This edited article about crosswords originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 703 published on 5 July 1975.

D-Day landings

There he was minding his own business, thinking up the Daily Telegraph crossword every day with his friend, Melville Jones, when suddenly counter-intelligence in the shape of two gentlemen from M.I.5 moved in on him. Leonard Sidney Dawe was more than somewhat startled, for he was not exactly famous, even though his anonymously-invented crosswords were. He was a physics teacher who happened to be good at concocting puzzles. Now it appeared that either the Tower of London or a firing squad loomed.

Not that you could really blame the anti-espionage section. The date was June 4, 1944, two days before the Allied invasion of France, the immortal D-Day that was to carry the war back into occupied Europe. Somehow, quiet Mr. Dawe had managed to work more key codewords into his recent puzzles than anyone thought possible; anyone in the secret that is, for the fewer people that knew about D-Day, the better the chances of success. And here was Mr. Dawe apparently spilling the beans. Some mean-minded souls were suggesting that he must be a German agent.

It was sheer coincidence, of course, but amazing all the same. On May 2, the answer to a clue was Utah, one of the projected Allied landing beaches, on the 22nd, Omaha, another of them, on the 27th, the answer was Overlord, the very name of the entire operation, and on the 30th, Mulberry, the name of the two artificial floating harbours that were to be taken to Normandy. To top it all, the answer on June 1 was Neptune, the code-word for the naval part of the invasion.

The two men looked hard at Mr. Dawe and believed his story, then left for London. On June 6th, the Allies successfully landed, taking the enemy by surprise.

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This edited article about Louis Braille originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 694 published on 3 May 1975.

Louis Braille and his alphabet by Harry Green

Blind people have a world of knowledge available to them thanks to the work of a fifteen-year-old boy. This was the age at which Louis Braille perfected a system of raised dots which blind people read by feeling them with their fingers. Everything from a text book to a knitting pattern or from a novel to the Radio Times is available in Braille for the sightless person to enjoy.

It all began in Coupvray, a little French village to the east of Paris, a village so small that it does not even appear on most maps of the area. But it is there that Louis Braille was born in 1809, to the wife of the village saddler and harness-maker. He was the youngest son of the family, and no doubt his parents were so busy with the shop, the house, and the garden that Louis was often left to amuse himself.

One place that fascinated him was his father’s workshop. There he saw the heavy saddles and the brass-studded harness being cut, stitched, and assembled, for the local farmers and landowners. There were no tractors or cars in those days. The making of a harness, like the shoeing of horses, was a full-time job for at least one craftsman in even the smallest village. So Louis Braille’s father was always busy, and the little boy no doubt watched in growing wonder at the things his father could make with sharp tools, fine leather, and lengths of waxed thread.

From the start, however, Louis’ father used to give him a stern warning,

“Never touch my tools, will you, my son.” The boy would look disappointed, as much as to say, “It looks so easy; why can’t I have a try?”

But always the same warning came from his father. “Don’t touch anything in my workshop; these tools are sharp and might hurt you. When you grow up, then I’ll show you how to use them.”

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This edited article about George Bernard Shaw originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 679 published on 18 January 1975.

Professor Higgins meets Eliza Dolittle in ‘Pygmalion’ by George Bernard Shaw. Picture by Ralph Bruce

The man who was to become the most famous British playwright of this century, was born in Dublin on July 26th, 1856. At the age of twenty, George Bernard Shaw went to London to seek his fortune. He spent four years writing five novels and each of them was sent to every publisher in London, and returned with a rejection slip.

In 1884 Shaw joined the Fabian Society, which had been set up to make the ideas of socialism better understood and more widely known. He soon won fame as a public speaker and for his pamphlets on politics and socialism.

In 1885 he started to make a living as a book critic and art critic. It was his reviews of music, however, which established his reputation. Many people believe that Shaw was the most original and amusing critic in the English language.

