The Saturday briefing
Is there anything you’re yearning to know? Send your questions, on any subject, to the contacts given below, and we will do our best to answer them...
QI was told that the actress Madeleine Carroll was my grandmother’s cousin. I’d love to know more about her. My daughter has the acting bug too!
AMadeleine Carroll shot to fame in Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps in 1935, as the ice-cold leading lady who found herself handcuffed to Robert Donat. She went on to star in more than three dozen films, including Hitchcock’s Secret Agent,The Prisoner Of Zenda, Honeymoon In Bali and My Favourite Blonde. She was the first British female to win a major Hollywood contract and Paramount called her “the most beautiful woman in the world”.
Your famous relative was born in 1906 inWest Bromwich – her mother was French and her father was a university professor.After graduating from Birmingham University with a BA in French, she modelled hats and taught at a high school in Sussex.
During the war, she served as a nurse in Europe for the American Red Cross and received the Medal of Freedom. She converted her French chateau into an orphanage and helped to rehabilitate concentration camp survivors.
Her sister was killed in a bombing raid in London and that led to her taking a step away from the limelight and dedicating her life to charity work.
She became an American citizen in 1943, but spent her later years in Marbella in Spain.
Her four marriages, to Captain Philip
Astley, the actor
HOLLYWOOD GREAT: Fred MacMurray stars with English beauty Madeleine Carroll in 1939’s Cafe Society
Sterling Hayden, producer and French Resistance fighter Henri Lavorel and publisher Andrew Heiskell, all ended in divorce.
She died in 1987, aged 81, from gallbladder cancer, four years after the death of her only child, Anne Madeleine Heiskell.
QIs sign language the same in all countries?
AThere is no universal sign language – in fact there are more than 300 sign language dialects in the world.
Most deaf people cannot understand someone signing in a different language, although some signs do overlap.They have developed – and are still developing – within deaf communities, and there are even differences between regions and generations. British sign language (BSL) and American sign language (ASL) have less than a third of signs in common.That is because the development of ASL was influenced by a minister and teacher who was taught by the French Royal Institution for the Deaf. So a deaf American would find it easier to communicate with a deaf person from France than one from England. Irish sign language also has more in common with the French version.
International Sign was developed for use at conferences and the Olympic Games for deaf athletes. But it does not have the same level of detail.
Around 145,000 people in the UK use BSL.
QPopular fruit preserves are called jams. Why is orange preserve called marmalade?
AJam is made using a fruit’s pulp and juices but marmalade is not simply orange jam – you get the peel or rind on your toast too.
It gets its name from the Portuguese marmelada, which was a paste made from quince cooked in honey and spices.
This recipe was picked up in England, with cherries and dates also used in alternative recipes before oranges became the go-to ingredient. Under EU law the term marmalade can only be applied to products with at least 20 per cent citrus fruit.
Proper marmalade is made from Seville oranges from Spain or Portugal, which are available in late winter and early spring.
Recipes have been around since Tudor times, but it took off thanks to James Keiller from Dundee. He is said to have come across a cargo of oranges, which his wife turned into a winning recipe.
Sales have been sliding with younger shoppers drawn to sweeter spreads. But Paddington Bear, known to keep a marmalade sandwich under his hat, did give it a boost.After the release of the animated film in 2014, sales of liquid pectin, a gelling agent needed to produce marmalade, shot up by a third.
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Ross Parker and Hughie Charles (1940)
Strange how a memory will tenderly find
A place in your mind to stay Painting a picture that lives in your heart
Just to remind you each day, dear
Memories live longer than dreams They’re so much stronger than dreams
Let’s make a memory tonight, sweetheart Something to cherish while we’re apart
Darling till we meet again Just let me kiss you and then You’ll have the memory of all that it means
For memories live longer than dreams
If you can’t remember the words to a favourite verse or song from yesteryear, send us a snippet and we’ll do our best to find all the wonderful words.