Spot the stars in this team...
QUESTION Did Roxy Music star Bryan Ferry once play in the same football team as Everton legend Howard Kendall? Bryan Ferry and Howard Kendall played in the same school football team between 1957 and 1960. There’s a photograph of them in the Washington Grammar School squad of 1957-58. Later in life, Kendall claimed he bumped into Ferry at the Liverpool arena and called him ‘a wimpy right-winger’.
The two had a similar upbringing: their fathers were miners, though Fred Ferry, who had been a ploughman, looked after the pit ponies, while Jack Kendall was forced by pneumoconiosis — a lung disease caused by long exposure to coal dust — into becoming a caretaker in a country school.
Kendall went on to play for Preston north end, everton, Stoke City, Birmingham City and Blackburn rovers, making 613 League appearances between 1963 and 1981. In 1964, he became the youngest player to appear in an Fa Cup Final at that time, playing for Preston against West Ham at the age of 17 years 345 days.
He also managed two of his former clubs, Blackburn and everton (leading them to two First Division titles, an Fa Cup and a european Cup Winners’ Cup) as well as athletic Bilbao, Manchester City, notts County, Sheffield United and FC Xanthi (Greece). Kendall died last October at 69.
Ferry, now 70, became a global pop star with roxy Music, and in 2010, according to the Sunday Times rich List, was said to have a personal fortune of £30 million.
Tony Matthews, football historian and statistician, Cabrera, Andalucía, Spain. QUESTION In the song William Bloat by The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, what is the significance of the razor blade being German made and the rope Belfast linen? THIS song was popularised by The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, but was written by raymond Colville Calvert.
Born in Banochry House, Helens Bay, Co Down, on October 30, 1906, Calvert was a leading member of the University Dramatic Society and it was for the 1926 cast party that he composed The Ballad Of William Bloat, a pastiche of the Irish classic raglan road and sung to the same tune.
The macabre song tells the story of William Bloat who, fed up with his wife, murders her in a most unpleasant manner: In a mean abode on the
Skankill Road Lived a man named William Bloat; He had a wife, the curse of his life, Who continually got his goat. So one day at dawn, with her
nightdress on He slit her bloody throat. Despite being pleased with his work, Bloat decides he has nothing to live for: So to finish the fun so well begun, He resolved himself to kill.
He does this by hanging himself from the ‘ pantry shelf ’ using a bedsheet. Unfortunately for Bloat, his wife survived the ordeal He went to Hell but his wife
got well, And she’s still alive and sinnin’ because the razor blade was german made, But the sheet was Belfast linen. Hundreds of thousands of Irishmen fought and died in World War I. Calvert wrote his song in the aftermath, so the German blade is characterised as poorly made and unreliable, but the Belfast-made linen sheet is of good enough quality to finish off William Bloat.
Keith Beglin, Belfast. QUESTION When was the first successful blood transfusion? English physician William Harvey (15781657) first described continuous circulation of blood around the body in 1616.
The first animal- to- human blood transfusion took place in France during in 1667. Physician Jean-Baptiste Denis (1643-1704) transfused sheep’s blood into a child suffering from a fever and the boy survived. Unfortunately, two subsesquent patients died.
Six months later, British physician richard Lower (1631-1691) and colleagues administered 9oz of sheep’s blood into willing Cambridge theology student arthur Coga to make him calmer. Coga survived, but it made no difference.
But the fatal reactions recorded by Denis led to the blood transfusion being banned in France and subsequently in england. Blood transfusion fell into disrepute and neglect for a century and a half.
James Blundell ( 1791- 1878), an obstetrician at Guy’s Hospital in London, is credited with re-introducing blood transfusion into medical practice. He described his experience of blood transfusion, in dogs and humans, using a syringe. Of particular note was a successful transfusion to a woman haemorrhaging after giving birth.
He demonstrated great working knowledge of circulation, recommended rapid action to prevent coagulation, demonstrated the importance of avoiding air intake in the veins and the incompatibility of blood from different species.
He introduced two instruments for transfusion: the impellor and the gravitator. The impellor consisted of a funnel and pump for the collection of donor blood for indirect transfusion into the veins of a patient. The gravitator injected blood into the patient via a tube suspended from a vessel held high above the patient.
Dr Ian Smith, Cambridge.
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