Day the Falls fell silent . . .
Niagara Falls is the collective name for three waterfalls that straddle the border between Canada and the U.S.
The largest is the iconic Horseshoe Falls, which is mostly in the Canadian state of Ontario. The smaller american Falls and Bridal Veil Falls are in New York State. Water had to be diverted from the american Falls in the Sixties because of the threat of erosion.
in 1965, journalist Cliff Spieler wrote a series of articles for the Niagara Falls gazette predicting the imminent loss of the american Falls. Major rock falls in 1931 and 1954 had dumped many unsightly boulders (technically known as talus) at the base of the falls and there was concern that the american Falls may merely become rapids.
The gazette articles generated a vigorous and effective campaign by the american Falls international Board.
in 1969, the american Falls were ‘dewatered’ by constructing a 600ft dam to shunt all the water into the Horseshoe Falls. The U.S. army built the dam of 27,800 tons of rock across the Niagara river, diverting 60,000 gallons of water per second into the Horseshoe Falls.
The work ended on June 12, 1969, when after flowing continuously for more than 12,000 years, the american Falls stopped.
While the Horseshoe Falls absorbed the extra flow, the U. S. army Corps of Engineers studied the riverbed and bolted and strengthened any faults they found. a plan to remove the talus was abandoned because of the high cost.
On November 25, 1969, the temporary dam was dynamited, restoring the flow to the american Falls.
Hannah Franklin, Launceston, Cornwall.
QUESTION Why were Nazi U-boats scuttled off the Irish coast after the war and not used for scrap?
aT THE end of the war in Europe in May 1945, 156 german U-boats surrendered to the allied forces.
Of these, ten repaired U-boats were allocated to the UK, U.S. and USSr, one was commissioned into the French Navy, four joined the Norwegian Navy, three were scrapped in the Norwegian ports in which they had surrendered, and two were sunk by the U.S. Navy. The remaining 116 were sunk by the royal Navy between November 1945 and February 1946 to the north-west of Northern ireland in Operation Deadlight.
The fact that U-boats were sunk rather than recommissioned or scrapped, with the recovery of steel and other valuable materials, resulted in several questions being raised in Parliament.
The arrangements for the disposal had been agreed in principle at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 in Brandenberg, germany, where Churchill, roosevelt and Stalin made provisions for the administration of post-war Europe.
The official reasons were given in an admiralty paper: ‘if the U-boats were not to be sunk, they would have to be divided equally between the three Powers for scrapping. This would have involved complicated and expensive operations for the removal of the U-boats from the United Kingdom.
‘although U-boats have some scrap value, this is extremely small compared with the large tonnage in United Kingdom ports already laid up awaiting scrapping. at a rough estimate, there is upwards of a million tons of British warships and auxiliary war vessels, including 27 submarines, available for scrapping, whereas the British third share of surplus U-boats would equal slightly less than 20,000 tons.
‘Submarines contain a higher proportion of non-ferrous metals than surface vessels . . . non-ferrous scrap is not at present wanted so badly as other types, so that with ship-breaking capacity at a premium, submarines would in this country almost certainly have to take a second place.’
The question of the manpower required to maintain surrendered vessels was also a factor. There was also a hidden subtext: Britain and the U.S. didn’t want the USSr to get their hands on so much military hardware.
Scuttling the U-boats was more difficult than anticipated. Many were in bad shape and a number sank before they arrived. Poor weather also hampered operations. Of the U-boats sunk by the royal Navy, 36 were used as aircraft targets.
R. E. Miller, Putney, Surrey.
QUESTION Did any artists who recorded a cover version for Music For Pleasure’s Hot Hits or Pickwick’s Top Of The Pops go on to achieve fame?
aN EarliEr answer mentioned how Elton John used to scratch out a living performing covers for the record labels Top Of The Pops, Hit Parade and Chartbusters. Contrary to the popular perception of a starving artist, he loved it because it helped him become a better musician.
according to his excellent new autobiography Me, the cover album sessions were ‘screamingly, howlingly funny’. The instructions he would get from the producer alan Caddy were often hilarious.
Elton recalled ‘one completely insane request’ where he was asked to sing Young, gifted and Black: ‘Well, that’s not a song that makes an enormous amount of sense sung by a white guy from Pinner, but i’ll give it a go.’
On another occasion, Elton was asked to emulate the tremulous vibrato of robin gibb of the Bee gees. The only way he could do it was to grab his own throat and wobble it around while singing.
He enjoyed the recordings so much that he went back for another session after he’d hit the big time, as he explained:
‘Your Song was written, the Elton John album was out, i’d been on Top Of The Pops, i was about to go to america for my first tour, and i went back into the studio and happily belted out shonky versions of in The Summertime and let’s Work Together for some terrible album sold in a supermarket for fourteen and sixpence. ‘it was, as usual, a hoot.’
Claudia Price, Nairn. iN THE U.S., there was a plethora of budget lPs. Notable artists who started out in this way included guitarist al Kooper; lou reed; glen Campbell, who was a fantastic session guitarist before his solo career; and Dolly Parton, who recorded several Kitty Wells tracks.
Rob Bradford, Thatcham, Berks.
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