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garrick92 Invisible Flaneur Joined: 29 Oct 2001 Total posts: 700 Gender: Unknown |
 Posted: 15-05-2013 00:02 Post subject: |
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| Presumably, Claude Friese-Greene was a son of movie pioneer William. |
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| kamalktk Great Old One Joined: 05 Feb 2011 Total posts: 634 Gender: Unknown |
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| McAvennie_ OBE Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Total posts: 2666 Location: Paris, France Age: 34 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 16-05-2013 11:45 Post subject: |
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| Splendid! |
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| kamalktk Great Old One Joined: 05 Feb 2011 Total posts: 634 Gender: Unknown |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17657 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 21-05-2013 23:32 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Plea over Edinburgh Royal Observatory suffragette bomb mystery
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-22608283
A piece of the jar used in the bomb is on display at the observatory
Information on the mystery bomber who 100 years ago attacked the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh during a suffragette campaign is being sought.
The bomber was never caught following the blast that shattered windows, splintered floors and cracked stone on the observatory's tower on 21 May 1913.
The bomb, a jar with gunpowder, exploded at 01:00 when nobody was inside to be injured.
Blood, a ladies' handbag and a note were found at the scene.
Scrawled in ink on a scrap of paper was the phrase: "How beggarly appears argument before defiant deed. Votes for women."
Dr John Davies, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, told the BBC Scotland news website: "Today we encourage young women and girls into science and technology, but it is interesting to see how much has changed here in 100 years.
"The bomber, or bombers, were never caught so we don't know anything about them, but if any of their grandchildren are still in Edinburgh, we'd love to meet them and find out more so we can update the display in our visitor centre."
Although the more moderate suffragists deplored the use of violence a breakaway movement, the Women's Social and Political Union spearheaded by Mrs Pankhurst and her daughter, started a campaign of destruction across Great Britain at the beginning of 1913.
It included attacks on Ayr racecourse, Kew Gardens, Regents Park, and the Tower of London.
Professor Gillian Wright is the current UK Astronomy Technology Centre director
Post boxes had acid poured into them, train carriages were set on fire and telephone lines were cut.
As Mrs Pankhurst said about the WSPU's activities: "We don't intend that you should be pleased." The then Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Ralph Sampson, certainly was not.
He described the attack as "an outrage".
Nobody was ever charged with the attack. At the time the observatory only employed men.
Times have changed and the current director of the UK Astronomy Technology Centre, which runs the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, is Prof Gillian Wright.
A piece of the jar used in the bomb is on display at the observatory. |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17657 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 23-05-2013 12:55 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Cross-dressing spy arrested while on secret mission
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22629712
Lt Col Dudley Clarke, photographed by police shortly after his arrest, was considered a leading expert in military deception
Edward VIII was bugged, files show
Churchill and Stalin's 'merry' night
Allies planned D-day assassinations
One of Britain's most influential World War II spies was arrested in Madrid for cross-dressing, files released by the National Archives show.
Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Clarke was undercover as a correspondent for the Times when detained in the Spanish capital in 1941.
He was "dressed, down to a brassiere, as a woman", reports a letter from the British Embassy to the Foreign Office.
In 1940, he had been instrumental in establishing the British Commandos.
He is also credited with defining the Allies' deception strategy during World War II.
Field Marshall Harold Alexander, who led ground forces at D-Day as well as the Allied forces in Italy, said that "he did as much to win the war as any other single officer".
Lt Col Clarke had stopped off in Madrid in October 1941 on his way to Cairo to deliver important intelligence information to General Auchinleck, who was commander-in-chief of the Middle East command at the time.
The letter about his arrest reaveals he told Spanish police "that he was a novelist and wanted to study the reactions of men to women in the street".
As well as another outfit of women's clothes and a war correspondent's uniform, Lt Col Clarke's luggage contained "a roll of super-fine toilet paper which particularly excited the police who are submitting each sheet to chemical tests", the letter says.
