Paul Sparkes Winter sun miscellany
85 YEARS AGO (FEBRUARY 1934)
“Columnist” is the American term for the journalist who, day in, day out, delights, instructs, annoys or bores as the case may be the readers whose eyes turn by a fatal attraction to that particular column each morning,” writes Mr. Ernest Newman in The Sunday Times.”
— From The Evening Telegram. Newman, 1868-1959 was a noted music journalist.
DUE TO OUR SALUBRIOUS CLIMATE
“Our youngsters are blooming with the rosy hue of health, developing their energies by air and exercise and preparing themselves for the battle of life hereafter, either as hardy mariners or healthy matrons — the blooming mothers of a powerful race. The mean temperature of 1859 was 44 degrees.”
— That is, approx. +6.5 degrees C. Extract from a lecture given by Dr. John Thomas Mullock (1807-1869) when bishop of St. John’s.
FOREVER LOST
Surely in 1929, Urban Diteman was not trying to prove that the North Atlantic could be crossed in an airplane? Why would anyone want to risk the hazards of a transatlantic flight 90 years ago when, 10 years before that, Alcock and Brown proved it could be done. And only two years before Diteman, Lindbergh made his celebrated flight. But Diteman, a Montana cowboy, took off from the Harbour Grace airstrip in late October 1929, turned towards Ireland and was never seen again. It was known to be foggy and cold over the Atlantic at the time (it is usually so). And Diteman’s plane was topless! For more on this casualty of early flight Google “Urban F. Diteman’s trans-atlantic attempt”.
Part of source: appendix note in “The Challenge of the Atlantic”, Parsons and Bowman, 1983.
AIRLINE TRAFFIC INCREASES
FEBRUARY 1934 — “No development is more remarkable in the progress now being made by aerial transport than that of the growth in passenger traffic on the empire’s air-lines. During six months recently, from July to December 1933, and as compared with a similar period in the previous year, there was an increase of 36% in passenger traffic on the India and Africa routes of Imperial Airways. That businessmen are making a growing use of these longdistance air-lines is one of the chief facts which our figures now reveal, says an official of Imperial Airways. One can fly from London to Calcutta in seven days; to Rangoon in eight days or to Singapore or Cape Town in ten days – such speed entails no fatigue.”
—From a British newspaper and republished by The Evening Telegram.
FORCING THE DRAMA
FEB. 9, 1934. At the Casino. “Jim Higgins plays the juvenile lead in Shaun Rhue — a part his father, Mr. Justice Higgins played just a quarter of a century ago and for the same worthy cause, the St. Patrick’s Hall Schools. James forces the rapid-paced strong drama of the plot and plays opposite Miss Mcnamara. — Tickets at Fanning’s.”
THE COMMON COLD
The Evening Telegram reported in February 1934 that The Manchester Guardian had polled readers for their comments on the common cold. One wrote in thus: “Outside cold, damp and fog. Inside, a cozy bedroom, shaded lights, comfy eiderdown, fat pillows – and me, in the throes of a common cold. Throes? Nay! Rather Heavenly embrace!”
JAMMED IN ICE
FEB. 10, 1934: “A wireless message was received by the management of the railway at 10:00 o’clock this morning from Capt. Taverner of the S.S. Caribou to the effect that the ship was jammed in heavy, close-packed ice 22 miles NE of Scatterie. The weather was fine and clear with a strong wind blowing from a NW direction. The Caribou is en route to North Sydney.”
Eight years later, in October 1942, that same Gulf ferry became a victim of war. In his book “Night of the Caribou”, Douglas How includes the following as pieced together from the logbook of U-69, Caribou’s killer:
“They could hear at considerable length loud sounds that are quite literally the death throes of the Caribou, the breaking up of her bulkheads as she slides into the depths, cut virtually, perhaps entirely in two. They are wracking and macabre and funereal sounds and, the log says, they are heard throughout the submarine.”
How’s book from Lancelot Press, 1988, is still readily available online from several book dealers.
BOYS’ SPEECHES
ST. BONAVENTURE’S Oratorial Contest (same issue of newspaper as above): Fifteen students of the senior classes took part; Aula Maxima Hall last night. Judges, Rt. Rev., Msgr. Mcdermott, Hon. Mr. Justice Kent and Hon. M.P. Gibbs. The hall was crowded. First place, John Moakler, his selection was Patrick Pearse’s panegyric at the graveside of O’donovan Rossa; Second place, William Higgins for his rendition of Pitt’s speech on the American colonies; Third, Brian Cahill, whose subject was Kellogg’s ‘Spartacus incitement to Roman gladiators’.” Columnist’s note: While Rossa was a well-known voice during the Irish fight for independence he became even more famous with Pearse’s tribute.
TWO NOTED DEBATERS
FEBRUARY 1934: MCLI debate on the Royal Commission Report on the Fisheries; for the affirmative, Raymond Gushue; for the negative, Capt. A. Kean. In part: Gushue defined fisheries as the financial core of the country’s assets. Captain Kean stated that less men at the fishery and a higher price were needed. (MCLI: Methodist College Literary Institute).