100 years ago

An analysis, just published, of the losses officially reported to have been sustained by the British Expeditionary Force on the Continent from September 2nd to January 30th, showed the total, including officers of the Indian Army, to be 62,182.

During the month of January a series of lists, issued from the base during the last week of November, were published, and showed heavy losses among the rank-and-file of the infantry regiments. The effect on the total of these returns was that, compared with the totals published on January 2nd, the number of men killed had increased by 3910 and the wounded by 10,680. The losses among the officers during the same period had been comparatively light, 101 having been reported killed and 141 wounded.

 

50 years ago

The dark-haired girl with the big brown eyes and slender figure looked much too glamorous to be merely a name on the television screen. How many of the Doctor Who serial’s 12m viewers had noticed the name of Verity Lambert, the last one to roll into view, on Saturday afternoons?

But this slip of a girl, who looked so much younger than her 29 years, was the most important person behind the old doctor. She was the producer who was scoring such a resounding success with her first assignment with the BBC. Having worked as a secretary at Granada TV she had eventually moved to the production side as an assistant. She then had a spell working for CBS in America before joining ABC Television back in England. Doctor Who was her first job as a fully-fledged producer.

As to her views on why Doctor Who had been so successful, she said: “One reason, I think, is that it deals with things that people don’t know about. Children and adults are always interested in something for which they have no proof that it is right or wrong.”

 

25 years ago

It was the moment more and more telephone users were coming to dread. The operator said “Hold on” - and the earpiece resounded to the metallic chimes of a musical tape. Half the adult population experienced such a moment every day - but lots of them did not like it one bit.

A new survey showed that although 47 per cent of people were in favour of the device, a stubborn 47 per cent thought the whole thing was a bad idea. Public Attitudes Surveys managing director Barry Lee said: “It is clear that a substantial proportion of callers resent the intrusion of this musical equivalent of junk mail. At least you can throw away junk mail, whereas you are forced to listen to these loony tunes, for fear of missing the person you are calling.”