THE ARCHIVES

100 years ago

The butcher meat rationing scheme will not, as had been expected, come into operation on Monday after all. The postponement may be for a fortnight or more, and it is due to the full complement of butchers’ forms and consumers’ cards not having come to hand. The Meat Prices Committee debated the question last night, when it was stated that the delay could not, in any way, be attributed to Dundee Food Office, as all the cards received had been sent out.

50 years ago

Cunard have sold the liner Queen Elizabeth for £3,230,000 to a group of American business men in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The contract was signed in London by Cunard’s managing director, John Whitworth, and the three men who form the Philadelphia group, Stanton Miller, Robert B. Miller and Charles Williard. The liner will be moored in the River Delaware and become the focus of a conference centre and airport hotel enterprise. The ship will be delivered as soon as is practicable.

25 years ago

A senior Hoover executive pledged that customers who qualified for free flights under the company’s illfated sales promotion would be able to fly from an airport of their choice. Richard Rankin, vicepresident of marketing for Hoover Europe, said the company would make “every effort to ensure that our customers, qualified to fly, are able to reach their destinations from departure airports of their choice.” He did not comment on claims that customers had been dissuaded from taking up flights.

One year ago

A gang of “Italian Job” ATM thieves caught in an Angus fast food drive-thru showdown last year have been convicted of heists across the UK, including in Perth. The gang now face lengthy jail terms when they are sentenced for 13 raids around Britain after being found guilty at Liverpool Crown Court. Their elaborate plan involved using high-powered cars to make off from the scene, before driving up ramps into an articulated lorry equipped with hammocks and cutting gear.