ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
SEPTEMBER 7, 1940
BOYS and girls, mostly between eight and ten years old, have formed firefighting squads in East Suffolk. They are so efficient they can be trusted with heath and small crop fires started by incendiary bombs.
SEPTEMBER 7, 1967
THE Queen Mother is to visit the St Giles Care Centre for drug addicts and alcoholics in Camberwell, South-East London — probably the first time a royal has accepted such an invitation. Founder Rev John Nicholls said: ‘She will not see anything very upsetting, because people who are vomiting are taken into a separate room.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JULIE KAVNER, 68. The U.S. actress provides the voice for Marge (right) in The Simpsons, America’s longest-running primetime scripted show that’s now up to its 639th episode. Kavner, who is reckoned to earn $315,000 an episode with the show’s other top stars, says Marge’s ‘honeyed gravel voice’ is due to a bump on her vocal cords. GLORIA GAYNOR, 69. The U.S. ‘queen of disco’ is best known for karaoke favourite I Will Survive, an anthem for jilted lovers everywhere. But the born-again Christian now works as a marriage guidance counsellor to help keep couples together. She says: ‘They need to learn that you don’t break up because you don’t like how somebody squeezes the toothpaste. You talk about that.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
DAME EDITH SITWELL (1887-1964). The Yorkshire-born poet was as famous for her elaborate hats and jewellery as her art. Novelist Elizabeth Bowen described her as ‘a high altar on the move’. She would lie in a coffin before starting work, but denied being eccentric. Dame Edith was a friend of Marilyn Monroe, whom she said was ‘like a beautiful ghost’. Her poetry was so radical that, after a reading, she had to hide from an old lady ‘waiting to beat me with an umbrella’. ELIzABETH I (1533-1603), who has been played on screen by, among others, Cate Blanchett ( right), Glenda Jackson and Quentin Crisp. The Virgin Queen’s face, neck and hands were painted with ceruse (a mix of toxic white lead and vinegar) and her lips with red paste (tinted beeswax). The Earl of Essex, who once barged into her chamber, described the elderly Elizabeth without make-up as a ‘crooked carcass’.
ON SEPTEMBER 7…
IN 1909, Eugene Lefebvre became the first person to die while piloting a powered airplane — at Juvisy, northern France.
IN 1978, while walking over Waterloo Bridge, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was stabbed with an umbrella that fired a ricin pellet into his skin. He died four days later.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Whelm (1513) A) To capsize. B) A rock cavity. C) The smallest bell in a peal. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED
It’s a fair cop: The phrase is what a thief was supposed to say on arrest, meaning the arrest was ‘fair’; ‘cop’ means capture — from the same root as ‘cop’ for a policeman.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
IF YOU can actually count your money, then you are not really a rich man. J. Paul Getty, U.S. industrialist (1892–1976)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY was the scientist highly attractive? He had swallowed some magnets. Guess The Definition answer: A.