Was ‘Allo ‘Allo a hit abroad?
Was ’Allo ’Allo! ever shown in France or Germany?
THE BBC comedy, the work of David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd, was a brilliant parody of Secret Army (1977-79).
Both told a similar tale: the Resistance helps Allied aircrew evade capture and return to Britain, with the action set around a cafe.
In Secret Army, by Gerard Glaister, Cafe Candide was run by proprietor Albert Foiret (Bernard Hepton). By contrast to this serious-minded series, ’Allo ’Allo! was a camp, goose-stepping assembly of odd catchphrases, saucy waitresses and comedy stereotypes.
Reviled by the critics, it was a huge success, becoming one of Britain’s longest-running sitcoms. It lasted for 83 30-minute episodes in nine series from 1982 to 1992.
There was also a stage musical and a record of Rene and Yvette (Gorden Kaye and Vicki Michelle) singing Je T’Aime (’Allo ’Allo), a parody of the erotic song by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin.
The series was sold to 56 countries, including France and Germany. It was first broadcast in France in July 1989 on Canal+, in the free-to-air part of the French cable TV channel. According t o Kaye, German TV executives showed an interest in the Eighties, but were initially reluctant to run it.
‘Five or six German broadcasting people came and saw the series. They were wiping tears from their eyes. They thought it was hilarious. But they knew they couldn’t buy it because they’d be sacked,’ he said. It was eventually picked up by satellite channel ProSiebenSat1 in 2008 and shown in a dubbed version — pronouncing ‘Good moaning!’ as ‘ Guten Moagen!’ James Childs, Hartlepool, Durham.
Who invented power steering for motor vehicles?
AMERICAN engineer Francis W. Davis was chief engineer at Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company’s truck division, where he observed how difficult it was to steer heavy vehicles. To solve the problem, he invented power steering in the Twenties.
He quit his job and rented a small engineering s hop i n Waltham, Massachusetts, where he formed a partnership with George Jessup, a highly skilled designer and toolmaker who turned his vision into reality.
Davis’s invention used hydraulic pressure. At the heart of his steering mechanism was an open- centre valve: when the driver turned the steering wheel, the valve diverted pressure against a piston and moved the front wheels. Another patent solved the problem of over-steering. General Motors bought an option to add the device to Cadillacs, but the Great Depression prevented that.
In 1941, Davis patented a lighter, more compact system. He joined forces with engineering company Bendix, which supplied parts to the U.S. and British armies, to incorporate his power- steering units into Chevrolet armoured cars.
Other orders for power steering went to tank recovery vehicles, which were notoriously hard to manoeuvre.
With power steering tested on the battlefield, Bendix found off-highway markets for the device, including huge earth-moving and track-laying vehicles and farm machinery.
When Davis’s original patents expired, Chrysler released hydraguide, a system based on some of Davis’s principles. In 1952, GM f i nally incorporated Davis’s system into the 1952 Cadillac. Edward White, Worcester.
Did Max Schmeling, the German heavyweight boxer, take part in the parachute landings on Crete in World War II?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, my dad, Norman Bolton, was in the Dental Corps in World War II.
He was captured by German paratroops on Crete on May 27, 1941 — his 24th birthday. He met Max Schmeling, helping to look after him when he was wounded during the airborne invasion.
Dad spent the rest of the war as a PoW. He passed away in 2003, aged 85. Mike Bolton, St Helens, Merseyside.