A stinker of a nickname
QUESTION
Comedian Arthur Askey worked with the actor Richard ‘Stinker’ Murdoch. How did Murdoch acquire this nickname? RichaRd BeRnaRd MuRdoch was born in 1907 and died in 1990, having become a household name as a radio comedian and a film and TV actor.
he went to charterhouse School and Pembroke college, cambridge, where he was a member of Footlights.
his big radio break came with the BBc comedy Band Waggon, which ran from 1938 to 1940. it was the first series to be designed specifically for radio, making good use of sound effects and establishing the practice of broadcasting a comedy and music programme at the same time each week.
Murdoch and arthur askey provided the comedy, and their spots soon dominated the show. Many sketches had working-class arthur and his posh friend Richard sharing a top-floor flat in Broadcasting house with Lewis the goat and pigeons named Basil, Lucy, Ronald and Sarah.
it was one of the first shows to develop catchphrases, such as askey’s ‘Big-hearted arthur, that’s me!’ and Murdoch’s: ‘You silly little man!’
askey gave Murdoch the nickname ‘Stinker’ — a comic reference to his public school upbringing, where nicknames such as ‘Stinker’, ‘ Pudge’ and ‘ Bunny’ were commonplace — and it stayed with him for the rest of his life.
askey left the show in 1939 as his film and stage career took off and Murdoch joined the RaF.
after the war, Murdoch was in BBc Radio’s Much Binding in The Marsh (194454) with Kenneth horne, The Men From The Ministry (1962-77) and appeared in the first series of Blackadder.
his final TV role was broadcast a few months after his death in an episode of Rumpole of The Bailey in which he played uncle Tom, a briefless senior barrister.
Ken Knight, Towcester, Northants.
QUESTION
Which teams featured in the first Formula 1 race? Are any still racing? The first attempt at a motor racing series lasted for only two seasons in 1950 and 1951, foundering over the issue of finance.
it involved a greater number of privately entered teams compared with today’s factory entries. For the first season, in 1950, there were six works teams: alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Maserati from italy, Talbot Lago and the Simca-backed Gordini team from France and the British BRM team. Regulations for the first couple of years were basic. The cars could have a 1.5 litre supercharged or 4.5-litre unsupercharged engine, with no weight or fuel restrictions.
For the first race of the Formula 1 season, held at Silverstone, Ferrari and Simca Gordini were absent and the BRM wasn’t ready to race, so there were only three factory-backed teams with seven cars in total: four alfa Romeos, two Talbot Lagos and one Maserati.
To boost entry, private teams and owners/ drivers were subsequently allowed. These included Scuderia ambrosiana from Milan, which had two Maseratis driven by British drivers david hampshire and david Murray, and Scuderia enrico Plate from Switzerland, which also had Maseratis, driven by the Taiwanese Prince Bira and the Swiss Baron emmanuel de Graffenried.
The rest were individual owner/drivers: the Frenchmen Louis Rosier, Philippe etancelin and Belgian jazz musician Johnny claes in a Talbot Lago; Joe Kelly of ireland and Geoffrey crossley of Britain in a British altas; Joe Fry of Britain in a Maserati; and British drivers Bob Gerard, cuth harrison, Peter Walker and Leslie Johnson in 12-year-old British eRas.
all this meant 21 cars on the starting grid and, as expected, alfa Romeo took the first three places, with Giuseppe Farina of italy first, his countryman Luigi Fagioli second and Britain’s Reg Parnell third. The alfas lapped the field at least twice. By the end of the 1951 season, however, this first attempt at Formula 1 had failed. despite having won the 1950 and 1951 championships, alfa Romeo was struggling financially and announced its withdrawal.
The Talbot Lago team’s finances were slowly collapsing in 1950, and the team pulled out of F1 before the 1951 season started, anthony Lago, the owner, focusing on making road cars of the same name.
With this and the Simca Gordini partnership ending, Maserati focusing on Formula 2 racing and the BRMs making sporadic appearances, only Ferrari had competitive cars. So, for the 1952 and 1953 seasons, the Fia adopted Formula 2 rules, making the championship cheaper, with smaller engines, before reworking Formula 1 to return in 1954.
alfa Romeo returned to F1 in 1979, but didn’t repeat its earlier success, gaining only four podium places before pulling out again in 1985. Gordini struggled on its reduced budget before bowing out just before the 1957 season. Maserati had great success from 1954 to 1957, winning the 1957 title, but the company’s F1 team was withdrawn at the end of 1957.
BRM, under a new owner, won the title with Graham hill in 1962, but wins were sporadic after that (12 in 14 years), their last at Monaco in 1972. after failing to qualify for eight races in a row in 1977, BRM withdrew mid-season.
With their inferior budgets, none of the private teams lasted long, most going out of business, leaving just one of the original teams whose cars didn’t even make it to that first race in 1950: Scuderia Ferrari.
Paul Reynolds, Ruislip, Middlesex.
QUESTION
Is Barra in the Outer Hebrides the only place in Britain where a scheduled airline lands on the beach? FuRTheR to earlier answers, it is as well to explain that the sand on the beach at Barra is so firmly compacted that it is not dissimilar to walking on concrete, which explains why it can be used as a landing strip for small aircraft.
if the wind is strong enough, then the plane lifts off vertically — which is interesting to observe and even more interesting to experience.
Peter Turnbull, Leeds. in 2007, national Geographic magazine voted Barra one of the seven most extreme landing strips in the world. i can confirm it’s a hair-raising but exciting experience.
The other contenders were the Sea-ice runway near McMurdo Sound in antarctica; the equally icy Svalbard in norway; the cliffside strip on Saba island on the netherlands antilles; courchevel airport in the French alps, which featured in the Bond movie Tomorrow never dies; Paro airport in Bhutan, surrounded by himalayan peaks; and Lesoto’s Matekane Strip, which terminates in a 7,500ft cliff.
J. B. Mullins, Edinburgh.