21st Century Dodos: A Collection of Endangered Objects (and Other Stuff) Read online

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  Countries that No Longer Exist

  Pick up any atlas, spin any globe, unfold any map of the world, and chances are that it will be out of date.

  Mr Milne, my old history teacher (I have already mentioned him in these pages), used to have a tear in his eye when he told us, ‘There was once a day when the sun would never set on the British Empire.’ And he would proudly display his old globe with its great swathes of pink, the colour of choice for the many countries Britain somewhat impolitely annexed in days of old. That pink began to vanish like a bad rash following a couple of antihistamine tablets, once these countries claimed their independence.

  But independence is not the only reason that countries change their names – revolutions, wars, political upheaval, and unification can all lead to new countries, new flags, and new national anthems.

  Let us take a few moments to reflect on the following nations, large and small, that are now confined to the rare postage stamp album of history.

  Abyssinia

  Austria-Hungary

  Basutoland

  Bengal

  Catalonia

  Ceylon

  Champa

  Corsica

  Czechoslovakia

  East Germany

  East Pakistan

  Gran Colombia

  New Granada

  North Yemen

  Ottoman Empire

  Persia

  Prussia

  Rhodesia

  Siam

  Sikkim

  South Vietnam

  South Yemen

  Southwest Africa

  Tanganyika

  Transjordan

  United Republic

  Urjanchai Republic

  USSR

  West Germany

  Western Samoa

  Yugoslavia

  Zaire

  Zanzibar

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  English Counties that No Longer Exist

  The boundaries of fair England have been fixed and set in stone for hundreds of years. No one really disputes where it ends and Scotland starts, or where Wales actually is. The English may not necessarily want to go there, but do at least know where they are.

  The boundaries within England, however, have changed quite a lot over the years. In England, we currently have 48 counties. Most of these have been around for donkey’s years but governments have mucked about with them several times, and some counties have been abolished altogether.

  Take plucky Avon, for example. It was created as recently as 1974, and was formed by taking bits of Somerset and Gloucestershire and sticking them together with the city of Bristol. But in 1996, it was decided it wasn’t needed, everything was put back pretty much where it was before, and no more was said about the matter.

  Avon isn’t the only county to have been erased from the atlas of time. Cleveland suffered the same fate, being carved out of the North Riding of Yorkshire, also in 1974, only to be abolished and plonked back again sometime later.

  Then we have the bizarre merger of Herefordshire and Worcestershire, which were squeezed together to form the single county of Hereford & Worcester (the thinking presumably being that if you took the ‘shire’ off the end of each they could fit snugly alongside each other). Twenty-odd years later they were amicably divorced, and back the way they were once more.

  The same with Humberside. Some bright spark decided it deserved to be its own county until an even brighter spark thought it best to plonk it back as it was. Are you detecting a pattern here?

  Interestingly enough, the Royal Mail have often chosen to ignore county changes because they proved too expensive to administer. The most notable example of this is the postal county of Middlesex. There is no actual county of Middlesex any more; it was swallowed up by Greater London in the ’60s, but the region still remains as a distinct postal district.

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  Telegrams from the Queen

  We still refer to a centenarian as receiving ‘a telegram from the Queen’, even though the old dear hasn’t telegrammed anyone since 1981, when telegrams themselves ceased to be issued in the UK.

  Since then, Her Majesty has resorted to sending a more traditional card, although these no longer come automatically on your birthday. Someone, presumably a relative, as you are too busy watching Countdown and trying to remember the names of your 24 great-grandchildren, has to apply in advance to ensure that you get the special greeting.

  It is not only those of us who reach 100 who get a card from the Queen. If you live to 105, then you get another one, and then they keep coming every year till you pop your clogs. She also sends out messages to couples celebrating their 60th wedding anniversaries. Likewise, 70th and 80th anniversaries are also marked in this way.

  The reason that the messages are no longer sent out automatically is quite simple – we are all living longer, and it just became too big a job to manage. Less than 3,000 telegrams were sent in the year that Elizabeth II ascended to the throne, but by 2007 there were nearly 8,500 100th birthdays alone, plus over 26,000 diamond anniversaries.

  Similar traditions exist in other countries. Centenarians in the US receive a letter from the president, and in Japan they get a silver cup. But the best gift of all goes to any Irish citizens who manage to reach their 100th birthday – they get sent just over €2,500 from the president, even if they no longer live in Ireland.

  I hope they blow it all on cheap booze and a night down the bingo.

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  Lighthouse-keepers

  While there are still a small number of manned lighthouses around the globe, the last British lighthouse-keeper handed in his keys in 1998. It is one of the first professions to become completely extinct in this country. Think about it, there are still a few coopers and blacksmiths, and possibly one or two jesters, around. Apart from executioners, I am struggling to think of another job that has completely vanished in this way.

