Choirboy who broke records
QUESTION What became of boy soprano Ernest Lough after his voice broke?
Hear My Prayer / O, For The Wings Of a Dove (Felix Mendelssohn) sung by 16-yearold ernest Lough with the Choir of the Temple Church, London ( organist: G Thalben-Ball) was one of the most cherished of all early gramophone recordings. When it was released in June 1927 it caused a sensation. In the first six months it sold 316,000 copies, a record at the time. In 1962, it became the first classical single in HMV’s history to become a million seller.
ernest Lough actually recorded O For The Wings Of a Dove twice. Such was the success of the first version that the master disc wore out and had to be re-recorded the following year. Luckily, ernest’s beautiful treble hadn’t yet broken — but it soon did and he had to leave the choir.
However, he continued to sing as a baritone in the Temple Choir and also the Bach Choir for many years and even made some recordings but with limited success. He made his career in advertising with his old recording company HMV and the leading agency Ogilvy and Mather.
In World War II, he joined the London Fire Service and was reportedly among those who dealt with the blaze which engulfed the Temple Church after it was hit in the blitz.
His son robin became a successful TV producer and made a programme about his father.
In 1987, on the 60th anniversary, as a reporter for London Broadcasting, I interviewed ernest in the Temple Church and found him an entertaining companion. He claimed that by then the record had sold eight million copies, though he earned little from it. He died in 2000.
Rodney M. Bennett, London. QUESTION What’s the most common river name in Britain?
THE most common river name in Britain is avon, stemming from the Old British or Brythonic word for river, abona. So river avon is actually a tautology.
There are five rivers avon in england. The longest in the British Isles stretches 85 miles, rising in Naseby in Northamptonshire and passing through Leicestershire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire before merging with the Severn at Tewkesbury.
The second longest is sometimes known as the Lower avon or Bristol avon to distinguish it from its bigger cousin. It rises at acton Turville near Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire and travels 70 miles before merging with the Severn at avonmouth,
QUESTIONS
Q : Did the Russians develop a plane that could fly backwards?
Ian Grower, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Q : To treat my baby brother’s wind, my mother put a hot cinder in an enamel jug of water, then poured the water into a feeding bottle. Could this have any benefit?
Mick Surtees, Cheshunt, Herts. near Bristol. The Hampshire or Salisbury avon has two sources, at Devizes and at Pewsey, which merge at Upavon in the Vale of Pewsey in Wiltshire. It then descends 60 miles through Wiltshire, Hampshire and Dorset before draining into the Channel at Mudeford, in Dorset.
another Hampshire avon, often known as avon Water, is the nine-mile stretch of river which rises near Holmsley in the New Forest and flows south east into the Solent.
england’s shortest river avon is just seven miles long. rising near ryder’s Hill, one of the highest points of Dartmoor National Park, it flows south to the Devon coastal town of Bigbury-on-Sea, where it drains into the Channel.
There are three Scottish avons. The longest is a 40-mile river that rises on the foothills of Ben MacDui and descends for ten miles before entering remote Loch avon at 3,700 ft high in the Cairngorms National Park.
another rises near Irvine in ayrshire and flows 24 miles north east before merging with the river Clyde between Hamilton and Motherwell in Lanarkshire.
Scotland’s shortest river avon rises near Cumbernauld in Lanarkshire and travels 11 miles before draining into the Firth of Forth at Grangemouth on Scotland’s east coast.
The Welsh river avon, afon afan, rises in the Vale of Glamorgan and travels south westerly for just 14 miles before reaching Port Talbot on the south coast of Wales, where it drains into Swansea Bay.
Anthony Marsh, Bristol.
QUESTION Why do the Jewish and Muslim religions prohibit the consumption of scaleless fish?
MOSES was called the Lawgiver not just because he brought the Ten Commandments, given by God, down from Mount Sinai but also because he acted as a channel for God to provide the Children Of Israel with many more rules and laws. These may be found in the Book of Leviticus, the third book of the Pentateuch, or Torah; the first five books of what Christians call the Old Testament, the theological basis for the Jewish religion. These laws are mainly about how to worship God and include forms of worship, sacrifice, cleanliness, punishments for sin, etc.
They also lay down marriage laws, prohibiting certain sexual relationships. Leviticus Ch18 v22, for example, prohibits homosexuality. If you find that harsh, consider Ch19 v19 which says you can’t wear cloth woven from two different types of material, or v28 which says you must not have tattoos.
The whole of Ch11 concerns Jewish dietary law, often referred to as Kosher. Basically, any meat from animals with cloven hooves and which chew the cud — sheep, cattle, deer, etc — are OK to eat, but meat from other animals such as horses, which don’t have cloven hooves, or pigs, which have cloven hooves but don’t chew the cud, can’t be consumed.
On water creatures, vs 9 and 10 state: ‘Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales. But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales — whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water — you are to regard as unclean.’
Most of the creatures that fall into the banned category are ‘ bottom feeders’, living off the waste of other creatures, breaching Jewish laws on cleanliness. Tainted sea food was also a common source of food poisoning.
almost all of Islam’s dietary laws are also based on Leviticus, which isn’t surprising as the Jews had a lot of influence across the Middle east and the prophet Mohamed, as a trader, would have visited many cities with Jewish communities. Medina, where Muhammad lived after being forced to flee from Mecca, was a Jewish town seized by the prophet and his followers.
Muhammad may have noticed that Jews suffered less from food poisoning than non- Jews and may have attributed this to their strict dietary rules. as well as food poisoning caused by tainted sea food, for many centuries pork was known to cause an illness known as trichinosis, which we now know was caused by a type of roundworm. This parasite has been eradicated in modern pork farming.
The Halal and Kosher practice of draining the blood from animals before eating is laid down in Ch17 of Leviticus, which prohibits the consumption of blood.
Bob Cubitt, Northampton.
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