THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 1956.
The greatest
day of
their
lives
This was it....after 40 years of trying
147 OR BUST!
OE DAVIS, button- nosed maestro of the anooker baize, fought
through
He
army of plasterers and elec tricians swarming all over his Kensington flat. grubbed around in the dark places of his desk, and he came up triumphant with ball in his hand.
**
A black ball.
historic A ball
ball Jast
to be polled at Leicester Square Hall. The bull with which, just one week before they closed those famous doors for ever, Joe had become the first 11 in the worki
shoul the Brooker maximum of 147. You know all 15 redis, a black with every red, and yellow, green, brown, laur, block in pequence.
The break of breaks on the day of days-Jnuary 22, 1955 And how long did it take him?
Night on 40 years,
"You went and straini Yet! proclise You die Vougio druths. Nobody bils the lóp until they have covered a lot of al down
benow." stud ministat
uberry.
AVER
ม
On hire
uf
the
ut
4
"For nic, you could say that 147 break began when i was a mpper
1.5 in my father's pub,
Hotel Queen's Whittington Moor, near Chester- field, Old Eruje Rudge, Yorkshire pro, dolled me up in
bad my Eton collur, picture taken with a cue, a eup, and a set of billiard bulls, and sent me round the clubs and pubs, plying for hire at 15s. u tine."
an
Д
Having achieved Jais Arst bilbords" century at the belli-
lige of 12, cuse
cherubic Davis-inclined 10 disciplined portliness these days, if he with pardon a personat remark Bom a fellow sufferer-began to fashion snooker history when he wun his Arst profCusional championship in 1927.
By that time, Joe's Jazy right eye and the cue be haa bought for 75. #id. off a chum
the local church Institute yeurs earlier had become
At
six
JOE DAVIS ·
DESCRIBES HIS GREATEST DAY TO
GEORGE WHITING
On a Dan- They still talk about that vin- The brown at Morelano the-cushion
Houldsworth Holl 15 Man- chester.
weapons as feared burst nister bludgeon,
ог
A
Why, they even
tried to him-twice. "nobbie"
First, hid his cue in a they chester boiler
room. somebody stole it at Victoria
Cation leaving Joe 10 ponie until Old Faithful turned up on the back of lorry Tooling two days later,
Man- Then
42
Im-
"But that pot looked
My ball was tucked possible in between the red and a top pocket, both balls on the olde Davis cushion, with only an inch or
so between them. But 146 la
My only possible chance was to drive the red almost the side cushion, more than 10 feet, length of the
baulk pocket against the nap of the cloth. A would have quoted bookmaker you any odds you like against it succeeding.
then, in January 1955,
Into the
'bilng'
Shortly afterwards, shot another 140. not 147, And something impelled the atmost painfully mones. maestro to make the test outright predic- tion of hla immaculate career.
"Even now I buy now
whal made ine slightest den
**I suppose
sweated and retted over Bu muximum break was ve-
that shot more than any I ever Anyway, coming ag obsessjon,
played. You could have heard } WILK Jue to play Wille
drop half a pin
way to the Smith, and, meeting two friends ground. on my way to Leicester Square Bali, blurted out, "This is it 147 or bust.***
Davis reigned our undefeated and relisputed snooker chandle it," he told me. plon for 20 years, unil he turn- ed in the title for less skilled exponents to argue over in 1940, Century breaks? When I BUW him the tally was 803,
There were only two kinds of mooker when Davis started silghtly tess carcer:
than respectable panthine, not to be metillones in the presence of Aunt Mabel; or a borlog ex- habillon of old-time profession. als polting one colour and then
wtosit 4t the light Flas
mteules
15
JUBE
Justin sche pres
iRek-
defence at alt costs
Davis, 18 his own expressive
bashed the
pbruse,
works
"
that
now
some
any
At the end of the week, with only two sessions to go. Jocs probrcy wig beginning to look bon as reliable as a misprint Never a sign of by Old Monte.
lory
NEXT SATURDAY
The Blob in
Front of Johnny Williams
תן
wide wide
open SEROOkeT player by berible tasan other game in the world From barrow-boys to bishops. Stands there a man among us who has time "poked not about" in desperate endeavours lo pot the rewarding but clusive black?
