Anna Sewell Anniversary

Monday 30^th March sees the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Anna Sewell, fondly remembered as the author of the children’s classic novel “Black Beauty.”

Born by the seaside at Great Yarmouth, she only ever had one published book to her name, but it has become one of the top ten best selling children’s novels ever written even though it was originally intended for an adult audience.

From a devout Quaker family, Anna and her brother were on the whole educated by their mother, but they were forced to spend time away from home living with grandparents as the family’s financial status was precarious (their father was a shopkeeper).

After an accident at the age of 12 where Anna broke both of her ankles and the subsequent treatment she received was shoddy, she spent a lifetime being unable to stand for long periods and was in constant pain.

At the age of 16, Anna’s family moved to Brighton on the south coast hoping the warmer climate would have a beneficial effect on her ailing health. In the next few years the family moved around the country to Wick in Scotland and to Bath in the westcountry in an effort to ease her poor health.

Anna had a great equine love and she was inspired to write “Black Beauty” (originally entitled The Autobiography of a Horse) after observing inhumane treatment to horses.

Already into her 50’s, she worked on the novel between the years of 1871 and 1877, but was in such poor health at the time she was unable to leave her bed and in the main dictated the story to her mother.

Her masterpiece was published in 1877 when Anna was 57 years old for which she was paid the sum of £40. At the time she was completely bedridden and in extreme pain.

She passed away 5 months after publication, of hepatitis or tuberculosis, however she was able to witness the initial warm reception the book received in England before she died. She was buried at the Quaker burial-ground near to Buxton in Norfolk.

@uncletatty #TattyHistory

Hit by the Rhythm Stick!

On 27^th March it will be 20 years since punk/new wave singer, songwriter and actor, Ian Dury died.

Fondly remembered as the lead singer of Ian Dury and the Blockheads, he contracted polio as a 7 year old during the 1949 epidemic.

He claimed that he caught the disease at a swimming pool in Southend-on-Sea and after 6 weeks spent in a full plaster cast in hospital, he spent the next few years convalescing from the illness in varying hospitals throughout the UK. It resulted in paralysis and withering of his left leg, shoulder and arm.

Musically, he first came to prominence as lead singer of the pub rock outfit “Kilburn and the High Roads” who released one album in 1975 before disbanding later in the same year.

Next came the infamous “Blockheads” who had the reputation as one of the top live new wave bands. With such wonderful output as Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll*, Reasons to be Cheerful Part 3, and my personal favourite the truly wonderful What a Waste, Ian Dury and the Blockheads amassed a massive fan base with musical influences ranging through jazz, rock and roll, funk and reggae genres.

 Ian Dury and the Blockheads - What a Waste

(* Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll was actually released under the single name of “Ian Dury”, but three of the Blockheads also appeared on the recording).

Their biggest hit was the immortal Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick. Reaching no.1 in the UK in the early part of 1979, it went on to sell just under a million copies. It also topped the charts in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and was a top 20 hit in several European countries.

Dury was initially diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 1996. He underwent surgery only for tumours to be later found in his liver. At that stage he was informed that his prognosis was terminal.

Ian Dury Memorial Bench - Richmond Park, London.

He died of metastatic colorectal cancer on 27^th March 2000. Madness singer Suggs described him as “possibly the greatest lyricist we’ve seen.” Very much a fair call I strongly suggest.

@uncletatty #TattyHistory

Smart to be Square!

30 years ago, on 25^th March 1990, British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) began broadcasting in the UK as a rival to Sky TV. The company was noted and best remembered for its distinctive “squarial” satellite dishes.

Both companies struggled with high start-up costs, and they merged some 9 months later on 2nd November 1990, forming British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) – renamed Sky plc in 2014.

It always struck me as an interesting and somewhat sad decision to scrap the “squarial” dish, which held a unique style, in favour of the traditional (if you like), boring satellite dish. 

It had something of an attractive, upmarket appearance and brought about BSB’s slogan “it’s smart to be square”.

