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That was the year...
Page 13
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CM was launched in 1905; for our centenary year we're bringing you stories from years gone by. This week we're back in 1928 and 1978.
1928
Women over the age of 21 were given the right to vote in Britain. Walt Disney kicked off the Mickey Mouse phenomenon and DH Lawrence wrote Lady Chatterley's Lover. Heavyweight boxing champion Gene llinney was the first boxer to become Ringmagazine's Fighter of theYear. Gabriel Garcia Marques, future Nobel prize-winning writer who penned A Hundred Years of Solitude, was born in Colombia while architect turned writer Thomas Hardy,who wrote Tess of the D 'Urberv idles and Jude the Obscure, died.
Changing gear
Truck builder Guy introduced a 30-cwt lorry capable of 50mph that offered the driver a direct-drive four-speed transmission, with the gearstick positioned centrally or by the right hand.
Diesel do 'ern
Commercial Motor editor Edmund Dangerfield returned from the Leipg Fair, which had more than 200 exhibitors, eager to dispel the myth that the diesel engine (a German invention and much maligned by the British) wouldn't suit UK operators.
Nice try
The Labour party, in opposition, proposed to slash petrol duty from 4d per gallon told to help the road transport industry; a move the Conservative Chancellor Winston Churchill said would lose £11.25m in revenue. The motion was rejected by 237 votes to 115 and the levy remained at 4d.
1978
Louise Brown, the first test tube baby, was born in Oldham. Argentina won the World Cup in their own country beating The Netherlands; goal of the tournament was scored by Archie Gemmell against the Dutch in the group matches. Serial killer Ted Bundy was arrested. The Deer Hunter, starring Robert de Niro; Superman, with Christopher Reeve; and Grease, with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, were the big film releases. Space Invaders the first video arcade game was launched.
Covert operations
CM reported from Stockholm that in an effort to win the Cold War Russia had set up transport companies across northern Europe as fronts for spy-lorries to intercept NATO satellite military communications.
They'll never work
Labour transport minister William Rodgers announced that tachographs would not be installed compulsorily in trucks in the UK as they would "cause industrial unrest and be economically unviable".
And for my next life...
BrianWeatherleyFCITAffIRTEjoined Commercial Motor as junior photographer, rising through the ranks via senior photographer, technical writer, news editor, deputy editor and editor to editor-in-chief. It only took him 27 years.