April 10, 2020 ON THIS DAY
APRIL 10, 1942
SERvICE girls and women war-workers are to be urged to wear their hair shorter. The popular long-rolled hairstyle is unsuitable for women in the Services and the war factories. It is unhygienic. If typhus broke out, it might aid infection.
APRIL 10, 1969
REALLY flying high! That was the AngloFrench Concorde supersonic airliner yesterday after a near perfect 22-minute maiden flight. At 2.24pm, test pilot Brian Trubshaw aboard Concorde hurtled down the runway at Filton, Bristol, and, at more than 190mph, lifted the needle nose of the plane towards the pale blue sky.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
DAISY RIDLEY, 28. The London-born actress was working in a pub when she got her breakout role in the first of three Star Wars films. She started kickboxing to get in shape for the film and is a green belt. ‘I am a lot tougher now, which is great, she says. She is a great-niece of Arnold Ridley — Private Godfrey in Dad’s Army. GLORIA HUNNIFORD, 80. The broadcaster from Northern Ireland is a co-host of the BBC’s Rip-Off Britain and the mother of the late Blue Peter presenter Caron Keating. Hunniford was the first woman to have a daily show on BBC Radio 2. Terry Wogan introduced her by saying: ‘Next up we have Grievous Bodily Hunniford. Gosh, I can see her now behind the glass, wearing those slinky fishnet stockings and high heels.’ Quick as a flash, she retorted: ‘My grandmother’s been talking about you for years. I expected some handsome man in a sharp suit and here you are . . . unshaven with egg stains down your dressing gown.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
MAx vON SYDOW (19292020). The Swedish actor, who died last month aged 90, played the exorcist in The Exorcist, Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Bond film Never Say Never Again and Jesus Christ in The Greatest Story Ever Told. Dubbed the ‘god of gravitas’, born Carl Adolf von Sydow, he changed it to Max, which had been his nickname during his military service. PENNY vINCENzI (1939-2018). The bestselling romance novelist from Bournemouth, a former journalist for vogue, got her big break after interviewing Jilly Cooper in 1988 and telling her: ‘I want to write this kind of nonsense too.’ Cooper introduced her to an agent — and, soon afterwards, vincenzi signed a £100,000 deal for her first book.