Bellahouston Park, Benito Mussolini and boxer Benny Lynch
On Tuesday 3 May, 1938, all eyes were on Bellahouston Park in Glasgow as the now legendary Empire Exhibition opened for the King and Queen.
The exhibition attracted 12 million visitors by October, despite one of the wettest summers on record. In other news, PM Neville Chamberlain was criticised for agreeing a pact with Mussolini’s Italy, road accidents were on the increase, and Gorbals-born boxing world champ Benny Lynch was struggling to get a title fight to go ahead at Third Lanark’s Cathkin Park. A first look round Bellahouston: ‘The Empire in miniature’ If your knowledge of the British Empire wants improving, it will be improved beyond all recognition at Bellahouston. If you thirst for those exciting and nerve-testing varieties of entertainment available in an amusement park, the Empire Exhibition can quench your thirst. Here, where modernity is the keynote, you will see how truly impressive and noble and how belittling modern design can be. In the quick tour, in petrol-driven trolleys, I was struck several times by the use which has been made of the effect of water to reflect the buildings and rest the eye.
South Africa, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and Australia all spread before you their history and their present progress in trade with the Mother Country. London to Glasgow train journey times being slashed The Royal Scot express travelled the 401 miles from London to Glasgow in seven hours and two minutes yesterday, and inaugurated the new speed-up on the L.M.S. Railway’s spring timetable.
This acceleration of 43 minutes is to mark the occasion of the Empire Exhibition, and until July the Royal Scot is due to leave Euston Station, London, at 10am each day for Glasgow Central and Edinburgh Princes Street Stations at 5pm and 5:50pm respectively. Edinburgh’s fatal car accidents on increase “We must do something to get this terrible number reduced,” said Colonel H.L. Warden, the chairman, at a meeting of the Edinburgh Safety First Council yesterday, when it was reported that there had been an increase in the number of road accidents. A report showed that in March 11 people, including four children, were killed during the month and 91 injured, as compared with four killed and 62 injured in March of last year. ‘PM selling Mediterranean to Hitler and Mussolini’ Sir Archibald Sinclair, leader of the Liberal opposition, said that by compelling this country to recognise the Italian annexation of Abyssinia and by countenancing the Italian invasion of Spain, the Prime Minister has shirked his responsibility and had sacrificed principles on which alone peace could be established. Will Austria’s £8m debt be met by Nazis? The Prime Minister in reply to Mr Thorne, who asked whether the £8,000,000 outstanding debt of Austria to this country, repayable by instalment and interest, had now been accepted as an obligation by Germany, said: “I am in communication with the German Government on the subject, and am unable to make any statement at present”. Boxing: Permit refused for Lynchjurich title fight Considerable surprise was occasioned in boxing circles yesterday when the Glasgow Magistrates, by 10 votes to 5, refused to grant promoter George Dingley a permit to stage the Lynch-jurich World’s Fly-weight Championship fight at Cathkin Park, Glasgow on June 4. Football: Queen’s Park player turns pro W.J. Kinghorn, the Queen’s Park and Scotland Amateur Internationalist outside left, has signed professional forms for Liverpool.