Satchmo’s sicknote

QUESTION Was there a real St James Infirmary, as in the old jazz favourite recorded by Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong? This tragic song started life as a poem and later a song called The Unfortunate Rake (or Lad). it was a traditional English folk song, based on a soldier on leave seeing another soldier looking pale and ghostly at the window of st James’ hospital.

The young patient is dying of a social disease after squandering his army pay on ladies of ill repute and the passing soldier imagines he’s looking at his own future.

The oldest published text was collected in 1848 in County Cork, but it’s thought to date from 18th-century England. it’s been surmised that it took its name from st James’s hospital, London, constructed as a religious retreat for the treatment of leprosy and other contractable diseases. henry Viii closed it in 1532 to create land on which to build st James’s Palace.

Another possibility is the infirmary section of the st James Workhouse, opened by st James Parish in 1725 on Poland street, Piccadilly. This infirmary was contemporaneous with the advent of the song.

Like many English, scottish, Welsh and irish folk songs, it eventually made its way to America where it became a favourite of blues and jazz musicians. Louis ‘satchmo’ Armstrong made the first popular recording of it in 1928, and Deep south folk blues musician Blind Willie McTell made it a hit in 1940, claiming to have written it in 1929.

Typical variations have the narrator telling the story of a young man (occasionally, a young woman) ‘cut down in his prime’ as a result of morally questionable behaviour. When the song moved to America, gambling and alcohol became common causes of the youth’s death.

in 1965, Donovan recorded a remarkably similar song called Cuttin’ Out on his first LP. instead of singing ‘i went down to st James infirmary’, he sings ‘i went down to Josie’s bar room’ with a very similar tune.

Other fine renditions have been recorded by Rickie Lee Jones, Van Morrison, hugh Laurie, Cab Calloway, scatman Crothers, Duke Ellington, the White stripes, Lou Rawls, and a live version by Joe Cocker. My favourite is on the debut LP by unique oneman band Don Partridge, now sadly gone.

Danny Darcy, Reading, Berks. QUESTION How many predictions of the end of the world has the human race so far survived? MOsT major religions/cults have teachings regarding the end-times, the study of which is known as Eschatology. There have been Sad tale: Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong countless attempts to predict the end of the world using Biblical timetables, numerology, science etc.

American evangelist harold Camping publicly predicted the end of the world as many as 12 times, based on his interpretations of biblical numerology.

in 1992, he published 1994? — predicting the end of the world in that year. his latest prediction foresaw armageddon on May 21, 2011, a date he calculated to be exactly 7,000 years after the Biblical flood.

An attempt to collate these predictions concluded there have been 244 solid predictions of the world’s end. some notable attempts include Montanism, a 2nd-century heretical Christian sect from Phyrgia, in modern Turkey.

Based on the visions of Montanus, many Christian communities migrated to a plain between the villages of Pepuza and Tymion in Phrygia, to wait for Jesus to descend.

Various Millennarian prophesies emerged around 1,000AD. Anglo-saxon preacher Wulfstan was one such advocate. its failure to appear didn’t stop him; in a 1014 sermon, he proclaimed: ‘Beloved men, realise what it true: this world is in haste and the end approaches.’

German astrologer and priest Johannes stoeffler predicted in 1499 that a great flood would cover the world on February 20, 1524, when all of the known planets would be in alignment under Pisces.

This set in motion a general panic. Of the known arks to be built, the most ambitious was by German Count von iggleheim who constructed a luxury, three-storey ark for his friends and family. When 1524 eventually proved to be one of the driest years on record, stoeffler concluded that the Great Flood would come in 1528.

in 1806, a domesticated hen in Leeds appeared to lay eggs inscribed with the message ‘Christ is coming’, causing panic in the town. But it was found to be a hoax by Mary Bateman, who had written on the eggs using acid and reinserted them into the hen’s oviduct.

U.s. preacher William Miller predicted the second coming of Jesus in 1843, causing another mass panic. When his prediction failed to materialise, he recalculated to 1844. Follower henry Emmons wrote: ‘i waited all Tuesday, and dear Jesus did not come . . . i lay prostrate for two days without any pain, sick with disappointment.’

Taiwanese religious leader hon-Ming Chen established Chen Tao, or True Way, a religious movement that blended elements of Christianity, Buddhism, UFOlogy and Taiwanese folk religion. Chen preached that God would appear on U.s. television channel 18 on March 25, 1988, to announce the end of days.

December 21, 2012, marked the end of the first Great Cycle of the Maya Long Count calendar and many misinterpreted this to mean an absolute end to the calendar, which tracked time continuously from a date 5,125 years earlier.

Charles Morley, King’s Lynn, Norfolk. QUESTION Did they have nude models draped over cars at the UK Motor Show in the Seventies? FURThER to the earlier answer, back in the seventies, i was working on final assembly at the TVR factory in Blackpool. We didn’t get many visitors, but one day two girls came in through the side door off Bristol Avenue.

i was tipped off by one of the supervisors that it would be worth keeping an eye on proceedings. A short time later, both girls emerged from the office with a photographer and a member of the management team and walked over to a white Vixen car due to go to the UK Motor show.

One of the girls, who were both clearly models, took off her coat and handed it to her friend — she was totally naked underneath! she proceeded to position herself on the car, lying all over the bonnet as the photographer busily snapped away.

The supervisor and i got a real eyeful. Productivity on final assembly wasn’t great that afternoon.

Nev hughes, Blackpool. QUESTION I heard Birmingham called a ‘hotbed of invention’. What was invented there? FURThER to the earlier answer, in 1940 John Randall and henry Boot, working at the University of Birmingham, produced the resonant cavity magnetron. This magnetron made small high-powered radar apparatus possible, to the immense benefit of the RAF and UsAAF.

Later, the magnetron was the power source for microwave ovens.

t. Johnson, harrow, Middx.

IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB. You can also fax them to 0141 331 4739 or you can email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.