Saturday 1 June 1963
Hundreds of bees buzzed up and down the Victoria Station platforms last night for nearly three hours. Travellers and station staff scattered for cover. The bees were travelling from France to Fife, Scotland. “We found the Queen Bee and with her help got a lot of them back,” a policeman said. No one was stung.
There are plenty of new potatoes around at 6d to a shilling. Good scrapers are a luxury at 1s 9d a pound. Tomatoes are dear – 5s a pound. Oranges are reasonable at 5d each while grapefruit are 5d or 6d each.
Bunnies are the latest thing in night club hostesses. However, you mustn’t touch them or date them. When you dance with them it must be the Twist or the Cha-Cha. Waltzing is out because that would mean holding them.
With June weddings in the air, keep a sharp eye on the champagne. A behind-the-bar trick doing the rounds is to fill soda-making siphons with 6s a bottle white wine and serve it as bubbly.
Babs Beverley of the Beverley Sisters has announced her engagement to a dentist. Her twin sister, Teddie, married a dentist three years ago. Elder sister Joy is married to Arsenal manager Billy Wright.
Television highlights: Thank Your Lucky Stars with Freddie and the Dreamers and Gerry and the Pacemakers. Checkmate – detective series. Grandstand – cricket from Cardiff.
Radio highlights: Sports Service. Holiday Music Hall.
Summer time in 1964 will be from March 22 until October 25, a week longer than this year.
Weather: very warm and sunny. Outlook – similar. 27c, 81f.
Sunday 2 June 1963
A scorcher in the sun! Yes, it’s sunshine, sunshine all the way for Britain’s holiday thousands. How will you spend the day? In the country? At the coast? Cooling off under a rock fountain? Wherever it is, the chances are you’ll find the sun! Temperatures are expected to soar into the gay seventies.
At Oxford, a cricket match was held up because a batsman was dazzled by the sun reflecting off the metal clips on a spectator’s braces.
Clue to the big bullion grab. A man who recently left Brixton prison approached ex-major Peter Garstin, now a ship broker, and asked if he would be prepared to ship some gold bars abroad. This has led the police to believe that the gold bars, recently snatched from a Shoreditch warehouse, are still in Britain.
The Duchess of Argyll – My Life With the Duke. Life with Ian Argyll could change suddenly from a soft gentle breeze to a raging tornado. A day might start with a violent explosion, and end in serenity, or vice-versa. When he was good, he was very very good, but when he was bad he was horrid.
Twin beds are out. The answer for people who can’t agree about mattresses is the zip-together type, one hard and one soft. And make sure you buy the biggest bed you can, so that there is enough space when you’ve had a row.
Television highlights: Fireball XL5. Play – So Long, Charlie with John Thaw, Angela Douglas and Francis Matthews. Sunday Night at the London Palladium with Diana Dors.
Radio highlights: My Grandfather Nearly Bowled WG. Dear Marje – relationship advice.
Television viewing recommendations for next Saturday – no recommendations. Rest that tube, rest those eyes, write a letter and read a book.
Monday 3 June 1963
The Great Whitsun Creep. Millions of cars swamped the roads yesterday and forced motorists to do the Whitsun Creep. From Scotland to Southport there were traffic jams and queues, some 20 miles long. The AA said, “Something like eight million vehicles were out today, and the roads are incapable of coping with them.”
There will be no more naughty words on the radio. The BBC has given this promise to the Director of Public Prosecutions after two four-letter words were used during a reading of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer.
A double-decker bus taking dancers home early yesterday evening had its roof sliced off by a bridge at Thurnby, Leicestershire after the driver took a wrong turning. Four top-deck passengers were treated in hospital for head injuries.
Courts should be allowed to cane people for persistent offences, Tory MP John Farr said yesterday.
Jerry Lordon, who wrote Apache and Wonderful Land for the Shadows, has come up with Atlantis for Cliff Richard’s mates. It’s a zoomer.
Personal advertisements: JK. The box fine. The key missing. Please contact. Love, WB.
Television highlights: Panorama – on slimming diets. World in Action – the British and their rubbish. Whit Monday Sport – polo from Windsor.
Radio highlights: A Day at the Seaside. The Fiddler and the Dean.
Weather: prolonged sunshine. Outlook – continuing warm and sunny. 22c, 72f.
Tuesday 4 June 1963
Pope John is dead. The end came at 7.49 tonight. As the 81 year old Pope entered his last hour, more than 100,000 people prayed for him in the vast St Peter’s Square, below his apartment windows. He was surrounded by faded photographs of his mother, father and twelve brothers and sisters. Four candles burned at his bedside.
Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes In Portsmouth last night as a bomb disposal expert prepared to explode two dangerous shells. The shells were of World War I origin. The blast from the second shell broke windows, damaged a garden wall and an outside toilet. In total, eleven shells were found in a garden. Nine were safety removed.
A scorpion escaped among holiday crowds at London Zoo yesterday. It was spotted by Mrs Margaret Wheldon as it hid behind the steps of the insect house. Mrs Wheldon said, “I stood guard until someone went to find the keeper.” The scorpion was recaptured with a pair of tweezers.
The conference of the National Union of Shoe and Boot Operatives was told that manufacturers no longer make shoes to last. They are now designed to serve a brief moment of time.
Hunstrete won the 3.05 at Chepstow yesterday, four minutes before the race was scheduled to start. The result was declared to the bookies two minutes before the race should have started. Stewards later declared the race void, with all bets off.
Television highlights: Animal Magic. What’s New? – inventions. Compact – series with Cleo Laine.
Radio highlights: Pop Go the Beatles. Play – The Seventh Day of Arthur with Bernard Cribbins.
Weather: cloudy with rain and thunder. Outlook – sunshine and showers. 19c, 66f.
Wednesday 5 June 1963
Doctors in Harlow, Essex are checking housewives’ shopping lists in the hope that they might provide a vital clue about the latest typhoid outbreak. So far this year ninety-three cases of typhoid have been reported. In a normal year around 100 cases are reported.
A new type of food that could nourish spacemen on their trips to Mars and Venus has been developed by scientists. The scientists have boiled down a range of ordinary foods, from roast beef to fruit juices. The resulting paste can be packed into a toothpaste tube. When water is added to the paste the result is just as nutritious as the real thing.
The Duchess of Argyll has not lodged an appeal against the Duke in their divorce case. A judge found in favour of the Duke because of the Duchess’ multiple counts of adultery.
The world these days is run by catchphrases – words designed to raise the emotions and deaden the mind.
A 19 year old BBC technician saved millions of The Dales fans from missing their favourite radio programme yesterday. The tape broke soon after the programme went on air, so Ian Morton pulled the remaining fifteen minutes of tape through the playback machine by hand.
Television highlights: Z Cars – the police trace two smallpox suspects. The Censors – current thinking on censorship. Wednesday Magazine – interview with an odd noises man.
Radio highlights: Parade of the Pops. Travels with a Praying Mantis.
Weather: thundery showers. Outlook – dry and sunny. 22c, 72f.
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