ON THIS DAY

September 20, 2018

SEPTEMBER 20, 1940

WORD went round several bombed London areas yesterday that ‘the King and Queen are here’ and people gathered to cheer. The royal couple drove to a bombed street in Chelsea where nine people had been killed and two houses had been demolished. They spoke to men of an ARP squad who had tunnelled for seven hours in the ruins of a doctor’s house to rescue his daughter.

SEPTEMBER 20, 1966

A COMPUTER was used to select ‘perfect partners’ for 76 married couples attending an American legion dance in New Jersey. Only two husbands were matched with their own wives.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

SOPHIA LOREN, 84. The Oscar- winning Italian actress insists she has ‘never been beautiful’. ‘When I started, people didn’t want to hire me because I wasn’t photogenic,’ she said. ‘They said my mouth was too big, they wanted me to make my nose shorter and to have straighter teeth.’ JIM AL-KHALILI, 56. The Iraqi-born professor of physics presents The Life Scientific on Radio 4 and is the youngest ever recipient of the Royal Society’s Michael Faraday Prize for science communication. He turned his back on laboratory work while still at university after he was almost zapped by 4,000 volts. ‘I didn’t like working in a lab — things go wrong, you break stuff. I like the theoretical stuff and thought “I’ll be safer in front of a computer.” ’

BORN ON THIS DAY

‘STEVIE’ SMITH (1902-1971). The chainsmoking poet and novelist from Hull, described as ‘a female William Blake’, is best known for her 1957 work Not Waving But Drowning. She was born Florence but received her nickname when she was horse riding on a London common and a group of boys shouted out — in reference to jockey Steve Donoghue — ‘Come on, Steve!’ JIMMY PERRY (1923-2016). The London-born writer cocreated Dad’s Army, based on his time in the Home Guard. He based mummy’s boy Private Pike partly on himself. Of his own mum’s attempts to over- mother him, like Pike, he said: She didn’t go so far as making me wear a scarf, but she came pretty near.’

ON SEPTEMBER 20 . . .

IN 1519, a Spanish expedition set sail on the first successful circumnavigation of the globe ( despite its leader, Ferdinand Magellan, dying mid-voyage).

IN 1967, the Queen launched a new Cunard cruise liner named in her honour, the Queen Elizabeth 2 (or QE2).

IN 1997, Elton John’s Candle In The Wind, rewritten in memory of Princess Diana, started a five-week run at No. 1 in the UK.