Thorn Birds nest in the US
QUESTION Did the same building feature as the homesteads in TV’s The Thorn Birds and Baz Luhrmann’s film Australia?
THESE farms resemble each other, but each was constructed especially for filming.
As the country’s best-selling novel, The Thorn Birds is a cultural institution in Australia, but the 1983 TV series was filmed in America. Colleen McCullough’s family saga is focused on the Clearys and spans 1915 to 1969.
Much of the action takes place at the Drogheda sheep station in New South Wales. On TV, Richard Chamberlain starred as Father Ralph de Bricassart, who breaks his vow of celibacy after falling for Rachel Ward’s ingénue Meggie Cleary. Drogheda was purposebuilt at Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley, California. Formerly owned by J. Paul Getty, it has been a set for movie productions since the 1950s. It was most famously home to Little House On The Prairie, but has also played host to Rawhide, Gunsmoke, Highway To Heaven, Dallas and Westworld.
The Thorn Birds’ building was dismantled after filming to make way for Eddie Murphy’s palace in Coming To America.
The Faraway Downs cattle station in the film Australia was purpose-built on Carlton Hill, a farm near Kununurra in the northwest of the country.
Lady Sarah Ashley, played by Nicole Kidman, inherits the farm and enlists the help of handsome drover Hugh Jackman to save it during World War II. Unsurprisingly, the pair end up falling in love.
It was planned that Faraway Downs would be retained as a tourist attraction, but this did not prove to be cost-effective and it was dismantled in 2011.
Tom Davies, Gerringong, New South Wales.
QUESTION Why were British aircraft in the 1960s named after dog breeds?
THERE were a large number of British aircraft manufacturers until the mid-1960s, and most had their own house style for naming aircraft. Several used alliterative names, with the first letter of the company name as the initial of the aircraft type.
Beagle Aircraft (British Executive And General Aviation Limited) took over Auster, the builders of high-wing spotter aircraft for the British army.
It named its aircraft after dogs as a nod to its company name. The first was the Airedale, which had been developed from an earlier Auster model, the D8, and went on sale in 1961. The Husky and Terrier were high-wing, threeseater, single-engine monoplanes.
When Beagle Aircraft ceased trading in 1969, Scottish Aviation took over and decided to stick with the dog-themed names.
The Bulldog was a two-seater training aircraft built for the RAF. It first flew on May 19, 1969, and continued to be built until 1980. It was also sold to a number of other air forces, including Sweden and Malaysia. It is still in service, but not with the RAF.
The Scottish Aviation Bulldog shouldn’t be confused with the Bristol Bulldog, which was a pre World War II biplane fighter bomber. Other aviation companies adopted themed names: Gloster Aircraft gave us the Gladiator and Grebe; Bristol Aeroplane Company the Beaufighter and Britannia; and Hawker Aircraft the Hurricane and Hunter.
Shorts named its planes after cities, including the Stirling and Belfast. Vickers used the letters W and V, such as the Wellington and Valiant. De Havilland was more random and its memorable names had little consistency – Dormouse, Dingo, Gipsy Moth, Puss Moth, Mosquito, Dragonfly, Comet and Vampire. Avro also tended to be random, giving us the Lancaster and Vulcan.
Bob Cubitt, Northampton.
QUESTION What is the oddest thing decided by the flip of a coin?
THE coin toss that has probably had the greatest impact concerned the naming of the US city of Portland, Oregon.
In 1845, wealthy landowners Asa Lovejoy and Francis Pettygrove were planning a new town on the West Coast near the end of the Oregon Trail. Each wanted to name it after their home town.
Lovejoy was from Boston, Massachusetts, and Pettygrove was from Portland, Maine.
Pettygrove won two out of three tosses of a copper one-cent coin. The town began with a few hundred inhabitants, a hotel, a sawmill and a local newspaper. Today, the vibrant city is home to more than 650,000 people. The coin used to settle the argument, known as the Portland Penny, is on display in the Oregon Historical Society museum.
Ian MacDonald, Billericay, Essex.
BEFORE the introduction of penalty shoot-outs, soccer matches that failed to be resolved after a replay or extra time were settled by a coin toss.
The most important came in the semi-finals of the 1968 European Championships. After drawing 0-0 with the Soviet Union following extra time, Italy progressed to the final when captain Giacinto Facchetti correctly called tails. They went on to win the tournament.
In the UK, returning officers are legally obliged to settle elections immediately if recounts fail to establish a winner. This has never happened when electing an MP, but it has in local elections.
The Worksop North-East seat in Bassetlaw District Council was won by Labour on the toss of a coin in 2000 after three recounts. Christopher Underwood-Frost, a Conservative councillor in Lincolnshire, held his seat with the toss of a coin in 2007.
The control of Stirling District Council was decided by cutting a deck of cards in 1988 and 1992.
Mike Brown, Malvern,
Worcestershire.
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