14th September

Two extraordinary women died today in car crashes, fifty five years apart. The first was the dancer Isadora Duncan whose neck was broken as her trailing scarf got caught in the rear wheel of her Bugatti in 1927. The second was the gorgeous Princess Grace of Monaco (aka the actress Grace Kelly) whose sports car went off a road and plunged 120 feet over the edge. Both accidents happened near Nice and both women were already legends before Fate intervened.

In other news ...
Jack Hawkins was born today in 1910. The gravel-voiced actor always played officer or authority figures, from Gideon of the Yard to General Allenby. One of his last films was as General Picton in Waterloo by which time throat cancer had robbed him of his marvellous voice. What a loss.

27th May

It isn't often I mention Belgium in this blog and I'm sure most of my faithful followers who have been to the country can understand why. This is why I am so pleased to be able to give it a little bit of a boost today. Don't read on, now - no cheating. You are thinking, that's odd, it isn't the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo or anything. The poor old geezer is losing his marbles. No, it is .... trumpet fanfare and roll of drums .... that today in 1900, Belgium became the first democracy in the world to elect a government by proportional representation.

Exciting, wasn't it?

In other news ...
Vincent 'Mad Vince' Price was born today in 1911. Oddly enough, it was Peter 'Mad Pete' Cushing's birthday yesterday (he was born in 1913). Perhaps surprisingly, they didn't share billing on as many films as you would think, but, God, were they scary? I can feel the hairs standing up on the back of my neck just thinking about it. Both extraordinarily nice men, by all accounts. I'm glad to hear it - it would be very unfortunate if they were just cast to type!

8th May

Talk about hedging your bets and playing yourself down ... In 1815 Arthur Wellesley, the newly created Duke of Wellington, began his 100 days campaign today which culminated in his great victory at Waterloo. In case he lost however ( and he nearly did) he wrote a little package of excuses to Lord Stewart - 'I have got an infamous army, very weak and ill-equipped and a very inexperienced staff' ... He might have added, 'So if it all goes tits-up, it's not my fault, all right?'

In other news ...
Back in 1947 Henry Gordon Selfridge died leaving an estate of only £1544. Perhaps he'd spent all the rest at Selfridge's.

22nd March

Anthony van Dyck was born today in 1599. Famous for his court portraits of Charles I. He later went on the star in his father's long-running TV series Diagnosis Murder.


In other news ...
Today in 1906 the first international rugby match took place with England beating France 35-0. The England team had already scored pretty heavily at Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt, Ramillies, Malplaquet, Sahagun, Badajoz, Toulouse and Waterloo. An earlier result at Hastings, where the French unaccountably won, was deemed to be because they played with the roof open.