Meanwhile he had begun to write plays. The first was performed in 1892 and was given a mixed reception by the critics. He followed this by The Philanderer and Mrs. Warren’s Profession. In his plays, Shaw attacked many of the firmly-held moral, social and political beliefs of his time and because of this, many people were shocked and upset by his plays. Eventually, though, many of them became great successes on the stage in Europe and America as well as in Britain. They include Arms and The Man, Candida, The Devil’s Disciple, Man and Superman, The Doctor’s Dilemma, Heartbreak House, Back To Methuselah, Pygmalion and Saint Joan.

In 1925 Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He lived to the grand old age of 94 and went on writing almost to the time of his death in November, 1950.

This edited article about Dr Johnson originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 669 published on 9 November 1974.

Dr Samuel Johnson

He was a lumbering bear of a man. His face was scarred by a disease called scrofula, which he had caught in his youth, and his body used to jerk and sway backwards and forwards.

He would make faces, talk or mutter prayers to himself to such an extent that strangers sometimes thought him mad. He had “no passion for clean linen,” meaning that, like many people in the 18th century, he was not over-bothered with personal hygiene. He could be very rude, partly because his wit was so sharp and his tongue so deadly, but he never meant to be unkind and his friends adored him. He loved animals and children, and continually gave to the poor, even slipping pennies into the hands of the all-too-many young outcasts sleeping “rough” in the streets of London. The “bear” was really all heart.

Such was Doctor Samuel Johnson, the greatest literary figure of his age and the most remarkable talker. Fortunately for us, he had a young Scottish friend, James Boswell, whose ambition was to become a famous writer and who wanted to meet eminent men and women.

Boswell, born in 1740, first met Johnson in 1763 and the great man at once took a liking to him. The result was the finest biography in the language, Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson. Boswell had a marvellous memory, but, more importantly, was an avid taker of notes, and the result is the most quotation-packed book in English.

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This edited article about English literature originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 626 published on 12 January 1974.

J R R Tolkien with characters from The Lord of the Rings

Professor Tolkien sighed, pushed back his chair from his desk, and reached for his pipe. At last the third and final volume of The Lord of the Rings was finished. Or at least as finished as Tolkien could ever feel it would be, for he hated this moment when his writing finally left his desk and went off to the publishers to be printed.

Usually he wrote and re-wrote his books many times, always feeling that there was something more he could do to improve them. But now his publishers, who had been demanding that he complete the book for weeks, had finally insisted that he send it to them.

It is hardly surprising that John Tolkien was such a perfectionist about his writing, however, for he was a very distinguished man. At the time when The Lord of the Rings was published he was Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University.

He was born in South Africa in 1892, and came to England with his mother four years later, when his father died. The family settled in Worcestershire in an area which is now a suburb of Birmingham but was then, in 1896, open country. Here John quickly developed a deep love of nature, while his imaginative mind devoured all the legends of King Arthur, and the fairy tales of George MacDonald, Andrew Lang, and many others.

As a small boy he did not go to school but was taught at home by his mother, and it was she who first stirred in him the interest in ancient languages which influenced the whole course of his life. She turned out to be a fine teacher, too, for in 1903, John won a scholarship to King Edward’s School in Birmingham.

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This edited article about the BBC originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 607 published on 1 September 1973.

Kite antennae were raised in Newfoundland which picked up the message relayed from Cornwall by Marconi’s station. Picture by Peter Jackson

It was a dramatic moment in 1901 when a brilliant, young Italian scientist, Guglielmo Marconi broadcast morse across the Atlantic from Cornwall to Newfoundland. And there was more drama a few years later when a murderer, Dr Crippen, escaping, as he thought, to freedom on a liner to Canada, was recognised by the ship’s captain who was able to inform the police by wireless and accomplish Crippen’s arrest.

But radio then and throughout the First World War, was simply a matter of morse code. No human voice was heard over the air in Britain until, at the birth of the ‘twenties, the Marconi Company at Chelmsford were rather grudgingly allowed by the Government to “carry out experiments in wireless telephony” from a transmitter at Writtle nearby. An amusingly high-pitched voice belonging to a wireless engineer, Captain P. P. Eckersley, was heard by amateur “listeners-in” singing out as though it were a comic song the slogan: “Hullo CQ, hullo CQ! This is Two Emma Toc, Writtle testing!”

