The Chronicle, January 3 1958

The explanation for lighter blogging here yesterday is that I'd been away overnight in London, to meet up with my two older sisters, Suzanne and Elise, to visit my Dad - aka (Bulawayo slang c. 1960) my Old King, aka (ditto) my Toppy - and to see Measure for Measure at the National Theatre with my daughter Jenny. During a long reminiscing conversation which my sisters and I were having with my Dad, the old boy suddenly wanders off into his bedroom and comes back with a rather yellowed old copy of the Bulawayo Chronicle. It's for January 3 1958. Why does he still have this? Because on page 9 there's a photograph of a newly-wed couple, a certain 'Miss Suzanne Geras' and her groom, Michael Leaf.

Wanting, as ever, to be completely up-to-date with things, I borrowed this newspaper to study on the train home. I share some items here with you. On the same page as my big sis's wedding photo there's this:

Some time between December 31, 1957, and January 2, 1958, someone went into one of the phone booths near the main Street entrance to the Post Office and tore the receiver and its connection off. Then the telephone directory was burnt. The Bulawayo postmaster, Mr. J.E. Donkin, said the fire could easily have spread and caused a great deal of damage.

A piece of common vandalism made the newspaper in those days. From the same page I learned that Elvis had sold 40,000 records in the Federation (of Rhodesia and Nyasaland) in 1957, and that Pat Boone was also selling that well. Remember him? 'Love Letters In The Sand'; 'Bernardine'; 'Technique'. There's also a story about the chief US psychiatrist at the Nuremberg trials, Douglas McGlashan Kelley [the Chronicle gives 'McGlasham'] having 'died in Berkeley yesterday after swallowing a souvenir phial of poison which he brought home from Germany'. It was the same type of poison as Hermann Goering used to kill himself in October 1946. Still on the same page, a Dr William Alves is reported as complaining that the Ghanaian government has a better appreciation than the Rhodesian government does of the need for expenditure on University development and research. Sound familiar?

Also familiar is this, from the front page:

Cold wave invades northern Britain
Frozen snow covered Scotland and the northern half of England today, upsetting rail schedules and making many roads impassable. (My italics.)

Road deaths in Bulawayo were up from 36 in 1956 to 41 in 1957, and the Rhodesian Chess Championships were being led, after the sixth round, by M. Pines - the father of a guy I used to know back then. Amongst ads for well-known Rhodesian department stores like Meikles and Sanders, there's also this one:

Richie Benaud recommends new 'deep-down' treatment for muscular pain
This is what he says: "Sometimes, after a tough day's bowling, when the temperature drops at sundown, muscular pain catches me across the shoulders. If I feel any symptoms of seizing up I use INFRA-RUB balm. I know of nothing else that can relieve muscular stiffness and soreness as fast."

Innocent times. On the back page, South Africa are poised to lose the second Test (of the 1957-8 series against Australia) at Newlands, although Hugh Tayfield, my boyhood cricketing hero, has just taken his 150th Test wicket; he's only the ninth bowler to have achieved this feat. Today, Tayfield is in the company of more than 70 other bowlers to have done it.