Martin Fone's Blog, page 146

The Case With Nine Solutions

A review of The Case with Nine Solutions by J J Connington

This is the third outing for Connington’s police sleuth, Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield, in a book first published in 1928 and now reissued as part of Orion’s Murder Room series. Connington is one of my discoveries of 2021 and he can be relied upon to construct a first-class, intriguing puzzle and he certainly does not fail with this one. Even though there are only two or three credible suspects, he manages to sustain the tension and mystery until the final pages. The final chapter includes extracts from Driffield’s case notes and shows his thinking and suspicions as more and more clues are revealed. It seems an attempt to demonstrate the Connington had played fair with the attentive reader, but it struck me as an unnecessary touch.

Driffield is a bit of a Marmite character, some readers will take to him, and others will abhor him. He is cynical, sardonic and possesses an acerbic wit but it is hard to argue that he is a rounded, human character in the way that Punshon’s Bobby Owen. Indeed, that could be said of all of his characters in this novel. They are drawn sufficiently well for the reader to understand their part in the tale but no further. A more psychological and, dare I say it, a more literary approach is a later development for this genre.

Also missing is Driffield’s usual amateur sidekick, Squire Wendover, and taking the Watson role is Inspector Flamborough, a worthy if uninspired officer of the law. Driffield takes great delight, as he does with Wendover, of disclosing the clues but not the conclusions he has drawn from them, a trait that must have rankled with his underling.

The title of the book leads the reader to suggest that this is going to be an intricate and complex mystery with many possible solutions. It certainly is intricate and complex but the nine solutions are only possibilities as Driffield encourages the sceptical Flamborough the possible fates that could have befallen Hassendean and Mrs Silverdale, ranging from suicide, accident or murder. This analysis produces nine possibilities, of which three are immediately discounted. It is amusing to see Flamborough become a convert to his superior’s methodology, but clearly there is only one solution.

The book opens with Westerhaven draped in a thick fog. Dr Ringwood is acting as a locum in the town and is entertaining Dr Markfield when he receives a phone call to attend to a sick patient at the home of Dr Silverdale. As a newcomer to the town, he is unsure of the way and Markfield offers to escort him there in a fascinating insight into the perils of motoring at the time when dim headlights failed to penetrate the gloom of the fog. Even so, Ringwood goes to the wrong house and discovers a young man, Hassendean, who had been carrying on with Mrs Silverdale, mortally wounded.

Driffield leads the investigation and receives a communication from a mysterious person called Justice, who has a penchant for cyphers, that directs him to an empty bungalow in town where he finds the body of Mrs Silverdale, ostensibly shot but killed by a fatal dose of hyoscine. Drs Silverdale and Markfield both work in a laboratory where there was easy access to the poison. There are two other murders along the way, one of the Silverdale’s maid and the other of a potential informant.

Driffield twigs that the murders are all related and pieces the clues together to unmask the culprit and their motivation, not without a liberal sprinkling of red herrings along the way. As a chemistry professor in real life, Alfred Stewart aka Connington revels in the chemical aspects of the case but his learning is worn lightly. It all makes for an enjoyable and entertaining puzzle which is neatly resolved.

Connington certainly knew how to write a good murder mystery and this one is amongst the best. I also enjoyed the appearance of Miss Marple, not that one but a middle-aged maid.

The Division Bell Mystery

A review of The Division Bell Mystery by Ellen Wilkinson

First published in 1932 and now reissued as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, The Division Bell Mystery is Ellen Wilkinson’s one and only stab at detective fiction. As a politician, a Labour MP first elected in 1924 who was involved in the organisation of the Jarrow march and later served as Education minister in Attlee’s post war government, she is well positioned to bring some insight into the workings of parliament and the topography of the building’s warren of rooms. Wilkinson wrote the book after she lost her seat for the first time.

It is a closed room murder mystery with an unusual amateur sleuth in the form of the Home Secretary’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, the Conservative MP Robert West. He is aided and abetted by a firebrand Labour MP, Grace – it is tempting to see a touch of Wilkinson herself in her character – who also seems to be able to open West’s eyes to the iniquities of the system and the sidelining of the role of parliament to greater forces such as finance and capitalism. There is some humour and gentle satire, Wilkinson unable to resist the opportunity to make some political points.

