ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JULY 12, 1951
LONDON’S population has risen to 8,346,137, against New York’s 7,841,023. Great Britain’s total population stands at 50,210,472 — a 9 per cent increase on 1931. If this population inflation continues, the young and middle-aged can expect normal retiring age to rise to 70, or even 75.
JULY 12, 1961
‘I See no objection to a woman making space flights,’ said Yuri Gagarin [the first person to go into outer space] at the Soviet exhibition Theatre at earls Court. With their sensitivity and appreciation of beauty, he added, if a space flight seemed wonderful and beautiful to a man, it would seem even more so to a woman.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
CHERYL LADD, 67. The U.S. actress (right) found fame when she replaced Farrah Fawcett in Charlie’s Angels in 1977, having first turned down the role because she thought she could not fill Fawcett’s shoes. A devout Christian, she says: ‘At the height of my success I was the least happy because I was the farthest from God.’
CHRISTINE MCVIE, 75. The rock singer and keyboardist from Fleetwood Mac, who have sold more than 100million records, wrote some of the band’s biggest hits. McVie, whose mother was a psychic, penned Songbird after it came to her in a ‘visitation’ when she woke up in the night.
BORN ON THIS DAY
KATHY STAFF (19282008). The actress, born Minnie Higginbottom, starred in Coronation Street, emmerdale Farm and Crossroads, but was best known as Nora Batty (right), the battleaxe with wrinkled stockings, opposite Bill Owen’s Compo in Last Of The Summer Wine. For the role, she wore a man’s vest stuffed with padding to fit into a dress size 22 and described Nora as ‘like a battered old trout who can’t stop itself from rising each time to Compo’s fly’.
MILTON BERLE (1908-2002). The U.S. comedian and actor, dubbed ‘Mr Television’, started his career as a child after winning a Charlie Chaplin imitation contest. Berle, who dated Marilyn Monroe, and was earning $3,000-a-week in 1934, once said: ‘Money can’t buy you happiness, but it helps you look for it in a lot more places.’
ON JULY 12 . . .
IN 1804, former U.S. treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton, now the subject of a hit West end stage musical, died following a duel with vice president Aaron Burr.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Lexiphanic (1800s) A) Difficulty in finding the right word. B) Dream-like. C) Being pretentious. Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED
From pillar to post — meaning moving from one place to another with no purpose; from the Middle Ages when ‘From Post to Pillar’ described someone being punished by first being tied to a post and whipped before being moved to the pillory, a wooden frame with arm and leg holes.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
WHAT is drama but life with the dull bits cut out. Alfred Hitchcock, film director (1899-1980)
JOKE OF THE DAY
AT a job interview I was asked to describe myself in three words. I said: ‘Lazy.’ Guess the Definition answer: C.