  Lighthouses would usually be manned by three keepers, often living on site for months at a time. Their job was to keep the light working – polishing the lens, trimming the wick (before the days of electricity), and other routine maintenance – at all times. Chores would be shared among the men, rotating responsibilities each day. Some lighthouses were on the mainland, and it was possible to leave them to replenish supplies as and when needed, but many were on rocks and islands out to sea, and keepers were stuck there until the next crew arrived, often two months later.

  Many of the original lighthouses are still in operation, but are now automated and only require occasional maintenance – there is no need for anyone to live on site. Some of the decommissioned lighthouses have become holiday homes, or museums that are open to the public.

  North Foreland lighthouse in Kent was the last one to become automated, over ten years ago.

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  Pipe Smoking

  Perhaps the clearest indication of the decline of pipe smoking is a quick look through the winners of the ‘Pipe Smoker of the Year’ award across the ages.

  1965 Harold Wilson

  Even though I am too young to remember Wilson’s time as Prime Minister (I was a toddler during his second term in the ’70s), even I instantly associate him with a pipe. Of the first 20 results on a Google image search for his name, 17 feature Wilson with one in his mouth. In several of them he is puffing away and emitting a plume of smoke. Can you imagine such a thing today – Tony Blair or David Cameron smoking a pipe in the middle of an interview? Come to think of it, it would be pretty awesome, wouldn’t it? In 1976 he won the award again, this time named Pipe Smoker of the Decade.

  1968 Peter Cushing

  Vanquisher of vampires, saviour of big-breasted Hammer damsels in distress, one of the finest Sherlock Holmes to appear on screen, and he was even Dr Who in the film version of the TV show. A proper English gentleman, and pipe smoker.

  1969 Jack Hargreaves

  Old bloke presenting programmes about country life from a s
hed. Smoking a pipe in nearly every piece of footage he filmed.

  1970 Eric Morecambe

  Comedy legend.

  1973 Frank Muir

  A huge hero of mine and, alongside Denis Norden, half of one of the most successful comedy writing teams of all time. He was also the longest running team captain on Call My Bluff. Again, archetypal English pipe smoker, and gent.

  1974 Fred Trueman

  Cricketing legend.

  1983 Patrick Moore

  Monocled nutty astronomer, and closet xylophone genius, of considerable size. Again, a classic pipe smoker.

  1986 David Bryant

  For those who don’t remember David Bryant, he was one of the country’s leading bowls players in an age when bowls was frequently shown on television and would garner a considerable viewing audience. He played every game with a pipe in his mouth. Later on, rules and regulations banned him from smoking while playing. He then played with an empty pipe in his mouth.

  1992 Tony Benn

  In what I consider to be the final great year of the award, it was given to a man who must have wondered what he had done wrong in the previous 30 years not to have won it before. Another politician permanently associated with the pipe, he saw his rival Harold Wilson win it twice, decades before he was finally given the prize.

  At this point things started to go a bit wrong. It would be easy to suggest that pipe smoking had gone out of fashion, but I am not sure it had ever really been in fashion. You could also point to the increasing concerns about tobacco and health, although I would argue that pipes, although clearly not good for you, never quite had the doctors and health experts as up in arms as cigarettes. Perhaps this was because 14-year-old-kids were rarely nipping behind the bike sheds for a quick puff on a pipe. Whatever the reason, pipe smoking seems to have gone downhill after Anthony Wedgwood Benn picked up his award in 1992.

  Don’t believe me? Then allow me to introduce the winner of the 1993 award.

  Step forward Rod Hull, a man who spent most of his career with his hand up a bird’s arse.

  And the list of winners since then has rarely reached the dizzy heights of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s including, as they do, bearded West Country comedian Jethro and Cooperman himself, Russ Abbot. Nothing against these mildly amusing men, but neither of them is exactly Eric Morecambe, are they?

  The final winner of Pipe Smoker of the Year was Stephen Fry. Now, there are lots of things you can say about Stephen Fry, plenty of accolades you can bestow upon him, numerous great achievements you can associate him with, but how many of you have seen him with a pipe? Me neither.

  That was back in 2003. The award was discontinued at that point because of fears that it would fall foul of the new advertising regulations regarding smoking and tobacco. If this has led to a decline in smoking, then that is surely a good thing, but I, for one, do miss the sight of an old man, in a tweed suit, lighting his pipe in a shop doorway.

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  Chest Expanders

  Technically they still exist. I looked one up on Amazon just before typing this entry, but let’s be honest, when is the last time you saw one advertised, let alone someone actually using one?

  Before the days of gym membership and personal trainers, most fitness regimes involved a bit of jogging, an exercise bike in the bedroom, some dumbbell weights, and a chest expander (for the men, not as popular with women).

  Chest expanders were/are bizarre things. Four long springs running parallel to each other and connected by handles at each end. The idea was take a handle in each hand, pull in opposite directions, and stretch the springs, thereby giving your pectoral muscles a bit of a workout.

  Which was fine, and they worked, but woe betide anyone who exercised without a T-shirt on, when those springs sprang back. Especially gentlemen of a more hirsute persuasion.