It is a lot of fun and is good on the quirky traditions and customs of the House and its topography. There is a feminist streak running through the narrative, exemplified in Wilkinson’s summary of West’s rather absurd attitude to the modern woman. For me, though, there are too many characters and Wilkinson struggles to make many of them any more than pastiches of stereotypes. More could have been made of West’s friend, Don Shaw, and even the police in the form of Inspector Blackling are pushed to the side.

The book concentrates on the whodunit aspect but the ingenious way in which the American financier, Ossiel, is murdered is barely explained in detail. I am not suggesting we need a detailed breakdown but a sense of how it was pulled off, a trick which, after all, is the crux of the book, would have helped. I was left feeling that Wilkinson just fudged it, hoping that the reveal and the unmasking of the culprit would suffice. It seems all a bit rushed at the end, especially considering the time spent on pursuing red herrings.

Britain is mired in a financial crisis and is trying to negotiate a loan with Georges Ossiel, the American financier. The Home Secretary has a private meal with him in the Commons, in Room J, and leaves him when the division bell sounds. A shot is heard and when the waiter and West enter the room Ossiel is found slumped over the table, shot dead. It is initially thought to be suicide but his granddaughter, Annette, to whom West inevitably takes a shine to, is adamant he would not have topped himself.

At the same time Jenks, whom the Home Secretary has loaned to Ossiel, is found murdered at Ossiel’s flat following a burglary. As investigations proceed, it does seem to be murder. Why had Jenks on the night of the murder had Ossiel’s secret notebook photographed and why had the Home Secretary taken notes from it? Why was Annette so unmoved by her grandfather’s death and what has Kinnaird, who has suddenly come into funds, courtesy of Annette, to do with it all?

A coalition of sleuths, amateur and professional, finally crack the case. An enjoyable book but Wilkinson greater contribution to the welfare of the nation was the resumption of her political career.

Britain’s Largest Lifeboat Rescue

Gazing at the now sadly dilapidated lifeboat station at Polpeor Cove on Lizard Point, my attention was caught by a series of boards which told the tale of the SS Suevic.

Built in Belfast’s Harland and Wolff shipyard, the Suevic was the fifth and largest steamship commissioned by the White Star Line to service its London to Cape Town to Sydney route. With a gross register tonnage of 12,531 it was designed to carry up to 400 passengers on three decks in third class accommodation, along with seven cargo holds, most of which were refrigerated to stow 100,000 carcasses of mutton, and a hold designed to transport upwards of 20,000 bales of wool. Launched on December 8, 1900, it made its maiden voyage to Sydney on March 23, 1901.

Under the command of Captain Thomas Johnson Jones, it set off from Melbourne on February 2, 1907, en route to Liverpool via Cape Town, Tenerife, and Plymouth. Approaching the Lizard Point on its inward journey to Plymouth on Sunday, March 17th, it was carrying 382 passengers, 141 crew members, and a nearly full cargo hold, including thousands of sheep carcasses worth £400,000.

Visibility was so reduced by fog that Jones was unable to use the stars to navigate. Instead, he headed towards the point where he thought he could see the light from the Lizard lighthouse, concluding from his calculations that it was some ten miles away and that they were clear of the rocks. Seeing no reason to reduce the Suevic’s cruising speed of thirteen knots and dispensing with a sounding line, he steamed on. Twenty minutes later at around 10.30 pm, the vessel ran aground at full speed on the rocks of Maenheere Reef, a quarter of a mile off the Lizard. Jones’ navigational error had put the ship sixteen miles ahead of his assumed position and, more crucially, much nearer the coast and its treacherous rocks.

A passenger, Hilda Tressider, later recorded what happened when the ship hit the rocks; “there was a tremendous crash. The vessel heaved up and launched forward. For a time it shivered and shook, then stopped – and silence…Suddenly the engines started again but after a few revolutions stopped”. The crew sought to calm fears by saying that the ship was only grounded, but clearly the situation was worse than that. The ship was in danger of splitting in two and the passengers needed to be evacuated.

Around 4.25 am, lifeboats, open wooden boats powered by six oarsmen, were launched from four nearby stations of Lizard, Cadgwith, Coverack, and Porthleven. The fog was so dense that the first lifeboat on the scene collided with the steamship’s side. The weather, mercifully, improved as the day broke but it took the efforts of sixty men over sixteen hours, shuttling back and forth between shore and vessel, to complete the evacuation.