The morning after his arrest, Lt Col Clarke's new explanation to British officials was that he had been "taking the feminine garments to a lady in Gibraltar and thought that he would try them on for a prank".
"This hardly squares with the fact that the garments and shoes fitted him."
'Espionage incident'
Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
If he shows signs of mental derangement he should however be sent home by first ship”
War Office telegram
The police considered the incident a "homosexual affair" punishable by a fine, but the letter warned that the Germans "apparently think they have got on to a first class espionage incident and will certainly make the most of it".
"Jokes have already begun about 'the editor' of the 'Times' masquerading as woman."
Prime Minister Winston Churchill was informed of the incident and orders were given to get Lt Col Clarke to Gibraltar as quickly as possible, indicating both his importance to the War Office and the potential embarrassment that could have been caused.
War Office messages express hope that Lt Col Clarke's military role remains secret and his mission can be continued, because the intelligence information he possesses can only be delivered by him.
But the War Office said: "If he shows signs of mental derangement he should however be sent home by first ship."
Lt Col Clarke was released and ordered to leave Spain within 48 hours. |
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| Ilikepencils Grey Joined: 05 Jan 2013 Total posts: 24 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 26-05-2013 20:11 Post subject: |
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Everyone remembers mass shootings like Hungerford, Dunblane and Cumbria but the other day I had a vague memory of something that happened in a town near me - Monkseaton, Tyne and Wear.
I was about 12 at the time. I remember folk talking about somebody shooting in a street but I didn't take much notice of the news and although I was a bit shocked with it being so near, I had forgotten all about it in a day or two as you tend to do at that age. Consequently I never really knew the full story but here it is in a nutshell:
On 30th April 1989, 22-year-old Robert Sartin killed one person and injured 14 others after he took his father's double- barrelled shot gun and began shooting people in nearby gardens, houses and passing cars during a 20 minute firing spree. He pleaded not guilty due to insanity and was detained indefinitely in a secure mental unit. It remains, along with the aforementioned incidents, one of the worst criminal atrocities involving firearms in British History.
Scary stuff, but can anybody else remember this? It probably did get a lot of media coverage at the time and I was perhaps just too young to realise, but I've never heard it mentioned since. I can only assume it was because only one person died, horrific as it was. |
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| Spookdaddy Cuckoo Joined: 24 May 2006 Total posts: 3834 Location: Midwich Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 26-05-2013 20:38 Post subject: |
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| Ilikepencils wrote: | | ...Scary stuff, but can anybody else remember this? It probably did get a lot of media coverage at the time and I was perhaps just too young to realise, but I've never heard it mentioned since. I can only assume it was because only one person died, horrific as it was. |
I had a very vague memory, but I had to look it up for details.
It's often the first few days of coverage that determine how firmly a news event sits in the longer term public memory and as the shooting was only a couple of weeks after the Hillsborough tragedy I wonder if that story was still eclipsing everything else at the time. |
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| balding13 Great Old One Joined: 22 Sep 2006 Total posts: 190 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 26-05-2013 21:41 Post subject: |
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| I remember it and it was low key coverage for the reasons you stated. Also I think it was overshadowed by the Marchioness disaster a few months later. There was also a spree killer in the West Midlands who killed at least 1 and injured several more, driving around the motorways who was eventually released from prison. I tried searching the web but couldn't find any details, but I also wondered why there was so little coverage. |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 20321 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 31-05-2013 08:09 Post subject: |
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| rynner2 wrote: | Dornier 17: Salvaging a rare WWII plane from the seabed
By Nick Higham, BBC News
Work begins on Friday to raise a unique World War II aircraft from the floor of the English Channel just off the Kent coast. The Dornier 17 aircraft is the last of its kind, and lies in 50ft of water on the Goodwin Sands. The salvage is just the start of a two-year restoration project by the RAF Museum in Hendon.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22380915
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But now...
German Dornier 17 salvage hit by English Channel weather
By Nick Higham, BBC News
A plan to raise the only surviving World War II Dornier 17 bomber from the English Channel has run into difficulties due to bad weather.
