ON THIS DAY
September 29, 2020
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
SEPTEMBER 29, 1967 EIGHTEEN-year-old Lindsay Corner is one of 12 London models who have been hired by Birmingham City football club to cure half-time boredom by parading round City’s ground in a micro-skirt. This is the latest weapon in the war against the soccer louts [to distract them from violence].
SEPTEMBER 29, 1980 PRINCE Charles, who officially takes over his new £1million estate today, has paid a ‘secret’ visit there to make arrangements with three local farmers who have agreed to work the land at Highgrove in the Cotswolds.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
PATRICIA HODGE, 74. The actress from Lincolnshire starred in Rumpole Of The Bailey, but is perhaps best known today for playing the title character’s mother in BBC sitcom Miranda. Asked how she would like to be remembered, she said: ‘I spent the earlier part of my life being late for everything, so there was a joke that my tombstone would read The Very Late Patricia Hodge.’
ALFIE BOE, 47. The Blackpool-born tenor led the cast of Les Miserables for nearly a year and has packed in the crowds at the Royal Festival Hall and the Royal Albert Hall. The youngest of nine children, Boe used to sing with an indie band and was discovered while working as a car mechanic by a customer in the music industry.
BORN ON THIS DAY
TREVOR HOWARD (19131988). The Bafta-winning actor from Kent achieved star status for his role opposite Celia Johnson in Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter in 1945. He also starred in 1962’s remake of Mutiny On The Bounty, but was far from impressed with co-star Marlon Brando, whom he called ‘unprofessional and utterly ridiculous’.
ELIzABETH GASKELL (1810-1865). The London-born novelist wrote Cranford, North And South, and Wives And Daughters, all of which have been turned into BBC dramas, and a biography of her friend Charlotte Bronte. Fans included Charles Dickens, who called Gaskell his ‘dear Scheherazade’ because: ‘I am sure your powers of narrative can never be exhausted in a single night, but must be good for at least a thousand nights and one.’
ON SEPTEMBER 29…
IN 1946, the Third Programme (later Radio 3) was launched as part of the BBC’s post-war re-organisation of radio.
IN 1978, Pope John Paul I was found dead just over a month after becoming pontiff.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: shallop c1575)
A) wool taken from a dead sheep B) the youngest of a litter of pigs C) a vessel used for sailing or rowing in shallow waters (Answer below)
PHRASE EXPLAINED
What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander — meaning if one person is allowed to do something, then another must be allowed to do likewise; coined in the 1670s, it suggests that men and women should be treated the same.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
When I am dead, I hope it may be said: “His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.”
HILAIRE BELLOC, British-French writer (1870-1953)
JOKE OF THE DAY
What do you call an English fisherman?
Angler Saxon. Guess The Definition answer: C