ON THIS DAY
June 5, 2020
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
JUNE 5, 1940 EVERY household in Britain is to get a pamphlet — now being drafted — from the Government telling us what to do if German parachute troops are landed.
JUNE 5, 1951 NON-SMOKING MPs last night pleaded for a ‘smokers’ truce’ in Britain’s theatres and cinemas. But they were outvoiced by Government inspectors, who say there is little danger of anyone being set on fire, and by the Home Office, who see no reason to interfere with local customs.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
ROGER MICHELL, 64. The South Africanborn director, son of a British diplomat, grew up in Beirut, Damascus, Prague and Bristol. Dubbed the ‘rom-com king’, he is best known for Notting Hill, the highest-grossing British film of all time. In April it emerged he had split from his wife, line Of Duty and Motherland actress Anna Maxwell Martin. They met when he cast her in a production.
DAME MARGARET DRABBLE, 81. The novelist (pictured) from Sheffield went to school with Judi Dench and started out as an actress. Dame Margaret loves jigsaws and called her memoir The Pattern In The Carpet: A Personal History With Jigsaws. She is married to biographer Sir Michael Holroyd, but for years they lived separately. She said: ‘If we weren’t married, they’d say we were living together. As we are married, they say we are living apart.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
CHRISTY BROWN (19321981). The writer (pictured) from Dublin, who had cerebral palsy, found fame with his autobiography My left Foot, which told of how he became an artist using the one limb he could control: his left leg. He was one of 22 children, nine of whom died in infancy. Daniel Day-lewis won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Christy in the 1989 film of the book.
CORNELIUS RYAN (1920-1974). The Irish journalist was described by Malcolm Muggeridge as ‘perhaps the most brilliant reporter now alive’. He flew 14 bombing missions with the Eighth and Ninth U.S. Air Forces and covered the D-Day landings.
On June 5...
IN 1944, D-Day was set to begin, on the day judged most likely to combine calm seas, a full moon and low water at first light. But storms delayed the invasion by 24 hours.
IN 2005, quiz Mock the Week launched on BBC2. The first episode included the late comics linda Smith and Jeremy Hardy.
IN 2018, American handbag designer Kate Spade was found dead, aged 55, in her New York apartment, having taken her own life.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Pelter (coined early 15th century)
A) A bald head. B) To dye one’s moustache. C) Fur skins. Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED
To the bitter end: to final defeat, extremity or death; coined in the mid-19th century, this is a nautical term for the end of a rope or chain; without a winch these are fastened to ‘bitts’. When the rope is let fully out, the end is at the ‘bitts’.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Sex appeal is 50 per cent what you’ve got and 50 per cent what people think you have.
Sophia Loren, Italian actress
JOKE OF THE DAY
An invisible man married an invisible woman.
The kids were nothing to look at either.
Guess The Definition answer: C