The Week
Summer Time came in with a spell of . bitterly cold weather: eight inches of snow fell on some parts of England. The change aggravated European problems, as the various. countries of the EEC switched times on different dates, producing chaos on travel timetables. In Paris sixty-seven airline and travel agency employees were reported to have had nervous breakdowns.
The weather did not deter the hardy contenders for the Labour Party leadership, who were severally photographed in Open-necked shirts out of doors, Mr Healey apparently preparing the Budget. None of his rivals could match that, nor his claim that he would put 'pounds in your pockets', but Mr Foot benefited from the falling unemployment figures. Mr Benn still further reduced his entry in Who's Who to conceal his elitist origins, but the week belonged to Mr Callaghan who spoke softly —about 'open dialogue'—to Mr Gromyko, and harshly to Mr Ian Smith, who answered in kind. Still, Mr Callaghan did not threaten Rhodesia with the ultimate sanction, Concorde. That was to be saved for Siberia, where Thomson Holidays announced winter package tours.
The final break-up of the Snowdon marriage produced an orgy of newspaper nonsense. A Mirror man reported, 'I have visited the same loo as royalty.' The papers had some difficulty in establishing where Mr Roddy Llewellyn had been to school, but not in photographing Miss Sarah Ponsonby topless. Lord Snowdon made an emotional statement in Australia and thought of settling there. Princess Margaret went to see Butley, a film about a bisexual man whose marriage collapses.
A 'former pornography film actor' crashed an aeroplane kamikaze-style into the house of a Japanese businessman connected with the Lockheed bribery affair. fatty Hearst was convicted by a regretful Jury, one of whose members said with feeling, 'She isn't dangerous like criminals who go round holding up liquor stores.' After another conviction, of Mr Andrew Newton, Mr Norman Scott irrelevantly observed, I m sorry for him, but it won't bring my dog back.' Mr Cyril Smith was ordered to lose ten stone by his doctors. There were riots on the West Bank of the Jordan, unconnected with Mrs Thatcher's visit to Israel. For the first time the Israelis attended a United Nations Security Council meeting when the Palestine Liberation Organisation was present. The Russians confused the Middle East conflict by accusing President Sadat of Zionism, and the French bent
planning to give a nuclear reactor to President Gaddafi of Libya. In England the Government gave up its attempt to press metrication through immediately, and, in an excess of pre-election good nature, Mr Foot agreed to amend his Dock Labour Bill. Solzhenitsyn attacked British softness again, but rather let down Mr Bernard Levin by praising the late General Franco. More own goals—two of them—came from an Aston Villa footballer, who scored all four goals in a League match.
Sir Derek Ezra of the National Coal Board was said to be about to exit after his fellow heads of nationalised industries, Sir Richard Marsh and Sir Monty Finniston. Sir Don Ryder of the National Enterprise Board faced a different kind of threat as the Bewbush land deal re-emerged. The London police found three IRA bomb factories, and the Government were advised to reform the law of conspiracy. Lord Montgomery died.
The Flat racing season opened with the melancholy news from France of an outbreak of rabies in the stables at Chantilly. Forty racehorses were killed in a fire in America. The American baseball season at last moved towards its opening after a long strike by the players. In Paris a strike of stagehands stopped an evening at the opera to which President Giscard d'Estaing had invited '1500 ordinary French people'.
A British diplomat in Bonn locked himself in the Embassy coding room and had to send a coded telex to London in order to get out. Bavaria was gripped by a wolf scare. And in the week's least surprising election, the Swiss voted against worker participation, against abolishing tax havens and against raising the duty on drink.
Previous page
