BORN ON THIS DAY

JACK DEMPSEY (1895-1983). The U.S. world heavyweight boxing champion of the Twenties was the first to feature in a $1million fight. According to his manager, Dempsey used plaster-of-Paris bandages in his gloves that hardened when wet — a claim the boxer denied. MARY WESLEY (1912-2002). The Surreyborn author of Jumping The Queue and The Camomile Lawn became a best-selling novelist aged 70. Some readers were surprised she could write such sexually explicit material, to which she replied: ‘The young always think they invented sex.’