So You Think You Know It All: A compendium of extremely interesting and slightly strange true stories

So You Think You Know It All: A compendium of extremely interesting and slightly strange true stories
The One Show

A compendium of extremely interesting and slightly strange true storiesDid you know that Hitler wanted to change the rules of cricket?Or that a 61-year-old retiree once stole a million-pound portrait from the National Gallery in protest at his TV licence?Have you heard about the baron framed for a bank robbery by the South African secret police who was spared jail because of a truanting schoolboy?Or that the world’s first cash machine had a small man hidden inside on its launch day in case of a breakdown?All this, and much, much more in this entertaining must-have collection of amazing facts and strange-but-true stories that will fascinate the whole family.Based on true stories featured on The One Show.

CONTENTS

Cover (#u50e2a32e-9d6d-55f8-9299-b682b24f61ef)

Title Page (#ua17158e5-0400-5685-b871-c954b481ad20)

Introduction (#ulink_5472f15b-964a-5d10-8f87-d1ae58ea49ff)

Eureka Moments (#ulink_874f4a88-9aad-5292-b8a2-60fd9c23958c)

Cold Cases to Heat Up Your Inner Detective (#ulink_a01b0b4c-425b-5946-a2d7-56a8634fbc8c)

Epic Fails (#ulink_2da046f8-7dce-5efc-bddc-e440150d6b9a)

At The Pictures: The Stories Behind the Scenes (#ulink_60f6dc73-da05-5fb6-8ebe-e46bcde60607)

Good Sports (#ulink_d6137399-6504-59e5-a49b-909ed05bd60b)

Great British Heists (#litres_trial_promo)

Great Escapes (#litres_trial_promo)

Learning Curves (#litres_trial_promo)

Medical Curios (#litres_trial_promo)

Music of Life (#litres_trial_promo)

We Are Not Amused (#litres_trial_promo)

Out of the Box (#litres_trial_promo)

Secrets and Lies (#litres_trial_promo)

Strange Days (#litres_trial_promo)

The Maths of Life (#litres_trial_promo)

Stars Turning Up in Strange Places (#litres_trial_promo)

Great British Eccentrics (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

INTRODUCTION (#ulink_1ca87743-9186-528b-a6e4-e8a5a7fb1040)

Welcome to So You Think You Know It All?, a lovingly crafted compilation of more than 100 of the quirkiest, strangest, most mind-boggling, and fascinating stories pulled from the brains of the One Show research desk at independent producers Icon Films. Here you’ll find tales of everyday British foibles, eccentricity, unsolved murders, very hard maths, A-list stars turning up in unexpected places, cricket-playing Nazis, epic fails, government cover-ups, mini triumphs, scientific breakthroughs and, er, even one about how a nudist film-maker came up with the object that no self-respecting hipster home could do without…

You may already be a fan of The One Show, but did you know that launching this now much-loved early evening weekday magazine show was a gamble for the BBC? You see, The One Show sits in a tricky scheduling hinterland – 7 p.m., that awkward, sticky-out bit of time and space after the news, falling between the snoozy un-demands of daytime programmes, and before ‘primetime’. This is the time of day when TV’s magnetism is at its weakest for viewers; often just home from work, distracted by making, or eating, their tea, putting the bins out, wrangling toddlers toward their pyjamas, ignoring a spate of PPI compensation calls on the landline and whatever else it is people do at 7 p.m. on a weekday.

But the gamble paid off. Today The One Show is a colourful and quirky, serious and topical – and often a little eccentric – TV institution. Transmitting five nights a week, 46 weeks of the year, it averages five million viewers per edition; no mean feat when you consider the competition from a multi-channel TV environment and the equally distracting ‘second screens’ of smart phones, tablets and laptops that now accompany households when they congregate on the sofa.

Think of this book as the Director’s Cut of The One Show – full of facts, extended interviews and trivia nuggets. And like the TV show that inspired it, So You Think You Know It All? is a distinctly British celebration of historic and contemporary eccentricity, innovation, bravery and sheer chutzpah.

Enjoy!

EUREKA MOMENTS (#ulink_fad563f5-f597-5fc0-b125-3d379b0a113b)

ARE YOU HAVIN’ A LAVA? EDWARD CRAVEN WALKER SEES THE LIGHT

During the Second World War RAF reconnaissance pilot Edward Craven Walker flew dangerous missions over enemy territory to photograph Nazi bases. When the conflict ended, Walker continued his interest in photography: credited on-screen as Michael Keatering, he produced and occasionally appeared in naturist films, and pioneered the, admittedly niche, subgenre of nudist documentary that focused on naked, underwater, ballet. Travelling Light (1960) features a troupe of all-swimming, all-dancing women expressing themselves in the warm coastal waters of Corsica. British nudists, Walker’s target audience, may well have been interested in the onscreen choreography, but it’s unlikely many would have been inspired enough to consider following suit in British seas. Nor were they likely to be encouraged to shed their thermals by Walker’s attempt to merge nakedness and winter sports with the ‘documentary’ Eves On Skis (1963).

Both films were considerable box office hits in the few UK cinemas that screened them. In turn, further revenue was generated when they were picked up for worldwide distribution, generating enough income for Craven Walker to establish his own nudist retreat, The Bournemouth and District Outdoor Club. He became something of a spokesperson for British naturism, but he wasn’t exactly egalitarian about attracting new members – especially those on the larger side. He once declared, ‘We at Bournemouth have a health centre and only want healthy people here… We are against all these fat fogies – it’s not what naturism should be about’.

In between all that, he invented what’s popularly known as the Lava Lamp, but which Walker originally dubbed the Astro Lamp. By either name, the psychedelic beacon became shorthand for the 1960s, but it took Craven Walker most of the 1950s to develop it.

