From our archives
A seal lost for 692 years, commissioned by Robert the Bruce for Dunfermline Abbey. has been sold at auction for £151,250. It smashes the previous record of £40,000 for a Scottish seal. King Robert sanctioned the Cocquet Seal of the Regality of Dunfermline to be cut on in 1322. It was made in two parts - one depicting the Lion Rampant Royal Arms of Scotland and the other St Margaret. The seals were described as “probably the best medieval seal that has ever come to market in the UK”.
The slim, forceful arms which reach out to the heavens once symbolised a rallying call to defend the world against the forces of fascism. Today, however, the statue in Glasgow of Spanish Communist Party leader Dolores Ibarruri, known as La Pasionaria (passion flower), appears to be making an appeal for her own restoration. Commissioned exactly 30 years ago today in tribute to the Scots of the International Brigade who fought and died in the Spanish Civil War, La Pasionaria is now dull and weatherbeaten.
Wet Wet Wet (pictured) ran into a storm after a TV advert for End of Part One promised buyers the band’s single, Love Is All Around. But the ballad which topped the British charts for 15 weeks was not included on it. The Independent Television Commission upheld viewers’ complaints against Phonogram Records. “There’s no doubt it was misleading. They had two different versions of the album, one for Europe and the other for Britain, and the British version didn’t have the single,” said the ITC .
Marital infidelity to-day ceased to be a crime in Italy under a ruling by the Italian Constitutional Court. The Court struck out two articles of the penal code which could send a wife to prison for two years for having an adulterous relationship and could do the same thing to a husband for keeping a concubine in the home. The articles violated constitutional guarantees on the equality of all citizens and particularly that of man and wife, the Court ruled. The laws punished a wife simply for having an adulterous relationship.
Terence Ward (54), a night watchman, and his wife, Margaret Gillon or Ward, were found dead in their house, 9 St Joseph’s Place, Mile End, Glasgow on Wednesday might. Mrs Ward was seen by the neighbours about a week ago but her husband had not been seen out of doors for some days before that. Their non-appearance aroused the suspicions of the people in the locality and, on the house being entered, the couple were found dead on the kitchen floor. The cause of death is not yet known.