Hilda’s turn came almost twelve hours after the initial grounding. “At the bottom of the ladder we had to wait until the boat rose on the wave and, below the ladder an officer called, “Let go”. I did so and found myself in the arms of three or four sailors who, with much encouragement and sympathy, settled me in my place and made me comfortable. They were so friendly and seemed to be enjoying themselves”.

The local paper, the West Briton, was impressed by the sense of calm and lack of panic displayed by all concerned, its correspondent moved to note that he had “never seen better behaviour in my life”. The imperturbable Captain Jones oversaw operations while smoking a cigar. “If anything could stop a panic it would be a man who could keep the ash on the end of his cigar in a gale and an emergency”, the correspondent noted. Quite.

While the men on the lifeboats risked life and limb to effect the rescue, the women on the shore played their part too, turning the winch which drew the lifeboats ashore. One woman, the West Briton noted, “was most heroic, rushing into the sea to her waist and carrying the children ashore”. They even served the passengers with meals, Hilda reporting that “one friendly woman took five of us to her cottage where we were given a wonderful and much-needed breakfast”.

Astonishingly, not one single life was lost, even with 70 babies on board, and most of the cargo was salvaged. Hilda recorded that a fortnight later the White Star Line had returned all of her possessions, including a deck chair. Now, that is what I call service.

The rescue of the Suevic is the largest rescue to be accomplished solely by lifeboat in Britain and, possibly, the world, if the Guinness World Records is to be believed. For their bravery and derring-do, six people were awarded Silver Medals for Gallantry by the RNLI.

As for the ship, it was left grounded on the rocks, drawing crowds of up to 10,000 sightseers a day to gaze on it, until salvagers blew the damaged bow away from the stern with dynamite. The bow remained there to break up where the steamship had grounded, while the stern section was towed to Southampton for repair.

Harland and Wolff built a new bow in Belfast and with the two parts of the ship three hundred miles apart, the Suevic earned itself the sobriquet of the “world’s longest ship”. By January 1908 the two halves were reunited and the ship was back at sea. After serving as a Norwegian whaling ship, the Suevic was scuttled off Sweden in 1942 to prevent its capture by the Germans.

Strangely, Charles Lightoller was one of the officers on the Suevic. He later had the distinction of being the most senior officer to survive the sinking of the Titanic. The archetypal Uncle Albert, you might say.

Trip Of The Week (2)

Hats off to Paul Taylor from Wantage who has just completed an epic and unusual journey on his Slovenian Tomos XL45 Classic, which boasts a top speed of 28mph, raising over £20,000 for the Institute of Cancer Research.

Paul’s carefully selected route aimed to take him to a collection of towns, villages, and roads in Britain with risqué names. He started out from Shitterton in Dorset and ended up in Twatt in Orkney, taking in the likes of Ass Hill, near Wimborne, Sandyballs holiday village in the New Forest, Pishill in Oxfordshire, Titty Ho in Raunds, Booze in the Yorkshire Dales, Brawl in the Hghlands, and Cockpole Green in Berkshire along the way. Of course, Butthole Lane in Shepshed and The Knob in King’s Sutton also had to be visited.

There were some disappointments along the way. Some bell end had removed the sign at Worcestershire’s Bell End and so Paul was unable to record his visit with a photograph. Then his trusty steed broke down near Cairn O’Mount in Aberdeenshire and so he had to dismount and complete his trip using a hire car.  

The good news is that Paul is considering another trip through some of the country’s strangest names, next time travelling from east to west rather than south to north.

Smell Of The Week (4)

You would not normally put the smell of freshly laid asphalt down as one of the sweetest of aromas, but a couple of Polish companies, Budimex, a construction firm, and Lotos, a refiner, are planning to change all that.

They have just produced a floral-scented asphalt using a mix of synthetic and natural oils that neutralize the smell you would associate with asphalt, while the rmaining ones add a more pleasing whiff to the compound. A foreman employed by Budimex by the name of Slawomir Szpak gushed that “at times one could smell the scent of flowers, which mde working more pleasant”.

The companies have great plans for their sweet-smelling tarmac. Let’s see how it rolls out.

