The Breezer - the joyride for a curious mind: A weekly newsletter from me, Steve Winduss, at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me discovering historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. Add to that updates relating to the podcast, a touch of humour and a dash of "lots more". - 26th January 2025.

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Happy Sunday!
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I was reading this week that tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the maiden voyage of a mega-cruise ship called Icon of the Seas, 27 January 2024. But I'll come back to her shortly.
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I also learned about an English lady, Eva Miriam Hart, who was born 120 years ago this Friday, 31 January 1905, in Ilford, London. Her education at St. Mary’s Convent, Gidea Park, was cut short in 1912 when her parents, Benjamin and Esther, hatched a plan to emigrate to Canada.
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Benjamin sought a better life for his family. Like many others at the time, the poor economic climate encouraged him to look overseas. His brother had already emigrated to Canada, so the location was sealed.

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In April of 1912, at the age of seven, Eva boarded a ship in Southampton for the five-day journey to New York. Due to a coal shortage at the time, their ship, SS Philadelphia, had been unable to leave port.
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At the last minute, the Hart family secured a transfer to another ship currently docked in Southampton - RMS Titanic.
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Four days into the crossing, the Titanic struck an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. As the unsinkable ship started to go down, Benjamin wrapped his daughter in a blanket on deck.
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He then ensured that Eva and her mother were safely boarded into a lifeboat. It was the last time Eva saw her father.
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The Titanic sank at 2:20 a.m. the following morning. The RMS Carpathia rescued Eva and Esther by day break.

Out of curiosity… ​
The captain of the Titanic that day was Edward Smith, born 175 years ago tomorrow, 27 January 1850. He had gained 25 years of distinguished service as a Captain for the White Star Line before perishing with the ship.

The Carpathia arrived in New York three days later. Eva returned to England shortly after with her mother, remaining traumatised by the event for many years.
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Esther died when Eva was 23, and only then did she attempt a sea voyage - to Singapore. From there, she moved to Australia, becoming a professional singer.
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Hart eventually moved back to England, serving as a magistrate and volunteering to organise entertainment for the troops during World War II.
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Above all, Eva was a vocal Titanic survivor. She argued for improved safety measures on ships and sought to outlaw bounty hunters attempting to salvage the RMS Titanic.
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She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1974 for her public service. Hart never married or had children.

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When Eva Hart died in 1996 at the age of 91, she was probably the last surviving passenger of that fateful Titanic maiden voyage in 1912 to have a clear memory of the tragedy.

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Footnote: Back to that mega-cruise ship, Icon of the Seas. The ship apparently marked a new era in pleasure cruising grandeur and scale. She boasts a maximum passenger capacity of 7,600; three times that of the Titanic.

Out of curiosity...​
On 26 January 1905, five days before Eva Hart was born, Frederick Wells had discovered a diamond weighing 620 grams while managing a shift at a mine in South Africa.
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The diamond was the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever mined and remains so today. It was named after the mine’s owner, Thomas Cullinan.
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Under British rule at the time, the Transvaal Colony government gifted the diamond to King Edward VII. The diamond was cut into nine major and 96 minor diamonds.
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Today, the two largest stones cut from the Cullinan Diamond form part of the British Crown Jewels, on permanent display at the Tower of London.

Dates with History

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Yesterday…
​Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was born in 1910 in Skopje, North Macedonia. After Anjezë had joined the Sisters of Loreto in Dublin in 1928, she moved to India to teach at the Loreto convent school in Calcutta. In 1937 she completed her vows and thereafter would be known as Mother Teresa.
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In 1950, having asked permission to leave the school, Mother Teresa started the Missionaries of Charity, primarily to support the poor of Calcutta.
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She chose to wear the emblematic white sari with blue-striped border by which she became so widely recognised. The charity would become the centrepiece of her life’s work.

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A year after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s most prestigious civilian honour, 45 years ago yesterday, 25 January 1980.
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Mother Teresa died in 1997 at the age of 87.
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Today, 5,000 sisters of the Missionaries of Charity operate over 750 missions in 120 countries around the world.
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Thursday...

The state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill took place at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London 60 years ago this Thursday, 30 January 1965.
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Britain’s eminent World War II leader between 1940-45 served a second term as Prime Minister between 1951-55. He then enjoyed his final ten years travelling, writing and painting, most often to be seen with brush and easel on the French Riviera.
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Winston Churchill passed away at the age of 90.
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Churchill’s funeral was attended by representatives of 110 nations, with over 500,000 mourners lining the funeral procession route.

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Sir Winston Churchill is buried at St. Martin’s Church, Bladon, a quiet village church only a short distance from his birthplace at Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, near Oxford.
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When I visited St Martin’s Church recently, I was struck by the proximity of the Bladon Primary School playground overlooking the graveyard.
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I wondered if the children realised they were spending each day at school under the ever-watchful eye of one of the world’s great wartime leaders.

