ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
OCTOBER 30, 1939 MISS Unity Mitford, one of Hitler’s most loyal foreign admirers, is ill in a Munich clinic following a scene with Hitler. She is alleged to have said that when the Fuhrer received her, he savagely abused England and the English. Miss Mitford returned to her hotel in a state of depression. The next day she was found unconscious. [It later emerged she’d shot herself in the head.] OCTOBER 30, 1969 FELLOW railwaymen of Jack Mills, the train driver injured in The Great Train Robbery of 1963, have started a fund to make the rest of his days more comfortable. The Daily Mail shares the pleasure this news will give to its readers, many of whom have sent money to help start the fund off. [He’d received just £250 compensation.]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
MARIO TESTINO, 63. The world’s most prolific magazine and fashion photographer (pictured) has snapped Princess Diana, Madonna and Kate Moss and took William and Kate’s engagement pictures. Born in Peru, he arrived in London in 1977 and has said he doesn’t think he’ll ever retire. ‘I work 14 hours a day, every day. I adore it. We don’t retire. We just carry on.’ BOB WILSON, 76. Arsenal goalkeeper, coach and TV broadcaster. His father persuaded him against signing a contract with Manchester United in favour of teacher training — which he completing while playing for Arsenal. His middle name, Primrose, stems from a Scottish tradition of giving children their mother’s maiden name as a middle name.
BORN ON THIS DAY
ANNA WING (1914-2013). The actress is best remembered for playing matriarch Lou Beale in EastEnders. She auditioned for the role at 71 and brought along her birth certificate to prove she had been born in London’s East End and was the daughter of a greengrocer (the character’s trade). Wing told producers: ‘All my life I’ve been an actress, now I want to be a household name.’ JOHN ADAMS (1735-1826). The second President of the United States had served as the first Vice-President (under George Washington). The lawyer had complained to his wife: ‘My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.’
ON OCTOBER 30…
IN 1957, the Government announced plans to allow women to serve in the House of Lords. IN 1974, Muhammad Ali defeated George Foreman in Zaire — the Rumble in the Jungle — to regain the world heavyweight title. GUESS THE DEFINITION xerophagy (coined 1656) A) The eating of raw flesh. B) Playing with one’s food. C) The eating of dry food. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED
To come a cropper: To fall heavily or fail ignominiously is most likely to derive from the hind quarters of a horse, the ‘croup’ or ‘crupper’. In the 18th century, those falling from a horse were said to have fallen ‘neck and crop’, meaning head over heels.