Truth about Foyle’s foil
QUESTION Why does the Detective Chief Superintendent have an Army driver in the TV series Foyle’s War?
In FOYLE’S War, Samantha Stewart (played by Honeysuckle Weeks) is a member of the Mechanised Transport Corps (MTC). Though she wears a military uniform, she is not in the Army.
The Mechanised Transport Training Corps was founded in 1939 as a volunteer service. It was formally recognised by the Ministry of War Transport in 1940 and renamed the MTC.
It provided drivers for government departments and agencies. This is the plot point that allows Samantha Stewart to become a driver for DCS Foyle (played by Michael Kitchen).
Before the war, an officer of Foyle’s rank would have been provided with a male police driver, but with so many men volunteering with the Forces, he has been provided with Samantha instead.
However, there is no record of an MTC driver ever having been attached to the police, so we have to allow writer Anthony Horowitz an element of poetic licence.
The police were a reserved occupation until 1942 and so were not liable for military service. Conscription resulted in a shortage of police recruits, so women were allowed to join the police force in greater numbers than before the war.
Members of the MTC drove ambulances in France and also volunteered in Syria, Egypt and Palestine. Several were awarded civilian honours for their work.
American General Dwight D. Eisenhower was driven in Britain by MTC driver Kay Summersby, who later claimed she’d had an affair with him. Bob Dillon, Edinburgh.
QUESTION How many pop songs have been No 1 more than once?
OnLY the identical version of five songs by the same artists have twice made it to no 1. Two performers got to the top with different versions of their song.
Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody was no 1 on its initial release in 1975, and returned to the top 16 years later, following the death of lead singer Freddie Mercury. The song was top of the charts in four years: the end of 1975, the beginning of 1976, the end of 1991 and the beginning of 1992.
George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord was no 1 on its release in 1970 and again 31 years later, following Harrison’s death in november 2001.
Elvis Presley’s Jailhouse Rock, One night/I Got Stung and It’s now Or never revisited the top spot as part of a 2005 series of reissues.
Three Lions by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and The Lightning Seeds was the official song of the England football team for Euro ’96. A version of the song with revised lyrics was propelled to no 1 during the 1998 World Cup. The track returned to the top spot this year thanks to England’s performance in the 2018 tournament.
Cliff Richard has had two no 1s with his song Living Doll. The first was backed by the Drifters in 1959, the second by The Young Ones in 1986.
David Hutt, Stourbridge, W. Mids. WHILE at least 22 songs have topped the UK charts in different versions, only a select few have done it more than twice.
Top of that list is evergreen love song Unchained Melody with music by Alex north and lyrics by Hy Zaret. The theme for little-known 1955 U.S. prison film Unchained, it went on to have a life of its own in Britain.
Jimmy Young was the first to have a no 1 with it in 1955. The 1990 version was a huge hit for The Righteous Brothers following the use of their version of the song in the romantic film Ghost. Only one ‘ brother’ sang it, Bobby Hatfield; his partner Bill Medley also wanted to record it, but lost on the toss of a coin.
The song hit the top again in 1995 after Robson & Jerome — actors Robson Green and Jerome Flynn, who rose to prominence thanks to the TV drama Soldier Soldier — sung it. In 2002 it became no 1 when it was performed by Pop Idol runner-up Gareth Gates.
With A Little Help From My Friends, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, was no 1 for Joe Cocker in 1968, Wet Wet Wet in 1988 and Sam & Mark — Pop Idol contestants Sam nixon and Mark Rhodes — in 2004.
Spirit In The Sky by norman Greenbaum first made no 1 in 1970. It also hit the top spot with Doctor And The Medics in 1986, and as the 2003 Comic Relief single with Gareth Gates and featuring The Kumars.
Do They Know It’s Christmas?, the Band Aid charity song performed by various artists, was no 1 in 1984, 1989, 2004 and 2014.
Danny Darcy, Reading, Berks.
QUESTION If the jet engine was invented and developed in Britain, how did Germany manage to get the ME 262 jet fighter up and running first?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, which described the development of jet engines by Frank Whittle and Hans von Ohain, (with the first operational jet aircraft coming into service in 1944), it appears they were not the only people involved in jet engine development.
In October 1910, at an International Aeronautical Exhibition in Paris, an aircraft designed by Romanian inventor Henri Coanda was displayed. Its engine, called a turbo-propulseur, had a multi-bladed centrifugal blower, but the aircraft did not have a propeller. Unfortunately, it crashed and was destroyed by fire.
There was also the V1 flying bomb, which the Germans unleashed in 1944. Its jet engine gave it a speed of 400 miles an hour — too fast for a Spitfire to catch and shoot down.
John Warren, Wolverhampton.