The Postcard
A National Series postcard that was posted in Norwich using a halfpenny stamp on Tuesday the 20th. January 1914. It was sent to:
Mr. & Mrs. A. Anderson,
218, Melton Road,
Leicester.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Dear Both,
I am A1, but very cold.
Business not bad so far.
Hope you are getting on
alright with the youngsters.
Bought this PC for sketching
in autograph book. I don't
believe it.
Will."
The SOLAS Convention
So what else happened on the day that Will posted the card?
Well, on the 20th. January 1914, the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, also known as the SOLAS Convention, was adopted as an international maritime safety treaty.
The treaty was in part drafted and adopted in response to the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.
Elements of the convention included prescribed numbers of lifeboats and other emergency equipment along with safety procedures for commercial ships, and the establishment of the International Ice Patrol to monitor and alert sea vessels of icebergs entering major northern shipping lanes.
Vsevolod Ivanovich
The day also marked the birth in Saint Petersburg of Vsevolod Ivanovich, the last male member of the Romanov family of Imperial Russia.
In June 1970 Vsevolod underwent an operation in London, the beginning of a long painful battle with cancer. He died in London on the 18th. June 1973.
His funeral services took place a week later at the Russian Orthodox church in Kensington. Among those present were Prince and Princess Paul of Yugoslavia and Prince and Princess Vassili of Russia.
Oscar Collazo
Also born on that day, in Florida, Puerto Rico, was Oscar Collazo.
Oscar was a Puerto Rican revolu
tionary who attempted to assassinate U.S. President Harry S. Truman in 1950.
Oscar died in 1994.
Roy Plomley
Roy Plomley was also born on the 20th. January 1914.
Francis Roy Plomley, OBE was an English radio broadcaster, producer, playwright and novelist. He is best remembered for devising the BBC Radio series Desert Island Discs, which he hosted from its inception in 1942 until his death in 1985.
-- Roy Plomley - The Early Years
Plomley was born in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, the only surviving child of pharmaceutical chemist Francis John Plomley (1868–1942) and Ellinor Maud (1880–1968; née Wigg).
Roy was educated at King's College School, Wimbledon. On leaving school he worked first briefly for an estate agent, then for a London advertising agency, and then in publishing.
His original aim was to be an actor, and he did secure minor parts in a number of films, e.g. To the Public Danger (1948), and Double Confession (1950).
However Roy soon drifted into broadcasting, coming to public notice as an announcer, and later producer, for the International Broadcasting Company (IBC).
He started on Radio Normandy in France in April 1936, and moved on at the end of that year to the IBC's Paris-based station, Poste Parisien.
Between mid-1937 and late 1939 Roy was involved in writing and production, travelling back and forth between these two IBC stations and the company's offices and studios in London.
At the same time Roy also presented the variety programme Radio Normandy Calling, recorded on location in theatres at UK seaside resorts, and regularly beating the BBC in audience ratings.
-- Roy Plomley in World War II
This part of Roy's career came to an abrupt end when commercial broadcasting from the continent was brought to a halt by World War II.
Plomley and his new wife stayed on in Paris, only narrowly escaping back to the UK via a circuitous route through the chaos and panic of the Fall of France, losing all their possessions in the process, as German occupying forces approached the French capital in June 1940.
-- Roy Plomley and Desert Island Discs
In 1941, Roy devised the BBC Radio series Desert Island Discs.
It was created on a cold November evening while Plomley was contemplating ideas and deciding whether to retire to bed or not.
In the cottage (now replaced) he was living in at the time at Little Bushey Lane, Bushey, Hertfordshire, he wrote to Leslie Perowne, who was in charge of popular record programmes.
He had a favourable reply and so, in his little back bedroom/study he set out his ideas with the names of personalities to be invited to participate. In those days of WWII, every BBC Radio show was scripted by Plomley and submitted for censorship.
In January 1942 the first of a series of eight weekly programmes was broadcast. Each show consisted of an interview with a celebrity, interspersed by the guest's choice of music.
Roy's contract was renewed for a further 15 shows.
In the end he presented 1,791 editions of the programme stretching over 43 years. Its success was attributed to his skill as an interviewer and to his meticulous research.
Plomley was succeeded as presenter by Michael Parkinson (1986–1988), then by Sue Lawley (1988–2006), Kirsty Young (2006–2018) and most recently by Lauren Laverne.
Desert Island Discs is the second longest-running radio programme in the world (after the Grand Ole Opry), and it is still running.
Until late September 2009, unlike many other BBC radio programmes, Desert Island Discs was unavailable for Listen Again on the BBC website.
This was because, when Roy Plomley devised the programme, he was a freelance producer, and it had been argued therefore that the 'format rights' of the programme belonged to him rather than to the BBC.
At his death, those 'rights' passed to his widow, and the BBC were subsequently unable to negotiate the right to include Desert Island Discs in their Listen Again offering.
However it was announced on the 27th. September 2009 that an agreement had been reached with the family as to payment of royalties, and it would be available via iPlayer.
-- Roy Plomley's Other Work
Roy Plomley's broadcasting career was not restricted to Desert Island Discs.
He also compiled and presented several feature programmes, and was the chairman of BBC Radio's game show Many a Slip from 1964 to 1979, and a participant in such panel games such as Does the Team Think?, also on BBC Radio.
Roy also anchored Round Britain Quiz in 1961. For television he produced Dinner Date with Death in 1949, claimed to be the first UK film made for TV, and in the same year chaired We Beg to Differ on BBC Radio, transferring with it to BBC Television in 1951. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1953 film The Blakes Slept Here.
Plomley was awarded an OBE in 1975. He was Chairman of the Radio and Television Writers' Association from 1957 to 1959, and was voted BBC Radio Personality of the Year in 1979.
Roy published 16 stage plays (one of which, Cold Turkey, was put on in the West End), and one novel. He was posthumously inducted into the Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.
-- The Death of Roy Plomley
Plomley died in London from pleurisy on the 28th. May 1985 aged 71, and was laid to rest in Putney Vale Cemetery.
