Remember A Day | Nudists run amok, Concorde cancelled, and Elton John draws MP’s ire: headlines from 40 years 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
Naked tourists going on a rampage on a French holiday island, a “mad son” being chained to a tree for 43 years and an Iranian judge being flogged for breaking Ramadan fasting rules made the headlines 40 years ago this week.
August 3, 1980
● South Koreans living in Hong Kong had been warned to take precautions against possible kidnapping attempts by North Koreans. The warning, part of a worldwide alert put out by South Korean embassies and consulates, came after a foiled plan to abduct a South Korean professor in Copenhagen. It also came two years after the mysterious disappearance of South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee from Hong Kong.
● The government was to look into the case of Kwong Wah Hospital, where 121 patients had committed suicide over a nine-and-a-half-year period. Nurses at the hospital had complained of understaffing and overcrowding there. They agreed that money should be made available to put railings around windows, from which many patients had jumped to their deaths.
● Singapore Airlines might drop the Concorde supersonic jet service to London because of declining demand. In an internal report, the company explained its decision by saying: “It is not clear why the appeal of Concorde is diminishing. Perhaps the novelty has worn off.”