with an insect? Bugs Bunny. Guess The Definition answer: C