Experts salvaging the German aircraft, which is lying in 50ft of water at Goodwin Sands, off the Kent coast, have had to ditch their original strategy.
They have chosen a cheaper, faster and riskier approach.
The project has been likened to a modern Mary Rose, the famous Tudor warship raised from the Solent in 1982.
The original scheme to bring up the Dornier 17 - devised by the RAF Museum - was to build an aluminium frame or cradle around the wreck in which to lift it - putting the least possible strain on the fragile aircraft.
Divers were expected to take about three weeks to construct the frame, working down on the sea floor.
But ever since a salvage barge, complete with giant crane, arrived over the wreck site on the afternoon of 3 May, work has been repeatedly interrupted by bad weather.
Fifteen days of diving have been lost and the barge has had to take shelter in the harbour at Ramsgate, Kent on four occasions.
What is more, the salvage team discovered that the wreck, which was thought to be resting entirely on sand and silt, was in fact partly lying on chalk bedrock.
To put the lower struts of the frame in place, divers were having to drill painstakingly through the chalk rather than simply sliding the frame's components through soft sand.
Last week the museum and the specialist diving company doing the work, Seatech, held a crisis meeting.
The budget of more than £500,000 allowed 35 days to complete the project.
Continuing with the original plan would, they estimated, take 50 days - longer if the bad weather returned - and would cost tens of thousands of pounds more.
The revised plan involves attaching cables at three points to the aircraft itself - exactly what the experts had hoped to avoid.
All three points are on the strongest part of the airframe - two single-section spars that run the length of both wings.
Since the plane is lying on its back, one cable will pass through its central bomb bay, with the other two running through the undercarriage doors next to the engines on either wing.
The tail of the wreck will also be supported during the lift, and a central beam will be inserted to run from the bomb bay doors back towards the tail section to give the fuselage extra strength.
Divers have discovered that a crack running around a third of the circumference at the point where the fuselage joins the wings has widened in the past two years.
"We're having to rely to a larger degree than we originally planned on the structural integrity of the aircraft," said Ian Thirsk, the RAF Museum's head of collections.
"But we have no choice. We're doing what we can to save a unique and precious heritage asset. If we leave it one thing is certain - it won't be there in a year's time."
The museum is hoping to put the new plan into practice next week, weather permitting.
The Dornier 17 was a mainstay of the German bomber fleets during the Battle of Britain in 1940.
The plane on the Goodwin Sands is believed to be aircraft call-sign 5K-AR, shot down on 26 August that year at the height of the battle by RAF Boulton-Paul Defiant fighters.
If the wreck is successfully raised the RAF Museum plans to transport it by road to its conservation centre at Rossford in the West Midlands, where it will spend more than 18 months being drenched in a solution of water and citric acid to stabilise it and prevent corrosion of the plane's aluminium structure.
It will then go on display at the museum's main base at Hendon in North London.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22721897
I wish they'd stop saying it's in the English Channel - it's not, it's in the Dover Straits, which separate the English Channel from the North Sea!  |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 20321 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 02-06-2013 16:14 Post subject: |
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| The Dornier salvage attempt has been brought forward to today because of the threat of worsening weather. More news soon, I hope... |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 20321 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 03-06-2013 09:27 Post subject: |
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WWII bomber salvage attempt delayed
3 June 2013 Last updated at 08:27
[video]
An attempt to raise a Second World War German aircraft from the English Channel has been cancelled because of high winds.
Divers had hoped to begin lifting the only surviving Dornier 17 at 21:00 BST but have decided to delay the bid.
The plan, devised by the RAF Museum, has been repeatedly hit by bad weather.
