Also in May 1963
1st: Winston Churchill announces that he will retire as an MP at the next general election. It will bring an end a political journey that began as the Conservative MP for Oldham in 1900. He defected to the Liberal Party in 1904 but later returned to the Conservatives. Prime minister of Britain’s coalition government during World War II, he also led the Tory government from 1951-55. 2nd: The Beatles enjoy their first ever UK
No. 1 single when ‘From Me to You’ knocks Gerry and the Pacemakers’ ‘How Do You Do It?’ off the top of the charts. The Fab Four remain there for seven weeks and will also have further No. 1s with ‘She Loves You’ and ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ later in the same year.
7th: The comedian Max Miller dies aged 68. Billed as ‘The Cheeky Chappie’, Miller was a major star of variety theatres between the wars, and also made a number of recordings. Though his risqué act, full of innuendo and double entendres, regularly tested the patience of the censors, he refrained from swearing and lewdness on stage.
10th: Abandoning his attempts to draw equines convincingly, the US author and illustrator Maurice Sendak changes the title of the book he is working on from Where the Wild Horses Are to Where the Wild Things Are. The story will go on to sell millions of copies and, in the 1980s, inspire an opera of the same name by Oliver Knussen.
29th: On the 50th anniversary of its riotous premiere in Paris, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring is played by the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall. Like the premiere itself, the performance is conducted by Pierre Monteux, now 88, while the 81-yearold composer himself is in the audience as a guest of honour.