Tiger eats boy’s arm, parrot is police witness, and Coca-Cola arrives in communist China: headlines from 4 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 talking parrot being called as a witness in Denmark and the first shipment of Coca-Cola sent to China since 1949 made the headlines four decades ago this week.
January 21, 1979
● Controversial late-night adult variety show Night Owls, broadcast by Rediffusion Television, was shelved indefinitely following a government directive to cease transmission. The order came less than a week after the much publicised programme returned to the airwaves.
● Talks to end a bitter lorry drivers’ strike which was slowly bringing Britain to its knees were set to begin in days. Unions and employers accepted an invitation from a government arbitrator to attend “an exploratory meeting”. Some 58,000 drivers were on strike and demanding a 22 per cent pay rise.
January 22, 1979
● A Pan American World Airways jet would leave Hong Kong for Guangzhou later in the week on a familiarisation flight. A spokesperson for the airline said the test run was intended to assess the reliability of Baiyun airport. This was in case Pan Am jets on normal Hong Kong flights were forced to land there, as proposals were in the pipeline for air services between San Francisco and Beijing via Hong Kong. The American carrier was hoping to become the first US airline since 1949 to win approval for flights to China.
● A press council with the power to discipline newspapers and magazines that printed pornography should be formed in Hong Kong, a local publisher suggested. He said the body should have the authority to impose bans on pornographic publications and penalise writers for creating and publishing offensive material.
● Dozens of bodies were found in a Phnom Penh school used as a prison and torture centre by the ousted Khmer Rouge regime, the new Cambodian government said. It claimed schools and temples in the country had been used by the former rulers as depots for the Chinese army and as torture centres where “true Cambodian patriots” were imprisoned.
Sex in the city of Beijing and a dozy burglar in Oklahoma: headlines from four decades ago
January 23, 1979
● For the first time in Danish police history, a parrot was questioned as a witness. The bird told police it was one of 13 parrots and 30 budgerigars stolen from a Copenhagen pet shop. Police said the bird was an excellent witness and was able to identify itself as Jacob and the name of its owner as Hertha.
● The first shipment of Coca-Cola to China since 1949 was set to be loaded onto a Guangzhou-bound train at Hung Hom station. There was a total of 20,000 cases bound for China. Initial distribution of Coke would be in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Hangzhou.
● Hong Kong was one of the world’s cheapest cities, according to the Financial Times. The cost of a three-day stay for a businessman was almost half of that in Tokyo and Paris. The newspaper used London as an index of 100 and discovered that Tokyo scored 133, Paris 132, Dubai 120, Copenhagen 109, and Geneva 103, while Hong Kong scored a mere 67.
A marriage scam in Manila and a kissing problem in Manchester: headlines from four decades ago
January 24, 1979
● Iran’s elite Imperial Guard rolled out tanks, anti-aircraft guns, and crack commandos to demonstrate that they would “shed their last drop of blood” for the Shah. The “Immortal Brigade” showed their patriotism during a military exercise at the Lavizan base, where they screamed: “Long live the Shah, death to all traitors.”
January 25, 1979
● Police were still searching for three men who had abducted the five-year-old son of an official at the Dominican consulate two days earlier. A squad of detectives was coordinating the search for the kidnappers, who snatched Gilbert Ho as he was returning to his Kowloon Tong home from school. The boy was released unharmed later that week without ransom.
January 26, 1979
● Cancer patients were sent home from hospitals to die as industrial strikes continued to sweep Britain. In one city, a surgeon refused to treat members of trade unions. A total of 65 cancer patients were sent home from Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital and a senior consultant there said that some of these discharged patients would die.
● A 10-year-old boy was receiving blood transfusions in a hospital after a tiger ate his arm the day before. The boy, the son of an Italian worker, climbed over a fence in front of a 770-pound tiger’s cage and stuck his arm between the bars. The tiger sprang, bit off the arm, and then retreated to the back of the cage to eat it.
January 27, 1979
● Four hostages were shot dead by a gunman who stormed into a bank in Osaka and tried to steal cash worth HK$20 million.
Remember A Day looks at significant news and events reported by the Post during this week in history