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By the Way

In the early 1950s, the instruments children were most likely to learn to play were the piano, violin and recorder. No change there, then.
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I remember being force-fed recorder lessons in the ‘70s. I pleaded with the music teacher to release me from the school orchestra’s impending performance at the Christmas variety show.
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I pleaded out of terror, though I think her decision to exclude me was based more on artistic grounds. At least my parents were spared the pain of having to listen.
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So, it’s reasonable to suggest that a cello would be a more unusual choice for a child to gravitate towards, particularly if they were only four years old.
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​Jacqueline du Pré was born 80 years ago today, 26 January 1945. At the tender age of four, she first heard the warm, soulful voice of a cello on the radio. She was hooked.
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With the support of her mother, a professional pianist and music teacher, Jacqueline would become one of the world’s great cellists of the 20th century.

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Du Pré made her professional debut in London at the age of 16. Within four years she had emerged as an internationally celebrated virtuoso.
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Jacqueline’s popularity was further enhanced when she married the prodigious pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim in Jerusalem.
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Du Pré had long-expressed an interest in Judaism and converted shortly before marrying Barenboim a few days after the ceasefire of the Six-Day War.

Out of curiosity… ​
The Six-Day War in 1967 was the culmination of tensions in the Middle East between Israel and the Arab states Egypt, Syria and Jordan.
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In those six days, the Israelis made significant territorial gains including the Gaza Strip and West Bank, areas still at the centre of today’s Middle East conflict some 58 years later.

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Tragically, at the age of 26, Jacqueline Du Pré started to lose sensitivity in parts of her body. The spread of this loss of sensitivity to her fingers marked the end of her playing career.
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By 1973 at the age of 28, Du Pré’s professional cellist career was over. A few months later, she was officially diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
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After Jacqueline’s premature retirement, she continued to teach and mentor cello students. She also tirelessly raised awareness of multiple sclerosis before passing away in 1987.
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She was 42 years old, her legacy assured.

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Out of curiosity…
Jacqueline du Pré was born the day before the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp towards the end of World War II.
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Eighty years ago tomorrow, 27 January 1945, Soviet forces overcame the dwindling resistance of German troops in and around the Polish town of Oświęcim (from which the Germans derived the label Auschwitz) to free 8,000 primarily Jewish prisoners from a living hell.
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The United Nations’ International Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked each year on 27 January to remember the six million Jews - and a similar number of non-Jewish communities - who perished in concentration camps under Nazi control.

Question of the Week

In 1981, the actor Robert Redford founded the Sundance Institute to help discover and promote independent film-making around the world.
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In 1985, the institute took control of the US Film and Video Festival, renaming it the Sundance Film Festival. The 2025 Sundance Film Festival is currently live in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah, until next Sunday, 2 February.
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The naming of the Sundance Institute, and subsequent Sundance Film and Video Festival, originated from a reference to Robert Redford’s role in the 1969 classic film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Redford played the role of the Sundance Kid.
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Who was Redford’s screen partner playing the role of Butch Cassidy?

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And Finally…

I’ve talked before about aptronyms, names that suit their owners due to their occupation, character or any notable features.
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For instance, I once employed a plumber called Ken Flood. Believe it or not, there is a serving policeman in the West Country whose name is Rob Banks. These are examples of aptronyms.
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It’s a little bit infantile, but this week is the anniversary of the death of the doyen of aptronymic toilet humour, so you’ll have to forgive me.
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​Thomas Crapper was an English plumber and entrepreneur who founded Thomas Crapper & Co., London, a plumbing and sanitary specialist business in 1861.
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Crapper was born 115 years ago tomorrow, 27 January 1910.
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Although Crapper didn’t actually invent the flush toilet, as folklore insists, he was an innovator in the field of sanitation.
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In 1880, he invented the U-bend, which is still in use today. The U-bend's primary purpose is to block unpleasant smells from returning to the room from which they originated.

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In addition, Thomas accumulated nine patents for plumbing-related products, the most notable of which was the floating ballcock.
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By 1910, all nine would have been flushed away, as patents in that era didn’t extend beyond the inventor’s lifetime.
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My final nod to this toilet break is to confirm that the word ‘crap’ predates Thomas Crapper by at least 450 years. However, around the period of Thomas’ death in 1910, the toilet became known rather crudely in some quarters as ’the crapper’.
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It is still a matter of debate whether this term derives from the original word ‘crap’ or more directly from the pioneer Thomas Crapper himself.
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One final aptronym celebration for you today: California State Bar records show that this Wednesday marks the fifth anniversary of one of its practising attorney’s licenses changing status to ‘inactive’, 29 January 2020.
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Her name…. Sue Yoo.

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Steve

HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER

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P:S: Incidentally, I am always keen to receive your feedback to help me continuously improve this newsletter and the podcast. Just hit reply to this email and...... let it rip! I respond to every email that I receive.

Question of the week… Answer

Robert Redford’s screen sidekick in the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was Paul Newman, born 100 years ago today, 26 January 1925.
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Paul Newman was one of my early screen heroes, but I wasn’t excited about any of his films. A bit like admiring the chef without enjoying his food. Work that one out.

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Out of curiosity…
Paul Newman was born 20 years to the day after the Cullinan diamond was discovered.