Elephant in the hangar
QUESTION Which aeroplane had the largest wingspan of all time?
AMAZINGLY, even today the plane with the largest wingspan is the aircraft generally known as the Spruce Goose but, more correctly, as the Hughes-Kaiser HK-1 Hercules with a wingspan of 320ft (97.5m).
The design was conceived in 1942 as a way of getting supplies across the Atlantic without ships having to run the gauntlet of German U-boats. Flying the Atlantic with significant cargo was extremely difficult, so the aircraft had to be very large.
The project was considered near impossible, so the American government would sanction it only if the aircraft were built from nonstrategic materials, i.e. wood, as used for the British de Havilland Mosquito. All available aluminium was needed for building existing designs of aircraft.
Despite its nickname, the resulting aircraft was built largely of birch; only a tiny amount of spruce was used.
Three aircraft were ordered for $18 million ($250 m in today’s money), but by 1944 the first was still under construction.
The U-boat threat had largely gone, so the government cancelled the other two and refused to take the prototype. Henry Kaiser pulled out of the project and the aircraft was re-designated the H-4.
Building a single aircraft used up all the government funding and Howard Hughes provided another $7million from his own pocket to complete it in 1946. The resulting aircraft was a gigantic flying boat powered by eight piston engines spread along its enormous wings.
It was considered to be a white elephant and Hughes was called before the Senate and accused of fraud. He survived the hearing, but the government never took the aircraft.
In 1947, Hughes took the aircraft out for ‘taxi trials’ but, after completing a few manoeuvres on the water, he took off for a flight that lasted 60 seconds.
After landing, Hughes taxied it to shore where it was placed in storage for more than 30 years. It is now kept in the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon. The next largest aircraft is the Airbus A380 with a wingspan of just over 262 ft, first flown in 2005 and powered by four turbofan engines. Denis Sharp, East Sussex.
QUESTION Where does the surname Buick, as in the US motor giant, come from?
THIS surname comes from Bewick, in Northumberland or the East Riding of Yorkshire in England. Bewick in Northumberland is recorded as Bowich in the Pipe Rolls of that county in 1167, and in the East Riding as Biuuich in the Domesday Book.
Allen Mawer, in his book The Place-names Of Northumberland And Durham (1920), says it is derived from the old English pre-7th century beo meaning bee and wic a farm; hence a bee farm: ‘The farm must have been famous for its bees when honey and beeswax were more highly prized than now.’
In the modern idiom, the name is found as Buick, Bowich, Bewick and Bewicke. The first recorded spelling of the family name is that of John de Bewic, dated 1219, in the Assize Rolls of Yorkshire, during the reign of Henry III. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation.
The Scottish/Irish form Buick was the surname of David Dunbar Buick (1854–1929) who was born in Arbroath and moved to Detroit at the age of two. He founded the Buick motor company in 1903. Arthur Redding, Hartlepool.
QUESTION Whatever happened to the famous drag queen Mr Pussy? Does he still perform and was he Ireland’s first female impersonator?
MR PUSSY is still doing his impersonations, although he says that because of arthritis, he can’t get into high heels like he could.
He was the first female impersonator here to make a big name for himself, but when he arrived in 1969, there had already been a very long tradition of such impersonation in pantomimes.
Alan Amsby is Mr Pussy’s real name; he was born and brought up in London and during the 1960s there, when the drag scene was flourishing, he was part of an act called ‘Pussy and Bow’.
After that act broke up, Amsby came to Ireland in 1969 for a oneweek booking in Belfast. He liked it here so much that he moved to Dublin, and is still here 48 years later, at the age of 69.
In the 1960s, such acts were very popular in England, where the leading performer in this genre was Danny La Rue, who had been born in Cork in 1927.
Here in Ireland, female impersonators just didn’t exist. Amsby was worried that the bishops might take offence at his act, but they didn’t, and he was soon packing them in at the old Baggot Inn in Dublin.
One journalist wrote, in 1970, that even though the audiences were ‘frightfully hetero’, they appreciated Mr Pussy like mad; he was also described as having the bluest line of patter ever heard by that journalist.
In the early 1970s, Mr Pussy shared the stage with just two other female impersonators, one a young newcomer to drag called Freddie Davenport and another artiste in Limerick. Throughout the 1970s, Amsby’s career here blossomed and he was called ‘Ireland’s leading misleading lady’.
He also found himself in some unusual situations, as in 1971, when he shared the floor at a debate in Trinity College’s Historical Society with Mary Kenny, then working as women’s editor at the old Irish Press newspaper.
One female newspaper columnist in the early 1970s said that Alan Amsby was neither effeminate nor pointedly masculine and that he epitomised the unisex look that was so popular that decade.
Amsby was always well connected in showbusiness and over his years as a drag artist, he has often met such super stars as Sean Connery, Van Morrison and Ronnie Wood. One hilarious occasion came in 1994, at Mr Pussy’s Café de Luxe in Suffolk Street, Dublin, which was owned by Bono, Jim Sheridan and Gavin Friday.
Supermodel Naomi Campbell turned up one night and made a present to Mr Pussy of a pair of her knickers.
The knickers were then put in a display case alongside Bono’s gold boots.
Although the 1970s were spectacularly successful for Mr Pussy, he/she has managed to keep the show on the road, despite the arrival of many other drag artists, such as Panti Bliss.
Last November, his biography – Mr Pussy: Before I Forget To Remember – written by journalist Dave Kenny, was nominated for an Irish Book of the Year Award.
But even though drag artistes were unknown in Ireland before Mr Pussy’s shock arrival in 1969, the tradition of men impersonating women on stage in Ireland had been going on for decades, but in a completely different form.
It’s long been the tradition in pantomime, both in Ireland and in the UK for the Dame to be played by a male actor.
But when it comes to the mainstream cabaret circuit, Alan Amsby aka Mr Pussy was the performer who broke many boundaries and made drag acts almost respectable. Des O’Brien, Terenure, Dublin.
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