The Queen opens a new age, a gravedigger strike and much more made the news 63 years ago this week
1956 MONDAY OCTOBER 7
Olympian found guilty
Nina Ponomareva, below, the 27-year-old Russian Olympic champion discus thrower, was found guilty on a charge of stealing five hats from C&A Modes, Oxford Street, London.
The magistrate, Clyde Wilson, discharged her absolutely on payment of £3 3s costs.
Giving his decision, Mr Wilson said: “I realise the fallibility of human nature and the hats of C&A Modes displayed there constitute a considerable temptation to a number of women.
“I think the interests of justice will be discharged if I discharge her absolutely on payment of £3 3s costs.”
Mr Wilson was told a little earlier by Mervyn Griffith-Jones, counsel for Nina, that if he (the magistrate) made it possible, arrangements had been made for her to return to Russia “at the earliest moment”.
Queen makes history
A switch was closed by the Queen at Calder Hall, Cumberland, and the first electrical power derived from nuclear energy was pumped into the national grid. So opened Britain’s – and the world’s – first atom power station, which cost £16½m and covers 100 acres.
“All of us here know that we are present at the making of history,” said the Queen.
“Future generations will judge us, above all else, by the way we use these limitless opportunities which Providence has given us and to which we have unlocked the door.”
Worldwide interest has been taken in today’s event and 40 countries were represented at the ceremony, which was held out of doors.
As she spoke, the Queen had to grasp her manuscript firmly because of the wind.
Before the ceremony the Queen went to the administrative buildings, were she saw a model of the plant and for half an hour was “briefed” by Mr RV Moore, a designer.
In the No 1 atomic pile building the Queen saw the four charging motors – painted in pastel shades of blue, green, yellow and pink – controlling the £2¼m worth of uranium rods which, inserted in the graphite pile, were producing an intense heat in the atomic furnace.
Then in the bright sunshine and a strong breeze, which caused the canopy of the grandstand to “crack” with reports like gunfire, the Queen walked to the special dais for the opening ceremony.
As the Queen finished her speech, she pulled the lever, sending electricity from Calder Hall into the national grid at 12.18pm
Amused Princess
On direct orders from the colony’s Governor, the all-African Tanganyika Police Band has added the hit tune from Rock Around The Clock to its party pieces – to amuse Princess Margaret.
The order from the Governor, Sir Edward Twinning, caught the band on the hop, for no-one had heard of rock ’n’ roll music, even though its beat is said to hark back to African jungle rhythm.
The European bandmaster, Vic Webster, said he had never heard of the tune when he received a telephone call from the Governor’s private secretary ordering the band to “learn it in a hurry”.
He said afterwards: “It was well worth the trouble. The Princess told the Governor how much she enjoyed the band’s playing.”
Forty thousand Africans – including paint-daubed warriors, snake dancers, richly garbed chiefs and masked witch doctors – gave the Princess a wild welcome at a huge Baraza or tribal gathering. Twelve hundred danced past the Princess in a long swinging line to the excited throbbing of war drums and shrilling of pipes.
Ruling questioned
The 200 Aberdare Urban Council transport workers were to ask the Joint Industrial Council to think again about its ruling that the Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales is NOT a national festival. The ruling is an insult to Wales, say the workers.
Because of the Joint Industrial Council’s ruling that the Eisteddfod is not a national festival, the workers say they are a day’s pay and a day’s holiday short.
So they were to ask for a retrial of their case.
The trouble all began before the Eisteddfod was held at Aberdare. A national agreement states the workers are entitled to negotiate a local agreement to cover extra work done during national festivals.
Aberdare Council agreed to grant an extra day’s pay and an extra day’s holiday in return for work done over August Bank Holiday and through Eisteddfod week.
Now, three months later, the Joint Industrial Council has refused permission for this arrangement.
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Gravedigger strike
Funerals were postponed in the Rhondda because gravediggers were involved in the strike of men employed at a council depot. In an interview with the South Wales Echo, a Rhondda vicar condemned the “needless suffering this is causing the bereaved”.
He declared: “This is adding impropriety to people in bereavement and causing great distress. We pride ourselves in the Rhondda with our sympathetic character, but when it comes to the postponement of funerals through a strike, what can people outside the valley think of us?”
Two burials were scheduled to take place at the Llethrddu Cemetery, Trealaw, but the graves were not ready and one undertaker was making preparations for a service to take place at the cemetery church, with the body being left there for interment later.
The strike began when 80 men at the Trealaw depot of Rhondda Borough Council downed tools over the grading of a storeman.