YESTERDAYS 1953
THE Old Bailey was told that John Reginald Christie was “as mad as a March hare” at the time he murdered his wife Ethel and six other women at 10 Rillington Place.
The prosecution explained how the bodies of three women were found in a cupboard in the house’s kitchen, and two skeletons in the garden.
One of his victims was said to be Mrs Beryl Evans, whose husband Timothy had been hanged for killing their daughter, and had also confessed to killing Beryl.
Evans, who came from Merthyr Tydfil, had handed himself in to local police, saying “I have disposed of my wife.” FREAK storms hit Aberdare, Mountain Ash, Merthyr Tydfil, Caerphilly and other parts of south Wales, killing cattle and damaging property.
Lightning struck one of the power pylons on Caerphilly Mountain, cutting electricity to a wide area. A WOMAN said she was going to complain to her MP after having to pay 6s 9d postage on a 1s Coronation edition of a daily newspaper, which she sent to her son serving in the RAF in the Persian Gulf.
She said: “It is bad enough to know our boys are so far away without being bled white in trying to keep in touch with them.” COMMUNIST forces on the front line announced that a ceasefire would be declared on the third anniversary of the start of the Korean War. A 31-year-old man on trial for strangling a 12-year-old girl in a spinney, said: “The girl was very brave in the face of death. I hope when my turn comes I will be half as brave.”
He added: “I felt sorry for her, but could not stop.” CROWDS stood 12-deep in Edinburgh when the newly-crowned Queen Elizabeth II visited the city as Scotland celebrated the Coronation, three weeks after similar events in London.
Days later, so many Glasgow residents rushed to see the royal party that several were injured. SHERPA Tenzing Norgay, who had just accompanied Edmund Hilary to the peak of Mount Everest, did not attend a British Embassy reception at Katmandu in protest at “derogatory remarks” attributed to Colonel John Hunt, leader of the British Everest expedition. THE Government said that the next British atomic tests would be made in the south Australian desert.
Specially picked troops had been working up to 70 hours a week to prepare the site for the tests. THERE were protests in Parliament when Labour’s MP for Merthyr Tydfil, SO Davies, addressed the Prime Minister.
He said: “In view of the widespread revulsion against the United States Government, would he close the US Embassy and consulates here within