Death Of A Ghost

A review of Death of a Ghost by Margery Allingham

Is the wearing of a tartan waistcoat the sign of incipient mental collapse? For many it may point to dubious taste but in the cosy world that Allingham paints in this, the sixth outing for her amateur sleuth, Albert Campion, originally published in 1934, it is a clincher. Upon such small details can hang a person’s fate.

The story is less of a whodunit, the culprit is obvious and revealed midway through the book, and more of a why and how did they do it. Campion, too, has a more subdued role and one that fits more easily with his persona, inhabiting London’s art world rather than battling with gangs of international criminals. Nevertheless, he still has time to put himself in danger before bringing the story to its conclusion.

Allingham chooses to narrate the story in the third person, a technique which allows her to change perspective and give insights into the actions and thoughts of some of the other characters, rather than anchoring it solely to the perspective and current knowledge of her sleuth. This kept the storyline fresh and interesting, although Campion’s take on matters does come through loud and clear when appropriate.

The characters in the story are well developed and Allingham takes time to let the reader understand how they tick and their jealousies and possible motives. She explores their psychology more than most writers of this genre did at the time. Indeed, the story demands that, as what proves to be a complicated plot turns on their jealousies, their pasts, and their aspirations. The rather outré Donna Beatrice and the extraordinary art critic, Max Fustian, are brilliantly portrayed.

John Lafcadio was an artist. In his will he had held back twelve of his paintings, one to be unveiled each year following his death in an attempt to put one over his biggest rival and to preserve his memory. The story begins on the eve of the latest unveiling and Campion is invited by Lafcadio’s wife, Bella, to a private viewing and to see that preparations are in order. He detects a distinct undercurrent of feelings in the people he meets but thinks nothing of it.

During the party the lights go out and in the confusion, Tommy Dacre is stabbed to death with a pair of scissors which are one of the exhibits at the soiree. Dacre was an artist and had jilted Lafcadio’s granddaughter, Linda, by marrying an Italian model. Was jealousy the motive? What had the Potters to do with it all, untalented tenants at the house, a mystery compounded when Mrs Potter was later found dead, poisoned?

As Campion digs into what had happened, the plot thickens with fraud and manipulation of the art world and the counterfeiting of pictures at its heart. The culprit’s rapid descent into madness is rather dramatic and unbelievable, but their death brings a satisfying conclusion to the story. Campion’s approach to sleuthing does not rely on flashes of intuition or the grind of working through the suspects and their motives but is somewhere between the two. In what is a reverse of the norm in books of this genre, he identifies the culprit first, then establishes how and motivation later.

An enjoyable book with Allingham at her best.

Loveday Falmouth Dry Gin

On my recent visit to Constantine Stores, the unprepossessing headquarters of Drinkfinder UK, I was anxious to get my hands on a bottle of Loveday Falmouth Dry Gin, living proof that some good things have come out of the pandemic. Three friends, Daisy Hillier, a cordon bleu chef, Chloe Gillatt, an artist and chef, and Ruth Warfield, a food scientist, found that the pandemic had brought their day jobs to a shuddering halt, but had given them the incentive to turn a daydream of harnessing their skills in recipe development, design, and alcohol production into reality.

Overcoming the not inconsiderable challenges of bubbling (not welcome in a gin) and physical distancing, they created, in the spring of 2020, their own micro-distillery, Falmouth Distilling Company, and a year later had a spirit which was ready to jostle for its space on the shelves with the other gins spawned by the ginaissance. They drew their inspiration, they claim, from the distinctive features of their special part of Cornwall, its colours, landscape, its creativity, and history.

That sense of Cornish history is reflected in the name of the hooch. Leofdaeg, in old English, was the name given to a day when attempts were made to broker peace between the querulous factions of the region. Its modern spelling is Loveday and children who were born on these days were often given the name in celebration. There is nothing better than to raise a glass of cheer to celebrate peace and harmony.

The bottle itself is a stunning piece of design work which shouts out elegance and sophistication. Made of rounded, clear glass, it has a short neck and an enormous wooden stopper, rather like that found on Rosemullion Dry Gin, with an embossed copper seal and an artificial cork interior. The label runs vertically up the front of the bottle and is elegant simplicity itself, stripped bare to just provide the essential information. At the rear of the bottle is another label, this time providing a tad more information mixed with the obligatory marketingese. On the reverse of the rear label, and plainly visible if you look through the bottle from the front, is some artwork featuring botanicals in yellow. My bottle was batch number 5 and distilled by Chloe. Thanks, Chloe.

