Pigeon post’s lofty history
QUESTION When were carrier pigeons first used to deliver messages? Homing pigeons Columba livia can reliably deliver messages from any location within a roughly 400-mile radius of their home base. Pigeons are very agile and can reach speeds of up to 85 miles per hour, so even today can provide a quick and reliable messaging service.
Their skills were recognised in Ancient Egypt. it’s thought incoming ships released the birds to announce the arrival of important shipments or passengers as early as 2,900 BC.
in 2,350 BC, King Sargon of Akkad, in present- day iraq, ordered his messengers to carry a homing pigeon. if a messenger was about to be captured, he could release his pigeon to fly to the palace so that a replacement messenger could be sent.
There is evidence of homing pigeons being used across Asia for at least two millennia. in gujarat, india, historic chabutra, or raised pigeon houses, still feature in villages there, and in 776 BC pigeons were used by the greeks to carry the news of olympic games victories to Athens.
in the Dark Ages, the Arab Empire established a regular pigeon courier service. According to one tale, a caliph in north Africa satisfied his taste for choice Lebanese cherries by having pigeons transport them in small silk bags. it’s also said that a prize pair of carrier pigeons in the Arab empire could fetch 1,000 gold pieces.
During the Crusades, Richard the Lionheart’s men captured a pigeon with a message reporting that a muslim army would arrive in three days to break the Christian siege of Ptolemais. A forged message was substituted, saying no help would be coming. The besieged town surrendered and the Crusaders were entrenched by the time the relief party arrived.
At the close of the 12th century, genghis Khan established a carrier pigeon network across his empire.
As he advanced at the head of his conquering army, he established pigeon relay posts across Asia and much of Eastern Europe. He used the birds to transmit instructions to his capital for governing distant dominions.
Pigeon post was the world’s fastest communication system for 3,500 years until the invention of the electric telegraph and the radio in the 19th century.
Stockbrokers and bankers still relied on pigeons throughout much of the 19th century. Legend has it that London banker nathan Rothschild made a killing when a pigeon brought early news of napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. Carrier pigeons played an important role in World War i; they were often more reliable than telephone wires strung out along the trenches.
About half a million pigeons carried messages during the war.
There is an excellent book on pigeons and their history called Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of The World’s most Revered And Reviled, by Andrew D. Blechman. Jim Barnes, Poole, Dorset.
QUESTION Has any actor/actress been ‘murdered’ in two or more different programmes? in THE Doctor Who series The Daleks’ masterplan, screened between 1965 and 1966, nicholas Courtney, playing the part of Space Agent Bret Vyon, was killed by Jean marsh, playing his sister, Sara Kingdom.
Courtney returned to Doctor Who in 1968 as another character, Colonel ( later Brigadier) Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart.
in 1970, an episode entitled inferno visited an alternate universe, and Courtney played two roles: the dependable Brigadier in the ‘normal’ universe and the bullying Brigade Leader (complete with scar and eye patch) in the alternate world.
At the end of the penultimate part, the Brigade Leader was killed by an alternate companion Liz Shaw (Caroline John).
So Courtney was killed twice in the same show — but still had a part to play for several more decades (his final appearance as the Brigadier was in The Sarah Jane Adventures in 2010).
Romy Thoms, London SE19. SEAn BEAn is famous for being the most frequently killed actor in Hollywood. There are montages on the internet of up to five minutes’ length stringing together Bean’s many death scenes.
in a lot of these movies he plays the bad guy and is killed in action rather than murdered. Perhaps his most famous death was in The Field (1990) where Bean’s character Tadgh mcCabe is chased off a cliff by a herd of suicidal cows. But there are several films in which he’s clearly murdered. in Caravaggio (1986), a movie about the life of the controversial 17th- century painter, Bean’s character Ranuccio has his throat cut by his love rival. in Essex Boys (2000) his nasty drug-dealing character Jason Locke is shot dead while sitting in his Range Rover. in the 1994 TV mini-series Scarlett, a sequel to gone With The Wind, his evil Lord Fenton is stabbed to death by servant girl mary whom he had raped. in game of Thrones, his character ned Stark is executed with his own sword by the sadistic King Joffrey.
Pete Ritchie, Leeds.
QUESTION Which was the first commercially produced loo paper? FuRTHER to earlier answers, the slippery sided izal-type toilet rolls were the first i ever used, but they weren’t bought by my parents until the early Fifties and were rationed even then. However, my dad’s extra job selling newspapers meant we were never short of toilet paper.
until 1952, my sisters and i would tear the ‘returns’ into uniform oblongs while we all listened to Two-Way Family Favourites, ignorance is Bliss or much-Bindingin-The-marsh on the radio.
The news of the World, The People, Express, mail, Despatch, graphic and Times all went the same way. Finally the huge pile was skewered in one corner and string threaded through to hang on the large nail hammered into the stone wall of our cold, damp outside loo.
We did leave enough for dad to light and to draw the fire each morning.
often tramping through feet of snow when the need took, we usually found solace and even a world of education in our private library, though the choice of reading matter was often whatever pages had been designated to ‘the nail’ that day. Would it be sport, adverts, politics, or the woman’s page?
our toilet was indeed a very diverse means of knowledge . . . as well as relief.
Richard W. Brown, Great Malvern, Worcs.
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