Nick Higham reports from the salvage barge Apollo in the xxxxxxx xxxxxxx.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22750473
...Straits of Dover!  |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 20321 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 03-06-2013 11:00 Post subject: |
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Here's a fascinating chunk of 60s history that I either didn't notice at the time or have since forgotten:
The mystery of David Jacobs, the Liberace lawyer
With the film 'Behind the Candelabra’ opening this week, the tawdry life and mysterious death of a showbiz solicitor remains veiled in secrecy
By Mick Brown
7:30AM BST 03 Jun 2013
When, in 1959, the bejewelled and perfumed Liberace walked out of a London libel court, £26,000 the richer and declaring that he was “crying all way to the bank”, after a newspaper columnist had implied – outrageously! – that he might possibly be homosexual, he had one man to thank.
David Jacobs was the showbusiness solicitor who had planned Liberace’s strategy in his libel case against the Daily Mirror columnist Cassandra, recommending that the pianist should hire Gilbert Beyfus, a lawyer who was 73 years old and suffering from terminal cancer. Clapping eyes on Beyfus, Liberace – the film of whose life, Behind the Candelabra, opens on Friday – was horrified and suggested they go for a younger man. But Jacobs was adamant, and Beyfus was able to persuade the jury that Liberace was of unimpeachable moral character, not the “luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother-love…” that Cassandra had accused him of being.
For much of the 1950s and 1960s, David Jacobs was the leading showbusiness lawyer in Britain. His list of clients constituted a who’s who of the world of entertainment and beyond.
He represented Laurence Olivier, Judy Garland, Zsa Zsa Gabor and the Beatles manager Brian Epstein. He acted in the Profumo case and for John Vassall, the Admiralty civil servant who was convicted of spying for the Russians after being blackmailed over his homosexuality.
etc... [very long article]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10094665/The-mystery-of-David-Jacobs-the-Liberace-lawyer.html
It's interesting that Wiki has pages on ten different David Jacobs, but none of them was a show-biz solicitor! |
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| McAvennie_ OBE Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Total posts: 2666 Location: Paris, France Age: 34 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 03-06-2013 11:38 Post subject: |
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| Ilikepencils wrote: | Everyone remembers mass shootings like Hungerford, Dunblane and Cumbria but the other day I had a vague memory of something that happened in a town near me - Monkseaton, Tyne and Wear.
I was about 12 at the time. I remember folk talking about somebody shooting in a street but I didn't take much notice of the news and although I was a bit shocked with it being so near, I had forgotten all about it in a day or two as you tend to do at that age. Consequently I never really knew the full story but here it is in a nutshell:
On 30th April 1989, 22-year-old Robert Sartin killed one person and injured 14 others after he took his father's double- barrelled shot gun and began shooting people in nearby gardens, houses and passing cars during a 20 minute firing spree. He pleaded not guilty due to insanity and was detained indefinitely in a secure mental unit. It remains, along with the aforementioned incidents, one of the worst criminal atrocities involving firearms in British History.
Scary stuff, but can anybody else remember this? It probably did get a lot of media coverage at the time and I was perhaps just too young to realise, but I've never heard it mentioned since. I can only assume it was because only one person died, horrific as it was. |
I've never heard of this I don't think. Although some of the events that happen out of your region do get lost in the back of the mind until something triggers the memory. I had that with a girl who was stabbed, I think, at a school in Teesside in the late 80s / early 90s. Remember it at the time but it was not til I went to Uni in Middlesbrough and someone who was at the same school mentioned it and the memory came back.
There is also a girl who was abducted/murdered in the same period, must have been late 80s or 1990 at the earliest as I remember her picture being on the cover of the paper when we were on holiday in Anglesey in summer of 1990. No idea of her name or the circumstances but whenever I think of that holiday her face always comes back up in amongst the memories. |
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| escargot1 Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Total posts: 17709 Location: Farkham Hall Age: 3 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 03-06-2013 14:49 Post subject: |
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I don't remember that, but I do remember a young jilted bloke standing outside his ex's workplace shooting her colleagues randomly as they left - killed at least a couple, I seem to recall, although she was unhurt. A terrible business. Happened in the very early '80s in the Midlands somewhere.
It stuck with me because I'd had trouble with a stalkery ex-boyfriend a few years before. He'd owned a shotgun which he used to carry around illegally in his car. I felt I'd had a lucky escape.  |
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