The Postcard
A postcard that was published by H. B. Ltd. of London EC. It was posted in Cleethorpes using a 1d. stamp on Thursday the 10th. July 1930. It was sent to:
Mrs. Watson,
54, Clifford Road,
Hounslow West,
Middlesex.
The pencilled message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Dear Old Pal,
Spending an hour or
two down here today.
How do these stockings
fit you?"
Pre-Decimal Currency
The ten shilling cost of the stockings is quoted in pre-decimal money.
The UK 'went decimal' on the 15th. February 1971. (1971 is often called the 'Year of the Con' because manufacturers and retailers used the changeover to increase their prices).
Pre-decimalisation money (L S D) was divided into pounds (£/L), shillings (s.) and pennies (d.).
'L S D' also stands for the hallucinogenic drug Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, but in this context it stands for the Latin words 'Libra', 'Solidus' and 'Denarius'. The coinage was as follows:
- 20 shillings (s.) in £1 (L)
- 12 pennies (d.) in 1 shilling (s.)
- 240 pennies in £1
- 480 halfpennies in £1
- 960 farthings in £1
The £ was represented by a printed note, and there was also a 10-shilling note.
A 'Guinea' (beloved of private medical consultants and solicitors) was 21 shillings - a way of extracting an additional
5% from the patient or client.
A Suspension in France
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, on the 10th. July 1930, France pledged to suspend the construction of warships for six months pending the possibility of a new naval conference with Italy.
Bernhard Caesar Einstein
The day also marked the birth in Dortmund, German Republic, of Bernhard Caesar Einstein, a grandson of Albert Einstein.
He was a Swiss-American engineer, the son of Hans Albert Einstein. Of the three known biological grandchildren of Albert Einstein, all sons of Hans, he was the only one to survive childhood.
-- Bernhard Caesar Einstein - The Early Years
Bernhard Einstein was the son of Hans Albert Einstein and Frieda Einstein (née Knecht), who had married in 1927 in Switzerland. He was born on the 10th. July 1930 in Dortmund, Germany, where Hans Albert was involved in a bridge building project.
Hans Albert was the only one of Albert Einstein's three children to marry and have children.
Bernhard spent his early years in Switzerland until the age of eight, when his family moved to South Carolina. Albert Einstein was very worried about the rise of Nazi Germany, and encouraged his son Hans Albert to emigrate to the United States as he himself had done in 1933.
Hans Albert heeded this advice, and moved his family to Greenville, South Carolina, where he became a civil engineer working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Bernhard spent his teenage years in Pasadena, where his father was a professor at the California Institute of Technology, and in Berkeley.
Bernhard first met his grandfather Albert when he was two years old. As a boy, he travelled alone to spend time with Albert in New Jersey, and at Saranac Lake in upstate New York.
Albert Einstein died in April 1955. Having shared his love of music with his grandson, he bestowed upon Bernhard his violin in addition to a modest sum of money.
In 1954, Bernhard married Doris Aude Ascher (born 1930), with whom he had five children:
-- Thomas Martin Einstein (born 1955 in Switzerland)
-- Paul Michael Einstein (born 1959 in Switzerland)
-- Eduard Albert "Ted" Einstein (born 1961 in Dallas, Texas)
-- Mira Einstein-Yehieli (born 1965 in the US)
-- Charles Quincy Ascher "Charly" Einstein (born 1971 in the US).
-- Bernhard Caesar Einstein's Education and Career
Bernhard excelled only in German at the University of California at Berkeley. He enlisted in the US Army in 1954, and finished basic training at Fort Ord, near Monterey, California.
Bernhard was stationed in southern Germany where he met his first wife, Doris Aude Ascher, whom he married in 1954. After discharge, he applied and was admitted to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich. He followed in his grandfather's and father's footsteps to study physics at the ETH.
When he obtained his diploma at ETH, Einstein returned to the United States and worked as an engineer for Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas.
Bernhard then moved to California and worked at Litton Industries in the San Francisco Bay Area. His area of expertise was electron tube technology, and specifically light amplification devices for night vision.
He filed and obtained four U.S. patents related to light amplification technology while he worked for Litton Industries.
In 1974, Bernard moved back to Switzerland and worked in laser technology at the Swiss Army Research Lab in Thun, obtaining a further US patent.
Bernhard died in Bern, Switzerland at the age of 78 on the 30th. September 2008.
Bruce Boa
Also born on the 10th. July 1930, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, was Bruce Boa.
Andrew Bruce Boa was a Canadian actor, who found success playing the token American in British films and television, usually playing military types.
Boa's most recognizable film role is in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) as General Carlist Rieekan.
On television, his most notable role is as the brash, plain-speaking American guest, Mr. Harry Hamilton, in the Fawlty Towers episode "Waldorf Salad".
-- Bruce Boa - The Early Years
Bruce Boa was the second of three children of Ila (née Phinn) and Andrew Boa, a clergyman. His older sister was Jungian analyst and author Marion Woodman, and his younger brother was Fraser Boa, also a Jungian analyst, who died in 1992.
Boa attended the University of Western Ontario, graduating in 1952 with a degree in theology, then spent a brief period playing professional football for the Calgary Stampeders in 1952.
After travelling through Central America and Europe, he began his acting career in England in 1956 and settled there permanently in the 1960's.
In a 1959 interview, when he was aged 29, he said that he had also written poetry, a novel and film scripts, and hoped to make a living combining writing and acting.
-- Bruce Boa's Career
Boa's film credits include Man in the Middle (1964), The Adding Machine (1969), Who? (1973), The Cherry Picker (1974), The Omen (1976), Silver Bears, Superman, Carry On Emmannuelle (1978), A Touch of the Sun, The London Connection, and A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (1979).
Films from the 1980's onwards include Silver Dream Racer (1980), Ragtime (1981), Octopussy (1983), Return to Oz (1985), and Screamers (1995).
Bruce also played the Marine colonel in Full Metal Jacket (1987) who chastises Matthew Modine's character over having a peace pin on his lapel while having "Born To Kill" written on his combat helmet.
On television, Bruce appeared in Thriller (1975), in 1977 Come Back, Little Sheba, an episode of Laurence Olivier Presents, opposite Laurence Olivier and Joanne Woodward.
Other television credits include: Fawlty Towers, The Avengers, Out of the Unknown, The Champions, The Troubleshooters, The Saint, Ace of Wands, Special Branch, The Onedin Line, Z-Cars, The New Avengers, The Professionals, The Omega Factor, Dempsey & Makepeace, Astronauts, Hart to Hart, Remington Steele, Howards' Way, the 1979 miniseries A Man Called Intrepid, the 1988 television film The Bourne Identity, Tales of the Unexpected, As Time Goes By, Road to Avonlea, Kavanagh QC, Bulman and Warship.
-- The Death of Bruce Boa
Boa died at the age of 73 from cancer on the 17th. April 2004 in Surrey, England.