The Anonymous Widower

Forty Years On

It was enlightening to get The Times out for Monday, the 21st July,1969. 

The edition is historic because of the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon and now that I have yesterday’s reprint of the 5 a.m. edition of parts of the paper, I now have three different copies with different headlines.

• Man lands on the moon with perfect touchdown
• Man walks on the moon after Eagle’s perfect landing
• Man takes first steps on the moon

But what of the other less well-known stories in the paper.

Before I start, I should say that The Times in 1969 cost just six old pence or 2.5 pence in today’s coinage.  Well, not really today’s coinage as the halfpence was abolished in 1984. Today paper costs 90 pence, whereas adjusting for inflation the 1969 edition would cost just 32 pence. 

So it now costs almost three times as much.

But perhaps it is bigger.  Yesterday’s paper was 104 tabloid pages and the one forty years ago was 26 broadsheet pages, which equates to 52 tabloid.  So the modern paper is twice the size, but not three times.  I should say that I have ignored the extra supplement in the older paper, as this by chance happened to turn up on the 21st July, 1969.

I’ll start with that supplement.  It is a very interesting document as it is a special report on Decimal Currency and Metrication. Some points from the document.

1. Britain thought about going to decimal currency in the nineteenth century.
2. The Board of Trade recommended going decimal in 1951.
3. Patrick O’Leary made the prediction that the half penny will be unpopular.  He was right there.

But it is in the field of metrication that the document is most interesting, with this paragraph.

The change to the metric system is more profound and complex than decimalizing the coinage. There is no simple way of saying that such-and-such will happen: it certainly cannot be done by diktat. The impact of the change will be spread widely through the economy and widely through time. Nevertheless, the Government has set a target date – the end of 1975.

So we’re still waiting for the abolition of Imperial units, thirty nine years later.  I used to work for ICI and they went metric in 1955.  It may be a hobby horse of mine, but in a few days I will return to this scandal.

Note too in the quote the ‘z’ in decimalizing and the colon.  English has changed.

So what else can I find in the old newspaper.

The only other story on the front page concerns Senator Edward Kennedy and his involvement in the death of Mary-Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick. He is still in the Senate.

There was the usual crop of stories about NHS problems, strikes, celebrities and politicians.  John “Reggie Perrin” Stonehouse was the Postmaster General was arguing against more hours for ITV, as this might harm the BBC, Myra Hindley had just got an O level and the usual crop of dictators were featured.  So little has changed.

But I did like the story about the “Tyres slashed on 40 cars”.  There wasn’t any vandalism in the 1960s was there?  In this case it was in Fowey in Cornwall.

And the one on the sports pages entitled “Racecourse managers need a new image”.  Some still haven’t got the message. There was also an encouraging report on how, Britain’s Davis Cup team should get to the final!  So we’ve got worse at tennis!  What’s new?  The great Ron Hill was running marathons, like I think he still runs regularly.

If you ever get a chance to read papers like these do.  It’s the nuggets that amuse and educate.

July 21, 2009 - Posted by AnonW | News | Apollo 11, History, Metrication