  It bloody hurt.

  You may also remember the Bullworker. A thick telescopic tube with grips at both ends that you squashed together to create a similar rippling torso.

  If you cast your mind further back, you’ll recall the Charles Atlas ads in the back of comics and magazines for men.

  One glance at the physique of the average bloke over 40 and you’ll be in no doubt as to how effective these items were.

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  Handwritten Letters

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  Football Pools

  When I was growing up, every Thursday night at my house would be punctuated by a rap at the door as the pools collector came knocking to collect that week’s entry.

  The football pools were the closest this country had to a national lottery before the days of Camelot and their colourful balls. Millions of people paid an entry fee and tried to predict which eight matches from the coming Saturday’s football fixture list would end in a score draw. Points were allocated depending upon the result, typically 3 points for a score draw, 2 for a no-score draw, 1½ points for an away win, and 1 point for a home win. So the maximum you could score was 24.

  Each week the person or persons with the highest score would receive a cash prize, known as a dividend. This was often a healthy six-figure sum, but did occasionally top the million pound mark. Essentially, the entry fees from all players were totalled up, a chunk taken by the pools company, then the rest handed out as prizes.

  The football pools started out in the 1920s, and the main companies offering the competition were Littlewoods, Vernons, and Zetters. They got round the strict gambling laws because they were classed as a game of skill, rather than chance. The companies employed collectors to call on people’s houses and pick up completed forms.

  The forms themselves were long grid affairs, precursors to the Excel spreadsheet perhaps, with a list of fixtures down the left-hand side (starting with the First Division and running all the way down to the Scottish Second) and a number of columns for multiple entries. The cost per line was often just a few pence, or even a fraction of a penny, but most players entered several permutations, or perms, every week. I remember the form and a few silver coins being left by the front door for the pools collector each week.

  When BBC’s Grandstand broadcast the football results every Saturday afternoon, it included the pools score (3, 2, 1½, or 1) and would show a ‘pools forecast’, essentially a prediction of the likelihood of a jackpot. If there were only 8 or 9 score draws in any given week, then the jackpot chances were high, 15 or more and it was likely that many people would have a decent points total, so the chances of a big payout were low.

  In the off-season, when British teams were having a much-needed break, the pools did not stop. Instead they switched to Australian football matches. This really did make it a game of pure chance. While many players could look at the British fixture list and do their best to predict games in which a draw was the likely outcome, hardly anyone knew anything about the Australian teams, so you just had to take a punt.

  The competition still exists today, the three major companies having pooled together (sorry!) to form one online company. This was in response to the launch of the National Lottery in 1994. And, while they are still quite popular, they clearly do not have the national reach that they once had, and the role of the pools collector is long since defunct.

  I checked with my dad while writing this entry, and he reckons he played the pools every week for 20 years, and won about £58.

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  Spot the Ball

  Often run by the same companies as the football pools, but also very popular with newspapers, Spot the Ball was a competition in which a photograph of a football match had been doctored to remove the actual ball. Entrants had to place a series of crosses on the photo in an attempt to predict where the ball was located. The position of the football players, their line of sight, and the direction of the crowd’s watchful gaze were all clues as to the ball’s real whereabouts. Your entry fee was linked to the number of crosses you placed.

  Oddly, the winner was not always the person who got closest to the b
all’s real location as, due to some quirk of the gambling laws, you couldn’t bet on an event that had already taken place, so a panel of ‘experts’ would select the winning location.

  All sounds like a fix if you ask me, but then I am probably just miffed as I never won one.

  Spot the Ball still goes on, but it is rather harder to find than it once was.

  Pun intended.

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  Imperial Measurements

  The death knell for imperial measurements sounded in 1995, when the government introduced the Unit of Measurement Regulations Act, which declared that all tradesmen must use measuring devices that included metric quantities. Contrary to popular belief, this did not outlaw imperial measurements, but it did mark an official move from feet and pounds to metres and kilos.

  Which, given that this is how the rest of the world rolls, is probably fair enough, but it does ignore the fact that imperial measurements were and are, well, far more common sense than metric ones.

  Take the inch, for example. An inch is more or less the length from the tip of a grown man’s thumb to his first knuckle. Most men have at least one thumb, often two, and thereby have the means to measure an inch at any time or in any place. It is a very practical measurement, and I am sure it is no coincidence that the words for ‘thumb’ and ‘inch’ in languages such as French, Spanish, and many others are the same or very similar.

  A centimetre, on the other hand, is one hundredth of a metre, with no sensible or obvious comparison in the real world.

  Twelve inches, as every schoolchild knows, make a foot. And that is another eminently practical unit of measurement being, as it is, based on the length of a man’s foot.

  Three feet make a yard, which is also pretty much the length from the tip of your nose to your thumb, and when merchants of old were selling fabric or material they would measure it by holding it up to their face and stretching it across their extended arm.