Wales solves China puzzle
QUESTION The movie The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness, set in China, was filmed in the UK. Where was the epic walk over the mountains undertaken by Gladys Aylward and orphans recreated? The Inn Of The Sixth happiness was a 1958 film based on the true story of Gladys Aylward, a British maid who became a missionary in China before and during the Japanese invasion in 1937.
It starred Ingrid Bergman as Aylward and Curt Jurgens as her love interest Colonel Lin Nan. Robert Donat, who played the sympathetic Mandarin of Yang Cheng, died before the film’s release.
The film-makers were criticised for casting Bergman — a tall woman with a Swedish accent — as Aylward, who was a short, brown-haired Cockney.
Likewise, the male leads were not very Chinese (though Jurgens’s character is said to be half-Dutch). however, the film was the second most popular movie at the British box office in 1959.
Gladys Aylward’s great achievement — and the central focus of the film — was when she guided a party of more than 100 children across mountains to escape the advancing Japanese army. Most of the children were played by Chinese youngsters from Liverpool.
The Inn Of The Sixth happiness was filmed in Snowdonia. The cast and crew stayed in Beddgelert and a Chinese fort was built at nearby Nantmor.
A Chinese village was erected on the terraced workings of an old copper mine near Beddgelert.
Much of the filming was along the Nant Ffrancon valley around Lake Ogwen and up to Cwm Idwal in the foothills of the Glyderau mountains.
Other shots were taken on Snowdon. At one stage, Bergman is looking back along the ridge to Bwlch Glas and points out the Yellow River ( actually the river Padarn) to the children.
Richard Davies, Beaumaris, Anglesey.
QUESTION What was the first UK trademark?
TRADeMARKS have a long history. Pottery from Ancient egypt and Ancient Greece has been found to bear special marks made by manufacturers to identify pots as their work, though there was no register of such marks and they conferred no legal protection.
Around the 10th century, the merchant’s mark became increasingly used to identify ownership of consignments of goods that had been split up and sent by different routes to minimise the danger of loss through piracy or shipwreck.
Medieval guilds formalised the marking system, using production marks to distinguish their members’ products from those of lower quality producers.
They also helped the guilds maintain monopolies: if certain products didn’t bear a mark recognised by the relevant guild, they couldn’t be sold.
With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, manufacturers and merchants had to find new ways to protect their products’ integrity.
The first country to introduce laws to protect trademarks was France, where the Factories, Manufacture And Workplace Act of 1803 made it illegal to pass off another’s seal as your own.
The French introduced the first trademarks legislation in 1857 with the Manufacture And Goods Mark Act.
Under english common law, it was an offence to pass off a product by using false markings — for example, it is illegal to sell poor quality wine by bottling it with the label of a better product.
It is under this law that most prosecutions are made for fake products such as perfume, watches and clothing.
As this is criminal law, it carries heavier penalties than a trademark infringement, which would be the subject of a civil lawsuit. The Trademark Registration Act was passed in 1875 and the first trademark in the UK to be registered under that law was the red triangle used on Bass Pale Ale in 1876.
Bass also registered the second trademark, its red diamond.
The red triangle trademark became so well- known that it appears on a bottle in Manet’s painting A Bar At The Folies-Bergere (1882) and in 40 paintings by Picasso. It is also mentioned in James Joyce’s Ulysses.
The British law was strengthened in 1905 and this, variously amended up to 1938, became the benchmark for trademark protection around the world. Bob Cubitt, Northampton.
QUESTION Does anyone know the origin of the expression Pip, Squeak & Wilfred to describe the three campaign medals awarded for service during the Great War?
FURTheR to the earlier answer, in the cartoon strip Wilfred, the young rabbit could speak only in baby talk with sounds such as ‘gug’ and ‘nunc’ (nunc being his version of uncle).
In 1927, the Pip, Squeak and Wilfred club was founded — the so-called Wilfredian League of Gugnuncs (WLOG) — which organised competitions and events for its many members.
There was a WLOG member’s badge in blue enamelled metal, featuring the long ears of Wilfred. Among the WLOG rules was one never to eat rabbit.
even Winston Churchill was a fan. Operation Wilfred was a 1940 operation to mine waters off Norway in an effort to restrict the supply of iron ore from Sweden to Germany.
In the film The Gathering Storm, Churchill explained that the operation was called this because it was so small.
Edward Downey, Cromer, Norfolk.
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