Today in History

[Daisy]

Oma, I bet you thought you were rich on your wages. Did you get any tips as well?

[Oma]

I was only a junior sweeping up mostly 😁
I gave it all to my mother and got 50p back, I could do all sorts with 50p in. Those days 😁

[Daisy]

Fifty pence was riches indeed! I remember my mum would give me 2/6d when I went out with friends on a Saturday night.

[Gemini]

1941

Amy Johnson, record-breaking English aviator, died whilst flying an aircraft from Blackpool to Kidlington (Oxfordshire) in foggy conditions as her role in the Air Transport Auxiliary that ferried new, repaired and damaged military aircraft between UK departments.
Her plane was found, 100 miles off course, in the muddy water of the Thames, but her body was never recovered. Reportedly out of fuel she had been seen alive in the water, but a rescue attempt failed and the incident also led to the death of her would-be rescuer, Lt. Cmdr. Walter Fletcher. Amy Johnson was the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia in 1930 and she also set numerous long-distance records during the 1930s.

[Daisy]

What a sad fate for such an amazing woman.

[Gemini]

1929

Alexander Fleming successfully treated his assistant Stuart Craddick’s infection with a penicillin broth, at St Mary’s, Paddington.

[Daisy]

We take so much of modern medicine for granted, but 1929 was in our parents' lifetimes. So many illnesses were untreatable.

[Gemini]

1972

Miners voted overwhelmingly in favour of a pay settlement after a seven week strike that seriously affected power supplies in Britain.

[Oma]

Remember it well,
We were a community of miners , all closed along with the shipyards now.

[Daisy]

I wonder if most of us remember the power cuts and tv closing at 10 pm, shopping by candlelight and no heating. But the effect on the miners and their families must have been devastating.

[Gemini]

I remember it all well Daisy. I remember trying to put on make up by candlelight to go out!

I probably didn't give much thought to the poor miners and their families at age 17 though.

[Daisy]

Gem, I think at 17 that's perfectly understandable. I think the effect on the general population would be much worse now. All those regular power cuts would knock out all our electronic devices - phones, computers, gadgets, even credit cards etc.

[Gemini]

1946

The British Government took control of the Bank of England, after 252 years.

[Gemini]

1980

Mi Amigo, the ship from which the pirate radio station Radio Caroline broadcast its music programmes, sank during a severe storm. Radio Caroline was unlicensed by any government for most of its early life and was launched to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly. The station is still on the air today and currently broadcasts 24 hours a day via the Eurobird 1 satellite and the Internet.

[Daisy]

Oh, the excitement when Radio Caroline launched. My generation had only heard pop music from Radio Luxembourg. Terrible reception, and usually listened to under the bed clothes when we were supposed to be asleep. Radio Caroline was totally aimed at teenagers, at the height of the rock'n'roll era. It felt very daring and great fun.