#TattyHistory @uncletatty

The Sinking of a Pirate

40 years ago today (20^th March 1980), the Mi Amigo, the ship used by the British pirate radio station Radio Caroline, sank whilst still broadcasting, in a force 10 storm on the North Sea.

On Easter Sunday 1964, Pirate station Radio Caroline started broadcasting to the UK from an old ferry based 3 miles of the Suffolk coast. A few months later, after they merged with rival station Radio Atlanta, they moved home to Atlanta’s Mi Amigo vessel just off the Essex coast.

After the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act outlawed all Pirate Station broadcasts (August 1967), Caroline continued to broadcast in defiance of the act, but with reduced revenue coming in, the ship was seized by creditors in March 1968.

By 1974 the station was back on air again, but because of its age the Mi Amigo’s seaworthiness was deteriorating. More than once it had broken anchor in a storm and had run aground, being described by rescue crews as a “death trap.”

On that fateful night, during a particularly severe storm, the Mi Amigo again broke anchor and drifted. The crew attempted for hours to pump out water from the stricken vessel, but to no avail. Meanwhile all through the rescue attempts, the station remained on air.

A few minutes after midnight the Mi Amigo finally sank, leaving only the mast visible above the waves.

Please follow this link to hear the last minutes on air 

Beam Me Up Scotty

On Tuesday March 3^rd 2020, James Doohan, the actor who became famous for playing Chief Engineer of the Starship Enterprise, Montgomery “Scotty” Scott in the original Star Trek TV series, would have been 100 years old.

Remembered for often receiving the instruction from Captain Kirk, “Beam me up Scotty”, was born 100 years ago in Canada’s Vancouver. He was the youngest of 4 children, whose parents had previously emigrated from Northern Ireland. His father was a pharmacist, veterinarian and dentist, while his mother was a homemaker.

A war hero

Early in the World War II, Doohan joined the 14th Field Artillery Regiment of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division (1938-1946) and saw combat in Europe including at the D-Day invasions of Normandy in 1944.

Although never being an official member as such, Doohan was once labelled the "craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Force". In 1945 at Salisbury Plain, England, he flew a plane (A Mark IV Auster) in a slalom fashion between telegraph poles, just to prove it was possible. For his endeavours he earned a serious reprimand. Maybe it is just as well he never attempted to pilot the USS Enterprise in a similar fashion!

Original Star Trek Cast

After the war Jimmy Doohan gained extensive radio and TV experience which eventually culminated in his landing the role in the mid 1960's that brought his worldwide fame as “Scotty” in Star Trek.

When the original TV series came to a close, he continued in the role for a further 5 movies and various animations and he was a regular attendee at Star Trek Conventions.

Married 3 times and the father of 7 children, we was a heavy drinker and suffered diabetes, liver cirrhosis, osteoarthritis, high blood pressure, and hearing loss in later life. Also after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, he withdrew from public life in 2004.

A year later he died, aged 85, due to complications of pulmonary fibrosis, believed to have emanated from his exposure to noxious substances during World War II

Barings Bank Collapse - February 1995

Barings Bank Collapse – February 1995

25 years ago (on 26^th February 1995) Barings Bank, the oldest merchant bank in London, collapsed after its chief trader in Singapore, Nick Leeson lost millions in unauthorised transactions.

Founded as far back as 1762, Barings Bank was among the largest, and was considered to be one of the most stable banks in the world. In 1995 its chief trader in Singapore, Nick Leeson, was found to be a rogue trader making fraudulent, unauthorised and totally speculative moves, losing around £625m.

                 

However from 1992, he was amazingly successful making numerous trades, albeit unauthorised, that made large profits for Barings, accounting for 10% of the bank’s annual profit. But soon enough his judgment became suspect and he started to use an error account to hide the losses that were being accrued.

From a deficit of just £2m in 1992, to £23m in late 1993, by 1994 the amount had spiralled to close on £208m. Every time he lost money, he used a doubling up strategy of further investments in an attempt to get both himself and the bank out of trouble.

