[23] Kingston Upon Hull was bombed heavily by the Nazis throughout the Second World War, being an easy target on the North East Coast of Britain, with docks and heavy industry located in the heart of the city. 95% of all buildings were damaged, which made it the worst affected city after London.
[24] Richard Burton (1925-1984) and Claire Bloom (born 1931) starred in Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the Old Vic theatre in 1953/1954.
[25] Charlie “Bird” Parker (1920-1955) US jazz saxophonist and composer, along with Dizzy Gillespie, was one of the inventors of bebop. Parker died in March 1955, just before this book begins.
[26] Johnny Ray (1927-1990), US singer, songwriter and pianist, one of the first white teen idols before the advent of Elvis Presley. Ray sold millions of records in the 1950’s, particularly 1952’s Cry and The Little White Cloud That Cried. When he performed he would often fall to the floor or cry with emotion, producing hysteria in his young audience.
[27] Art Blakey (1919-1990) US jazz drummer and bandleader. His brand of ‘hard bop’ added influences from blues and gospel to jazz with a rhythmic drumbeat that eventually led to ‘funk’.
[28] Bernard “Acker” Bilk (born 1929), English jazz clarinettist and vocalist. Acker Bilk was part of the traditional, easy-listening, type of jazz that became popular in the Fifties. He and his band - sporting their striped waistcoats and bowler hats - would have been familiar on the London jazz circuit in 1955, although they were yet to experience the international success that came in 1962 with Stranger on the Shore.
[29] Myxomatosis is a disease that specifically kills rabbits. It began in South America, spread through Australia and was deliberately introduced in France to control the rabbit population, from where it spread like wildfire to the UK. By 1955, 95% of UK rabbits were dead and there had been little or no attempt to find a cure. While a vaccine is now available for tame rabbits, wild rabbits can still suffer myxomatosis, despite increasing immunity to the disease.
[30] This is where I admit that I’ve stolen the houses and given them false identities. White Cliffs was one of four houses left on the beach at St Margaret’s Bay after the war. When playwright and actor Noel Coward (1899-1973) bought it in 1945, it had suffered after being used by the army, but he and his friends refurbished it and he spent six happy years there. Coward loved being so close to the elements and so did his many famous friends, including film star Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003), who regularly swam in the cold sea. In 1951 he sold it to another friend, the author Ian Fleming (1908-1964), who already had ties with the Kent Coast, living nearby and playing golf at Royal St George’s club in Sandwich. Fleming lived at White Cliffs until 1957 and set the entirety of his 1955 James Bond novel Moonraker in the area. (See excellent website www.dovermuseum.co.uk for further info.)
[31] Doctor in the House was a UK box-office smash in 1954, a British comedy adapted from the Doctor series of books written by real-life surgeon, Richard Gordon (born 1921). It was the first in a series of seven films set in a fictional hospital and it made a star out of Dirk Bogarde (1921-1999), the British actor and writer who began his career as a matinee idol, but gravitated to acting in art-house films, such as The Night Porter (1974).
[32] The Belles of St Trinians came out in 1954, the first of a series of films about the anarchic girl’s school, which were developed from the work of British satirical cartoonist and artist Ronald Searle (1920-2011).
[33] Tove Jansson (1914-2001) was a Finnish author, artist and cartoonist. Finn Family Moomintroll (1948) was the third of her many books for children about a family of round, white trolls - the Moomins – and centred around the discovery of a magician’s hat.
[34] Gone with the Wind (1936), written by US author Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949) was made into the enormously successful film of 1939.
[35] Georges Simenon (1903-1989), prolific Belgian writer best known for his detective fiction featuring the calm and tenacious Parisian Inspector Maigret.
[36] Bulldog Drummond was a fictional character in the book of the same name by British author H.C. Macneile, writing under the pen-name ‘Sapper’ (1888-1937). Drummond was a “Detective, patriot, hero and gentleman!” He appeared in many thrilling adventures, which continued to be written by others long after Sapper’s death.
[37] Magnus has named his cat after left-wing Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda (1904-1973).
[38] Dean Martin (1917-1995) Italian-American singer and entertainer with a notably relaxed and smooth delivery of easy-listening songs. That’s Amore was a big hit for Martin in 1952.
[39] Bankside generated oil-fired electricity from 1952-1981. It is now the Tate Modern art gallery.
[40] Sir Donald Wolfit (1902-1968) British actor-manager, famed for stage performances in the over-the-top style of days gone by.
[41] Poliomyelitis (polio), an acute illness that can cause paralysis and death was rife throughout the world in the 1940’s and 1950’s. There was an epidemic in the UK in the early 1950’s, with many children infected and sent to isolation hospitals. However, by 1956, the first vaccines were beginning to be developed.
[42] Richard III, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, was a British film that came out in 1955. It was directed, produced and starred Sir Laurence Olivier (1907-1989), one of the greatest stage actors of his time.
[43] Effective antihistamine drugs were just beginning to be developed in the early 1950’s.
[44] Albert Camus (1913-1960) French author, journalist and philosopher who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. La Peste (The Plague) was written in 1947.
[45] Oskar Schindler (1908-1974), ethnic German industrialist and spy for the Nazi party, who rescued 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories.
[46] Friday November 26th 1954 saw the worst Channel storm for two hundred years. The cable attaching the South Goodwin Lightship snapped and the vessel was wrecked on the Goodwin Sands. One man escaped, but the bodies of seven men were never found.
[47] Thermodynamics is the study of heat and energy. The second law of thermodynamics (put very simply) states that heat will naturally flow from hot to cold places when inside a closed system.
[48] To Catch a Thief, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly came out in 1955.
[49] Sir John Gielgud (1904-2000), famed British actor and director.
[50] The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. Written between 1596 and 1598. Act v, scene i.
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