Aside from juniper, the principal botanicals are samphire, fennel, and bell heather, all foraged from the local area. The stopper comes off with a reassuring plop and to the nose there is distinctive and comforting smell of juniper combined with the more mineral tones of the samphire. It is a beautifully clear spirit in the glass and in the mouth, it is bright and breezy with a complex mix of juniper and samphire to the fore before with the more herby, floral textures provided by the fennel and bell heather join the party. The aftertaste lingers and leaves a slightly salty taste to the mouth and lips, as though you had been standing on the shoreline and luxuriated in the breeze coming off the sea.   

It is a really commendable effort and at 40% ABV is light enough to make that second glass almost irresistible. A decent tonic enhances its crispness and a garnish of orange is the cherry on a wonderful cake. Seek it out.

Until the next time, cheers!

The House Of Godwinsson

A review of The House of Godwinsson by E R Punshon

My, what a transformation! In the twenty-fifth book in Punshon’s Bobby Owen series, originally published in 1948 and reissued by Dean Street Press, we have left the cosy world of pre- and World War Two murder mysteries and are lunged headlong into a more brutal, grittier world. London, slowly getting back on to its feet after the war, is populated by spivs and violent gangs, jewellery thieves and desperadoes, ready to pull a knife out at the slightest provocation.    

Even Bobby Owen has had a bit of a makeover. Back firmly at Scotland Yard, even those his role is still a bit nebulous, and having to move out of his idyllic cottage after the complications from his last adventure in Music Tells All into a flat, he has become a man of action, ready for a life and death tussle with the most dangerous of criminals at the drop of a coat. As someone who is following the series, it is fascinating to see how Punshon adapts his main character to reflect the demands of the time and a readership who is looking for a more realistic representation of crime at the time.

Bobby’s wife, Olive has also received a bit of a character change. She is still struggling with the rationing system to put a decent meal on the table and to keep her hubby clothed, she is still the sounding board for Owen to bounce off his theories and concerns about the latest case, she is still a font of wisdom whose clarity of thought allows her husband to see the wood from the trees, but she is also now more willing to stand up for herself, a reflection of the early signs of the emergence of a more independent woman.

The story is intriguing with a complex plot. Ostensibly it starts with the discovery of the body of a small time criminal, just par for the course for London at the time. However, he has a detailed plan of Bobby’s new flat in his pocket. Almost immediately, as if he knew there was a body in the house, a man turns up who has a grievance against Owen – he was a corrupt policeman who was cashiered by a committee on which Bobby had served – and immediately identifies the victim.

Investigations soon uncover the dead man’s links with a gang of violent criminals, including Cy King who proves handy with a knife, and who have been linked to a series of jewellery thefts. A further twist is supplied by the gang’s surprising links with members of one of England’s oldest families, the Godwinssons, who trace their ancestry back to the Anglo-Saxons and regard William the Conqueror and all who followed him as usurpers to the English throne. Bobby Owen stolidly follows all the leads and discovers more bodies, a love nest carefully prepared in a derelict area, and a complex web of intrigue.    

It would not be a Punshon if there was not one of his signature set pieces. Here, the reader is treated to several, all involving deadly fights which are realistically and excitingly recounted. I liked the book, but I think my enjoyment was slightly marred by reading Dickson Carr’s The Corpse in the Waxworks a week or so before. Thematically, they both deal with ancient families precious about their reputation and struggling to come to terms with the modern world. I think Carr made a better fist of it.

The Third Man

A review of The Third Man by Graham Greene

Although I am a fan of Graham Greene I have never got round to reading The Third Man, a novella upon which he based the film script for the famous film, starring Orson Welles and famous for its haunting zither music. I have never seen the film either and so I had the perfect opportunity to come to this completely fresh and without any preconceptions. Written before the screenplay, Greene claims that it was never intended for publication, but it came out in book form in 1950, after the film’s release.

It is a very atmospheric work, capturing the dog eat dog, hand-to-mouth existence of those trying to survive in postwar Vienna, divided into four quarters by the occupying powers. Paranoia and the fear of betrayal is never far away. Into this troubled city enters Rollo Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, invited by his longstanding friend, Harry Limes. The novel is narrated by an English policeman, Colonel Calloway, who is serving in the city and has developed a particular interest in Limes.

