General Chat

.

Monday 1 January 1945

Canberra Times

COLDEST CHRISTMAS

FOR 50 YEARS

LONDON, Sunday.

London's Christmas was the coldest for more than 50 years. There was thick fog which extended to various parts of the country causing disorganisation of transport.

Monday 9 January 1933

Royalty Returns Christmas Gifts

LONDON, Sunday.

The hundreds of Christmas presents to Their Majesties from people who have known them in all parts of the world, have been returned with a note of refusal.

Tuesday 17 December 1929

CHRISTMAS TRAGEDY

Woman Killed


LONDON. Sunday

A shocking Christmas tragedy occurred at Hull While Mrs. Fox was dressing a Christmas tree her husband's sporting gun went off killing her. It seems that Fox, whom the police have detained, was trying to see if the cartridge would fit, prior to a duck shooting expedition. He closed the breach, and the cartridge Exploded. The woman died within three minutes

The Argus

Monday 23 December 1918

Christmas Presents.

Rush of London Buyers.

There has been an unequalled rush on the shops in the West End for Christmas presents. About 1,500.000 are daily visiting the big stores alone. The West End restaurants are packed, and money is being spent freely. This Christmastide is a reaction from the past four years of gloom and anxiety of war.

Canberra Times

Wednesday 27 November 1940

British Workers Asked to Forego Christmas Holidays

LONDON, Monday.

The more the flow of production is accelerated, the earlier will be the day of final victory. The Government, therefore, has called on all managements and workers engaged on war work to continue production during the coming Christmas and New Year season with not more than one day's break.

So that production may be continued with as little interruption as possible and that the maximum amount of freight may be handled, no additional services or facilities for passenger travel by road and rail can be provided at Christmas and New Year.

On Christmas Day in England and Wales, and on New Year's Day in Scotland, normal Sunday services will be run.

Monday 11 August 1947

Canberra Times


EAST END KIDS RELIVE "BUSH CHRISTMAS"

LONDON, Sunday.

The Australian children's film, "Bush Christmas," which is being shown In North-East London cinemas, so deeply Impressed East End children that they are wandering off to Epping Forest, nearby parks and gardens to relive the scenes, says the "Evening News"

The result is that many of them are being taken to hospitals with cut feet caused through running about in grass shoes (shoes made from grass), with fractures through falling from trees, from burns through lighting camp fires, with bow and arrow wounds, and with tears through being lost.

An official of the J Arthur Rank Organisation said that "Bush Christmas" is a healthy outdoor invigorating film which might give East End kids some ideas.

Friday 21 December 1951

Bleak Outlook For Christmas Fare In Britain

LONDON, Thursday.

British housewives shopping for Christmas were today told that they would get less sweets and bacon rations, and that cheese and bacon would cost more.

Bacon and cheese prices will be increased by an average of 10d a Pound from December 30

The Food Ministry says this is necessary to meet the general rise in cost of imported and home, produced supplies and keep within the food subsidy of £410 million for the current financial year.

Maximum retail price of cheese sold on the ration will rise from 1/2 per pound to 2/- per pound.

The sweets ration will be reduced by half an ounce to six ounces weekly, and because foot and mouth disease in Britain and abroad has reduced supplies, the bacon ration will be cut by one ounce to three ounces a week

Thursday 19 December 1946

TROOPS SlT DOWN STRIKE AT LOSING CHRISTMAS LEAVE


LONDON, Wednesday.

Before joining the eastern Princess for the Far East, about 400 troops participated in a sit down strike on the quay at Glasgow, and the "Daily Telegraph" says that troops on board booed when the' National Anthem Was played.

Seven soldiers who tried, to leave the vessel, were arrested after a struggle on the gangway with military police.

Five officers complained that they had not received the 28 days end-of war leave and were removed from the ship.

The trouble began when a 'train arrived from Southampton with the following slogans chalked on the windows, "We want Christmas at Home" and "Wot! No Christmas leave."

Tuesday 29 December 1936

CHRISTMAS CLEMENCY:

KING REPRIEVES MURDERERS

LONDON; Sunday

The first exercise of the Royal Christmastime clemency of the present reign were reprieves from death sentences. Those reprieved are Welsh, a chemist's assistant, for murdering his sweetheart, aged 16; Arthur North, of Hull murderer of a 17 year old girl and Edward Datty, of Sheffield, murderer of Mrs. Rosa Blackburn.

Monday 19 December 1938

NON-CHRISTIAN

German Christmas Festival

HITLER DECLARES PAGAN FEAST

LONDON, Saturday.

Herr Hitler will celebrate Christmas Day with a festival, but German organisations have been ordered to de-Christianise all ceremony.

They will celebrate it as a feast based on pre-Christian days of the old pagan German tribes.
There will be no carols or hymns. Shops are not displaying Christian emblems.

Cyclone Tracy

Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.

December 1974

On December 20, 1974 the Bureau of Meteorology in Northern Australia noticed a cyclone forming off the coast. They gave it the name - Tracy.

The people at the weather bureau closely watched Tracy for the next few days but did not feel that the cyclone posed a major threat to Darwin. They thought that it would pass well to the north of Darwin.

However early on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1974, Tracy came closer, turned and began to speed towards the city. From midnight until 7am on Christmas Day the cyclone passed directly over Darwin. The wind speed was 217 kilometres per hour and Tracy brought huge rainfall.

Houses and other buildings were blown apart, 49 people died in the city and another 16 were drowned at sea. Seven out of every ten of Darwin's homes were destroyed or severely damaged. Communications, power, water and sewerage services were all broken.

Emergency committees worked to provide accommodation, food and clothing to all those people whose houses had been destroyed or damaged. Australia's defence forces took a major role in cleaning up the city and suburbs.

Many people were evacuated because there was so little food and shelter for them. There was a threat of disease too because sewerage systems had been destroyed. In all, 25 000 people were evacuated to southern cities.

Between 1975 and 1976 over 150 million dollars was spent to build or repair more than 2 500 homes as well as other many other buildings.



Jackie

Very interesting.
Brian(i)