A soft, sandy landing . . .
QUESTION Is Barra in the Outer Hebrides the only place in Britain where a scheduled airline lands on the beach?
The island of Barra has a short runway airport at its northern tip in the wide, shallow bay of Traigh Mhor. The beach is set out with three runways, marked by wooden poles at their ends, allowing Twin Otter aircraft to fly and land into the wind.
The de havilland Canada DhC-6 Twin Otter is a Canadian 19-passenger STOL (short take-off and landing) utility aircraft developed by de havilland Canada and produced by Viking Air.
At high tide, the runways are under water, so flight times vary with the tide. Flights take off and land only during daylight, apart from occasional emergency flights when reflective strips are laid on the beach. The beach runway is unique — the only one in the world for scheduled aircraft.
The Air Ministry officially licensed Traigh Mhor as an airfield on August 7, 1936, and a daily service was promoted in the Oban Times from early July that year.
The single fare from Barra to Glasgow in the winter of 1936 was £4, while a 90-day return was available for £7 17s 6d. Today, a single fare to and from Glasgow is £74 and flights are operated by Flybe.
The long stretch of beach from Pilling Sands to Knott end, Lancashire, is often used to land microlights, but Barra is the only proper airport to run such a service. A. P. Barnaby, Southampton.
QUESTION What is the history of the BACS money system, as used in company payroll transfers?
BACS originated in the UK in 1968. It was created by Dennis Gladwell at the InterBank Computer Bureau to take advantage of electronic advances and allow funds to be transferred between banking institutions without the existing paper-based standing order system.
Secure electronic funds transfer between banks came in later that year, significantly reducing the processing time and human error associated with paper- based transactions, particularly bulk payments.
BACS transfers made it possible for payments to be made in three working days: day one, enter transfer; day two, process transfer; and day three, to clear the funds. This meant that transactions could be guaranteed using this method. In 1971, the company adopted the name ‘Bankers Automated Clearing Services Limited’. As more banks and (from 1985) building societies joined in, the name was shortened to BACS Ltd.
More recently, i n 2008, the Faster Payments Service i ni t i at iv e was implemented. FPS aimed to reduce the original three days to a matter of hours, and since then more than 100 billion transactions have been completed. Almost all Britain’s workforce are paid via BACS.
Ian Daly, Birmingham.
QUESTION When were oranges brought to Europe?
The taxonomy of the orange/citrus is complex. The fruit of the citrus sinensis is considered a sweet orange, while the fruit of C. aurantium is considered bitter.
The orange is technically a hybrid, possibly between the omello ( c. maxima) and the mandarin ( c. reticulata ), which has been cultivated since ancient times.
All citrus trees belong to a single genus and remain inter-fertile. This means there is only one ‘ superspecies’ that includes grapefruit, lemons, limes, oranges and various other types and hybrids.
The orange is believed to have originated in south-east Asia: varieties were grown in south-east and north-east regions of India, dating back to 7,000 years ago.
The Chinese were probably the first to cultivate it from about 2,500BC.
The first citrus fruit introduced to the West was the citron ( citrus medica ), today the least-known of the cultivated citrus fruits. Unlike its cousins, the citron had a thick rind and dry pulp, and its use was ornamental and medicinal.
It probably originated on the Arabian peninsula and was brought to the west by Persian traders. It might be the only citrus fruit mentioned in the Bible, by Moses with the word hadar (Lev. 23:40).
Roman author Theophrastus described the citron in 310BC. A 1st century tile floor mosaic found in a Roman villa near Tusculum (modern Frascati) indicates that lemons and limes were known in Italy. These appear to have disappeared with the collapse of the Roman empire.
The Arabs spread the bitter orange to europe. Alleged to have been brought from India in the 10th century, it was planted in Oman on the Arabian peninsula. The Arabs carried it, and the lemon, to all conquered lands, from Iraq in the east to Spain in the west.
The sour orange was cultivated around Seville, Spain, at the end of the 12th century and became known as the Seville orange, used in marmalades and liquor.
The last major variety of citrus fruit to reach europe was the juicy, sweet orange, which quickly replaced other varieties.
This was brought f rom India by Portuguese explorers following Vasco da Gama’s discovery of the sea route from India around the Cape of Good hope in the late 15th century.
The actual date on which the sweet orange reached America has even been recorded: it was July 12, 1518, when Juan de Grijalva landed at Tonala in the Mexican province of Vera Cruz and planted seeds brought from Cuba. Subsequently Portuguese, Spanish, British and Dutch sailors planted citrus trees along trade routes to prevent scurvy.
Darren Smith, Oxford.
QUESTION During World War II, Germany had its allegedly escape-proof Colditz Castle. Was there a British equivalent? Were any German or Italian prisoners habitual escapees? Did any make ‘home runs’?
FURTheR to the earlier answer, the only German PoW known to have successfully made a ‘home run’ in either world war was Oberleutnant Gunther Pl uschow (1886-1931).
he was incarcerated in the PoW camp in Donington hall, Leicestershire, in May 1915. On July 4, 1915, he escaped during a storm and headed for London.
After posing as a dockworker and swimming across the Thames estuary, Pluschow stowed away on a Dutch steamer ship at Tilbury docks.
he talked his way past a Dutch policeman before travelling to Germany by train, receiving a hero’s welcome and being presented with the Iron Cross First Class.
he was later the first man to explore and film Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia from the air. he was killed on a second aerial expedition to Patagonia in 1931.
Michael Wright, Grantham, Lincs.
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