Although superficially a thriller and Greene stokes up the tension and excitement well, it is essentially a tale of betrayal and the shattering of illusions, a parable of mistaken identities. Martins has hero-worshipped Limes since their time at school but as the story unfolds, the scales begin to fall from his eyes. Limes was a racketeer in a city full of racketeers, engaged in a particularly distasteful, immoral, and deadly scam, supplying adulterated penicillin.

Upon his arrival in Vienna, Martins discovers that Limes is dead, ostensibly hit by a jeep which took a corner too quickly. Martins quickly realizes that the various witnesses to the accident, all well known to Limes, had differing accounts of what happened. Did Limes die instantaneously, or did he have enough lucidity to make the arrangements which benefited both Martins and his girl, Anna Schmidt before he died? Who was the mysterious third man who helped carry the body into the flat?  

The mystery deepens as some time afterwards Martins spots Limes, who clearly had not died in the accident. Instead of being overjoyed by the resurrection of his friend, Martins turns against him assists in his ultimate demise down in the sewer system of Vienna in a thrilling and gripping finale.

As for mistaken identities, Limes is clearly not who he was thought to be and Martins himself, in a foretaste of what was to come, is mistaken for a more established literary writer, Benjamin Dexter. Calloway is often, and confusingly, referred to as Callaghan by Martins, Dr Winkler as Winkle and who exactly is Anna Schmidt? Is she a Hungarian masquerading as an Austrian?  

The final scene, according to the Preface, differs from the film version. Whether such a dark tale of deceit and shattered illusions deserves a more hopeful ending is a moot point. I think it would have worked either way.

How The Derby Made TV History

Although the public was accustomed to seeing footage from sporting events, with the Epsom Derby filmed and shown as part of a newsreel in cinemas since 1896, live broadcasting by television was another matter.

Following a successful demonstration of his system in May 1931, John Logie Baird mused that “the idea of televising the Derby or cricketers at Lord’s was not as fantastic as some imagined”. Emboldened, he obtained permission from the BBC to use their transmitters at the Epsom racecourse, although they stipulated that the Baird Company’s commentary should be run through a separate telephone line so as not to interfere with their own.

On June 2, 1931, the day before the Derby, Baird took his equipment, housed in a caravan, to the racecourse and sent pictures of one of the minor races to his company’s offices in London’s Long Acre, where they were viewed on four sets. The outlines of the horses were visible but blurry and they hoped for better results the next day.

On race day, the caravan was positioned opposite the winning post with wooden scaffolding around it, which members of the public, to the engineers’ dismay, thought was a temporary viewing platform for their use. Baird’s plans created a stir, the Daily Herald noting that “it is hoped, for the first time in history, that tomorrow the Epsom Derby will be broadcast through the magic eye of the Baird televisor, and the result of the race will be seen by hundreds of viewers”.

Rather than hundreds some 5,000 viewers saw what by modern standards were very low-resolution pictures, just thirty lines of television, largely consisting of flickering representations of the crowd, the parade of horses, and Cameronian winning the race. Pictures were fed to the Baird offices where a crowd of journalists had assembled and then relayed throughout the land by the BBC with their own commentary. It was an impressive audience given that televisors were beyond the reach of most pockets, costing £26 ready assembled and £18 in kit form. 

Reactions were positive. The Falkirk Herald, althoughcomplaining of the flickering pictures and the interference, noted that “the course itself, with its crowds and marquees was easily identified, and the flying scud of horses…conveyed something of the thrill of the real thing”. Mr Willis from Norwich wrote that he could “see the horses flash past the screen. This experiment was little short of sensational”, while Worthing’s Mr Lamb exclaimed that “of all the recent developments in television the broadcast of the Derby was, to my mind, the most wonderful”.

Baird may have put live broadcasting on the map, but by 1937 his pioneering system had been eclipsed by Marconi/EMI’s superior technology.

The Americans had to wait until May 17, 1939, to see a live sporting event, a college baseball game between the Columbia Lions and Princeton Tigers broadcast by NBC. Action replays were first used in a broadcast of the American Football game in which the Navy beat the Army 21-15 on December 7, 1963. When Army quarterback, Rollie Stichweh’s touchdown was repeated, viewers inundated the switchboard to enquire whether he had scored again.

Sports broadcasting has come a long way.