The beginning of the end came in mid-January 1995 when Leeson made 2 transactions on the Singapore and Tokyo stock markets essentially hoping that the Japanese market would not move overnight. 

But when the Kobe earthquake hit in the early hours of 17 January, Asian markets plummeted. Leeson reacted making a series of ultra high risk trades in the forlorn hope that the Nikkei Stock Average would recover, but to no avail.

Leeson fled Singapore on 23 February and after a failed bailout attempt, Barings Bank was declared insolvent on 26^th February 1995.

Leeson was finally arrested in Frankfurt in November 1995 and was sentenced to a 6 and a half years jail term in Singapore.

The Cato Street Conspiracy

Building in Cato Street where
the conspirators were found

200 years ago this week (and more than 200 years after Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot), another attempt was made to murder the serving Prime Minister (Lord Liverpool in this case) and all the British cabinet ministers. 

Known as the Cato Street Conspiracy, it was named after the conspirators’ meeting place in a hayloft located close by to  London's Edgware Road.

On 23 February 1820, England was a country on the brink of revolution. Lord Liverpool led a Tory government which has severely restricted free speech and free assembly while supplying the authorities with greater powers to prosecute critics of their regime. Only 3 weeks into his reign, King George IV was the monarch of a country stricken by austerity and ruled by political turmoil (does this sound familiar at all?).

A group called the Spencean Philanthropists, who took their name from the radical Thomas Spence, spent many months devising their plot which reached its climax at 7.30 in the evening, when 30 men met at a house in Cato Street, ready to walk the short distance to nearby Grosvenor Square. Once arriving at the more fashionable area of the capital, they planned to storm a house where the PM and his aides were having dinner.

Arthur Thistlewood

Led by Arthur Thistlewood, a former soldier, the Cato Street mob planned on one member of the gang knocking at the door with a supposed parcel delivery and when the door was opened, for the group to force entry.

Once the entire cabinet had been murdered, the plan was to decapitate all the members and display them on spikes at Westminster Bridge (especially those of the particularly reviled Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh and Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth).

But like Fawkes’ attempt 2 centuries earlier, this attack at the state was foiled from within as Thistlewood’s group was infiltrated by a police spy George Edwards.

Arrest at Cato Street

The Bow Street Runners, London’s first professional Police service, had been watching the premises in Cato Street all day and when all the conspirators had arrived, a battle ensued and with assistance from the Coldstream Guards, most of the gang were arrested at the scene. Thistlewood actually managed to slip away and was actually caught the next morning while sleeping.

In all 13 plotters were charged with treason, with five conspirators being executed and five others transported to Australia.

Other historical factoids this week:

150 years ago: 23 February 1870 - The U.S. state of Mississippi was restored to the Union following the American Civil War.

Pluto

90 years ago: 18 February 1930 - The dwarf planet Pluto was discovered by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh.

15 years ago: 18 February 2005 - Hunting wild mammals with dogs was banned in England and Wales. (Hunting foxes with dogs had already been banned in Scotland.)

Famous Deaths

75 years ago:  21 February 1945 - Death of Eric Liddell, Scottish athlete. Olympic gold medalist in 1924 (400m). Because of his religious convictions, he withdrew from the 100m heats because they were held on a Sunday, and entered (and won) the 400m instead as the heats and final were held on weekdays. He was portrayed by the actor Ian Charleson in the film Chariots of Fire.

(Died in a WWII internment camp in China, aged 43.)

30 years ago: 24 February 1990 - Death of Johnnie Ray, American singer, songwriter and pianist. Hugely popular in the1950s, he was known for his early rock and roll style and wild stage persona.

Alf Wight (James Herriot)

25 years ago: 23 February 1995 - Death of James Herriot (real name Alf Wight), British veterinary surgeon and writer who wrote semi-autobiographical stories about his experiences, (All Creatures Great and Small).

20 years ago: 23 February 2000 - Death of Sir Stanley Matthews, British football player.