Around 1950, over a pint in the Queen’s Head pub in Ringwood, Hampshire, he became mesmerised by a novelty lamp behind the bar. The lamp was invented by Donald Dunnet, a Scot living in England, but how it ended up behind the bar is a mystery. It may have been a prototype because we do know that it was patented in 1951. The lamp featured two liquids – ‘one’, says the patent description, ‘of a lower gravity than the other, the two liquids being non-miscible and the upper layer being of lower specific gravity than the lower layer and means for heating the lower layer so that it rises through the upper layer in the form of liquid bubbles or as a liquid column which breaks into such bubbles, the bubbles being cooled by the upper layer so that they return to the lower layer.’ Basically, when the liquids were heated, the lower of the two sent a column of bubbles to the top, then the light would turn off, the water cool and the bubbles sink to their original position. It was developed from one of Dunnet’s earlier patents, an egg timer. This was a close-ended glass tube filled with viscous liquids that would break into bubbles after about four minutes when submerged in boiling water – time enough for the perfect boiled egg.

The bubble action fascinated Walker. He saw potential, but for what he didn’t really know. Nonetheless he began tinkering with liquids and wax, heating them with a light bulb that he had installed inside an orange cordial bottle. Later he used a glass cocktail shaker – a shape that would inform the finished product. Initially this was only a hobby for Walker – he was otherwise engaged with his films and then his nudist club – but he began to devote more time to the project in the late 1950s. Finally, in 1963, he had the perfect ratio of oil and wax, and achieved a sweet-spot melting point for the wax (which continues to be produced to a secret recipe). The egg timer was now a desk light cum moving objet d’art, which he called the Astro Lamp.

The mixture of oil and wax takes several minutes to warm and become liquid but then changes form and viscosity rapidly as it rises up the water column within the tube and into the cooler water. Before it hits the bottom, the heater has melted it again and the cycle restarts. Walker created 100 different designs over the years with range of different colours.

Once on sale the hypnotic ooze created by the lamps became instant conversation pieces in the hip homes of the 1960s. They achieved cult status thanks to being featured in hit shows like Doctor Who, The Avengers and The Prisoner. Sales of Edward’s Lava Lamp soared and even though it wasn’t marketed at the cool cats of the day, its bewitching yet mellow dance was seen as an ideal accompaniment to any psychedelic trip, forever linking it with the mind-altering drugs of the time. Asked if this concerned him, Walker commented, ‘If you buy my lamp, you won’t need to buy drugs.’ For him, the lamp was a groovy enough trip in its own right.

CASH IN A FLASH – JOHN SHEPHERD-BARRON HITS PAY-DIRT WITH THE ATM

ATM cash machines are so ubiquitous we see them only when we need them. But for weeks after the very first one went into service in 1967, people would travel from all over just to watch one magically dispense cash. It was a revolutionary concept that suddenly meant our hard-earned cash was available around the clock.

Like the Greek scientist Archimedes, who coined the phrase, the cash machine’s inventor, John Shepherd-Barron, had his eureka moment in the bath in 1965.

Earlier that day he had gone to the bank, only to arrive moments after it had closed. Until as recently as the 1980s, High Street Banks kept rigid hours; if you needed cash outside of 9 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. on a weekday (9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays), you were stuck.

As he soaked, John pondered how he could liberate his money when it suited him. He hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser that instead vended cash. As an executive with bank note printers De La Rue, John was able to arrange a chat with the Chief General Manager of Barclays Bank, who gave him just 90 seconds to pitch his idea. Apparently the pitch took 85 seconds, and the bank agreed a deal: six machines initially and a contract for De La Rue to provide the armoured trucks to fill them.

John’s idea wasn’t too far removed from the modern machines that are now present on every high street – and the major concern was, as it is today, fraud. Plastic bankcards stored with personal information were still a way off, so Shepherd-Barron had to work out a way to ensure that the only person who could get your cash was you. He developed a two-step process for this. Step One seems positively dangerous – radioactive cheques. These were impregnated with the compound carbon-14, an isotope the machine was programmed to recognise. John played down health concerns, claiming you would have to eat over 100,000 cheques for them to have any effect on health. Step Two is much more familiar. You’d have to prove to the machine you were the right person to withdraw money by punching in a personal identification number or PIN. If that PIN corresponded with the carbon-14 numbers on the voucher, the machine would pay out.

It was John’s wife Caroline who gave the world the four-digit PIN. Recalling his army days, John originally proposed using a six-digit personal identification number (PIN) but rejected the idea when Caroline insisted she could only ever remember four digits at a time. So four numbers became the world standard.

It took only two years to go from a rapid pitch to delivering the world’s first cash machine. But what was the prestigious address for such a technological wonder. Tokyo? Frankfurt? New York? No, Enfield in Middlesex. By keeping the launch relatively low profile – although Reg Varney, the comedian and future star of On the Buses, was on hand to officially launch the machine – Barclays and partners De La Rue could play down any teething problems. In fact, being made to look foolish by the robot teller was such a concern that a smaller than average man was actually concealed inside the machine to push the first bundle of notes through the slot in case of a breakdown.

Today there are more than two million cash machines in the world, and the only real difference from the Enfield model is that we use plastic cards and not glowing cheques to access them. John Shepherd-Barron was awarded an OBE in 2004, his only real reward for the idea. Ironically, having never patented the concept because he wanted to keep carbon-14 secret from potential forgers, he didn’t ever get any cash out of his own invention.

BRIGHT SPARK – WILLIAM BICKFORD INVENTS THE SAFETY FUZE