April 1, 2024 ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
APRIL 1, 1938
TEN thousand skilled voluntary women workers are to be enrolled for national service, in the event of emergency, by the Women’s Legion. The aim is to provide a women’s corps capable of taking over motor driving and clerical work.
APRIL 1, 2000
BRITISH women under 30 are now the shortest in Europe, research reveals. At 5ft 4in, they stand on average an inch below their counterparts on the Continent, particularly the Germans — at 5ft 6in.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
ASA BUTTERFIELD, 27. The London-born actor starred in The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas and played the lead in Netflix series Sex Education as the son of Gillian Anderson’s sex therapist. He remembers his own psychologist mother ‘ trying to broach that topic with me, and I just walked out the room. I don’t think anyone at 16 years old wants to hear that kind of thing.’
PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, 62. The former presenter of Going Live! and Dancing On Ice left ITV’s This Morning sofa after more than two decades last year. He admitted an ‘unwise, but not illegal’ affair with a younger colleague. He started dyeing his hair after going grey as a teenager: ‘All those pictures that you saw of me... I am a badger under there.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
DENISE NICKERSON (1957-2019) was 13 when she was cast as Violet Beauregarde, who turns into a giant blueberry in 1971’s Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. She said Gene Wilder in the title role was so convincing ‘I just was terrified’.
ANNIE NIGHTINGALE (1940-2024) was initially turned down as a BBC Radio 1 DJ on account of her sex. ‘They came out with this wonderful line, “this job is a husband substitute”, which I thought was an extraordinary thing to say.’ But she became the first woman to have her own show on the station in 1970 and was its longest-serving presenter.
ON APRIL 1. . .
IN 1973, VAT (Valued Added Tax) was introduced in the UK.
In 1976, in an April Fool’s Day prank, the BBC reported that a Milton Keynes library had been built upside-down.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Plastron (coined 1693)
A) Lower part of a rainbow. B) Space between the bed and the wall. C) Padded jacket worn while fencing.
Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED:
Hold the purse strings: To be responsible for a budget. Purses were orginally leather pouches drawn closed at the top by a string.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
The lingua franca of the planet is not English, it’s pop music.
Sir Bob Geldof, Irish singersongwriter and campaigner
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT happened when the dog gave birth on the street? She got a ticket for littering.
Guess The Definition answer: C