Goose-killing golfer, ‘gatorburgers’ and group therapy death: headlines from four decades ago
- A journey back through time to look at significant news and events reported by the South China Morning Post from this week in history
A golfer bludgeoning a goose to death and a bus driver making noisy schoolchildren sweat as punishment made the headlines four decades ago this week.
May 13, 1979
● Lawyers and businessmen in Hong Kong and the Philippines were involved in a mammoth legal tangle following a raid on a bottling plant in Manila where fake Johnnie Walker Black Label whisky was being processed. The knock-off product was being distributed illegally throughout the world. Police in Manila believed Hong Kong businessmen were offered opportunities to sell the counterfeit whisky through their own networks. They were served interim injunction orders restraining them from selling it.
May 14, 1979
● Officials of a Washington country club were investigating reports that a golfer bludgeoned a goose to death after the bird spoiled one of his shots, either by an untimely honk or by colliding with the ball. The golfer, a doctor, however, told the club that the bird was injured when it collided in mid-air with one of his drives and he subsequently killed it with his putter as an act of mercy.
● India’s continually poor performances in international sporting events prompted its Prime Minister, Morarji Desai to set an example by playing a badminton match against a man 14 years his junior at the opening of a sports gala. Desai was 83 years old while his opponent was the Speaker of the Lower House.
A murder plot trial and Holy Shroud theft: past headlines
May 15, 1979
● Two Soviet cosmonauts, who had been orbiting the Earth for nearly three months, were growing their own spring onions in a small hothouse on board the Salyut 6 space station, Tass news agency reported. The pair were conducting a programme to study the effects of weightlessness and other space flight factors on plants.
● A secret nationwide campaign to remove the Union Flag from South Africa’s flag had been launched, the Johannesburg Sunday Times reported. A confidential circular said the objective was to excise the Union Flag from the national flag to have a new South African flag for the 20th anniversary of the Republic of South Africa in 1981.
May 16, 1979
● A school bus driver in a Massachusetts town had been suspended from work because he decided to take revenge on a busload of noisy children on a hot day by closing the bus windows and turning the heat on high. The driver also told the children that he was going to “cook them like chickens”.
Virginity tests, Chateau Piddle wine and refugee ‘profiteering’: past headlines
● Police in Paris were questioning participants at a group therapy during which a man died after four people were said to have walked on him to stamp out his complexes.
May 17, 1979
● An 11-year-old girl hanged herself after leaving a note pleading for the return of her cat, which was killed by a dog, police in Tokyo said. The girl left a letter addressed to the four-month-old kitten.
● With an annual diesel fuel bill approaching £8 million, the luxury passenger liner QE2 had become so ruinously costly to sail that it might have to be withdrawn from service, according to the chairman of Cunard Steamship Line, Nigel Broaches.
May 18, 1979
● China’s population had reached 960 million, Chinese leaders told foreign dignitaries. This sharp upwards revision of the population from the previously reported 800 million coincided with the launching of a rigorous birth control programme, which reflected the leadership’s rising concern that more people could only hinder development.
● The rising price of beef might turn some Americans from their beloved hamburgers to “gatorburgers”. The Federal Fish and Wildlife Service had asked the government to legalise the sale of alligator meat because the once-endangered reptiles were proliferating in Florida swamps.
● Two thieves who broke into a Paris grocer’s shop left behind a telltale clue – a tooth embedded in a leg of ham. Police found a tooth stuck in a half-eaten ham that belonged to one of the two suspects arrested.
May 19, 1979
● The British Conservative Government confirmed that it hoped to sell Harrier warplanes to China, despite Soviet protests. The deal would be part of Britain’s efforts to expand trade relations with Beijing. It was believed that China wanted the vertical take-off jet for deployment along its long, rugged border with the Soviet Union.
Remember A Day looks at significant news and events reported by the Post during this week in history
