Ministerial egg attacks, nightmarish jackdaws and the abominable snowman

This week in 1970 and tensions were running high on the General Eleciton campaign as Prime Minister Harold Wilson had four more eggs thrown at him when he visited Langley in the Eton and Slough constituency. The attack, by a young Conservative demonstrator, was just one of many on the PM who retaliated, “Eggs must be cheap enough to throw about”.

Political troubles ran in the Middle East too as United States diplomat, Major Robert Perry, was shot dead at his house in Jebel Hussein in Amman when fighting raged between Palestinian commandos and Jordanian security forces. The news of the diplomat’s death coincided with the attempted assassination of King Hussein of Jordan who survived an attack just two miles northeast of the capital Amman. Gunmen opened fire on the King’s motorcade, and although he was reportedly unharmed, his driver was seriously wounded.

In the music world and The Who were about to make history as they became the first act to perform rock music at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York for their rock opera, Tommy.

More music news and The Long and Winding Road became The Beatles’ 20th and final single to reach number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Also this week and British climber Don Whillans claimed to have seen an “abominable snowman” – also known as a Yeti – on the snow clad slopes of Annapurna I in the Himalayas. The Yeti wasn’t spotted again and the search continues.

And finally, Alfred Hitchcock’s terrifying movie, The Birds, was about to become a nightmarish reality for eight year old Mark Thompson, who was found screaming and bleeding on the ground with a jackdaw pecking his legs. The bird kept attacking even after the discovery by Jean Clifft who took the boy to her car. “It was like a horror film,” she said. “It was frightening because the bird was not worried by me – it just kept attacking!”