“CQ” was the international code-signal for “everybody”, and Two Emma Toc was the Writtle call-sign of 2MT. Eckersley was a great wit as well as a fine radio engineer, and his weekly half-hour programme was full of fun which delighted the “experimental listeners-in”.

When the programmes became even jollier, the Government and the Post Office were not amused. People were actually being entertained by what were supposed to be serious researches into telecommunications.

Broadcasters on the Chelmsford-Writtle programme were paid a mere shilling or two for the privileged fun of being pioneers, and they loved it. Then Lord Northcliffe, editor and proprieter of the “Daily Mail”, paid the great opera singer. Dame Nellie Melba, £1,000 to give a wireless concert from Chelmsford. Loud and clear, Melba’s glorious voice was heard not only in Southern England but on the Continent as well. “A frivolous misuse of a national service”, was what a Post Office spokesman called the entertaining words and music from Chelmsford. Such goings-on would interfere with aircraft communication. The weather could be affected. One lady wrote to say that she had seen birds by the hundred dropping dead from the sky as they encountered the fury of the “wireless waves”.

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This edited article about place names originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 899 published on 14 April 1979.

The North Transept of Hereford Cathedral by Wiliam Wilkins Collins

Do you live at Hereford?

Hereford’s name means “the army ford”, the place where troops could cross a river – in this case, the River Wye.

In the county of which Hereford is the chief town, such a crossing would be of great tactical importance. For this is border country, a hotly-disputed area which has been fought over for hundreds of years. Even today, the most extreme among the Welsh Nationalists would still like to push the border with England back to the River Severn.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Welsh kings rebelled against the Normans and frequently led raids across the border.

During the reign of Edward III, matters got to such a head that this powerful king ordered a series of massive castles to be built along the border.

Hereford’s castle has long since been in ruins, but the town’s magnificent cathedral is still standing. This was built in the 11th century and contains a library of 16th century books chained to the wall.

Hereford is the centre of a thinly-populated agricultural county. Its primary exports are cider and its world-famous red and white Hereford cattle.

This edited article about words originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 899 published on 14 April 1979.

Napoleon Bonaparte by Angus McBride

Are you a male chauvinist pig? One hears this phrase used all the time nowadays, usually incorrectly.

When a woman calls a man a “chauvinist”, she means that he is the type that believes in the natural superiority of men, and that a woman’s place is in the home doing the cooking and cleaning.

However, the real meaning of chauvinism is extreme patriotism, a blind belief that one’s own country is best.

The man from whose name this word was derived was a French soldier who served in the Napoleonic armies. His name was Nicholas Chauvin, and he was a fanatical supporter of Napoleon and the French Empire.

He became well known, and he was introduced into several plays as a character reflecting his narrow-minded and extremist belief that France was the best country in the world. This sort of unreasonable attitude quickly came to be labelled “chauvinist”. Another word with a similar meaning is “jingoistic”.

This edited article about plants originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 899 published on 14 April 1979.

Psyche in the Temple of Love by Sir E J Poynter

How did the honeysuckle get its name?

People used to think that it was from this plant that bees obtained their honey. But although the flowers are famous for their sweet, heady scent, they do not keep honey at the bottom of their long, narrow flower tubes – they keep nectar there, and it is too far down for the bees to reach it. The plant is a favourite of Humming Birds in the tropics.

This edited article about cloth originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 898 published on 7 April 1979.

A Cowboy wearing blue jeans

Nowadays, nearly everybody has got at least one pair of jeans. Hardwearing and comfortable, these leisure trousers are hardly ever out of fashion – and you can wear them virtually anywhere.

Some people prefer cords – others prefer denim. But have you ever thought where the words “denim” and “corduroy” might come from?

Denim got its name from a particularly hard-wearing cloth that was originally manufactured at Nimes in Southern France. There, it was called serge de Nimes. It was mainly used for sailors’ clothes, but during the 19th century it began to be exported to the United States where denim became very popular among the cowboys.

Corduroy, on the other hand, has far more distinguished origins. This velvety, but strong fabric is supposed to derive its name from the French corde du roi, “the king’s cord”. But there is no evidence that the Kings of France ever wore corduroys.