Recoras, championships, honours, ervie receptions Chesterfield
were 017 gathered in as Davis's rightful harvest.
But time was pelting by
that 147 muximum to look as unattainable began as peace among the nations.
"Gosh, how he tried. At 49, when most of us are on age
outstripping by Lesigned to younger men, Joe lost the then record, 141, to French-Canadian George Chenter-but got it back with 140 against the same op ponent three weeks later, after being snookered un the brown.
and
12
་་་
the
Saturday.
A
NIKKET
no breakfast
siduous practice
able hond
זי
"But I got il Before that red had assed the centre pocket I heard myself shout- ing: 'It's in, it's in And in it was."
Snookered
Davis
the
"five" Jumary 22.
dry, In ja own words, frosty morning, ideal "crambled down' the remain-
bulis
ing balls, tearful of numna that gather moisture every shot. But he made It. in humid atmosphere. The
147, maximum start Armal
to "Bannister" break, the achieve. work
ment that can never be beaten, The day's
came to be marked up for the first time in snooker histors.
Willie Smith forgot his North Country phlegm
flung his arma round the master's neck. Leicester Square Hall went berserk for the first time in its sober and distinguished history, and referee Jack Skinner went with it. Davis staggered out to telephone the joyous tidings to his wife, June--who burst Into tears.
tat lunch
toon session,
pop round to the garage for the Jagurt CUE 1. And then--bingo! In the lust frame of the after- Davis, took one look at the 22 assembled balls and decided, there and then, 10 Ignove any red that would not, after petting, "put him on" the seven-score bluck.
"Had I gone for the lesser colours, I feel certain I could have cleared the tuble with- out much bother," recalls Joc. "As it was, I found trouble all the way, and I dropped right in
the curt when I left myself on the wrong side of the 14th red. The position calied for a shot make I hope I never have to again.
'Come on. Joe, Have go, somebody culled from the Crowd.
""What
do you think I've been doing?' I replied.
UVET
and
The
And officialdom? Ungenerous to the last ditch, they laid Joc
unplayable ancoker. ari Billiards Association, fussing foulstroke rule imposed upon themselves by the profes sionala, and ignoring the fact that the break had been made with standard "tools" before u certificated referee, refused to recognise it as a world record. The miserly old mislite,
Never mind, Joe,
The rest of the sports world shed its blinkers years ago.
(COPYRIGHT)
NEVILLE DUKE, Britain's No. 1 test pilot who in 1953
set up
at world speed record of 727.6 miles
an hour, says:
WHY HAVE WE NOTHING
Ο
London.
NLY one rocket-
powered aircraft has
ever flown in this
country £2 jet plane
LIKE
aircraft
THIS?
would not be plioled, obtain the knowledge of super-
equipped with rocket motor though they fully anticipated sonic fight so vital to nut in which I was privileged to the menace of the sound barrier designers. carry out some flights in and all the risks of the looming 1950.
The distance Britain lags behind is given
melan
two
unknown.
But the information so gained was sparge and we had to get Yet they went ahead at full the information slowly by gradual development of conven- Pressure
choly emphasis by
To be fair, we must remember books about the American the physical advantages they adventure
The best avail- in this field of have over us,
able runway In this country is advanced supersonic ro-
one and a half miles long. search.
Still waiting
The Skyrocket and the Bell XI-the respective "heroes" of these books-have given the Americar a long lead in high speed aerodynamics.
Honal Jet aircraft until a stage was reached when we, 100. attained sonic speed.
Lock of adequate funds and suitable flying conditions ham- pered research, and it is difficult to Jay the blame at uny particular door.
America has enormous areas of flat desert country which enables them to use runways of soven miles and to design pir- craft with take-off and landing rute of three miles. Also, while we lose hundreds of flying hours
All a year because of bad visibility. in the Californian climate flying is seldom, if ever, hold up by weather.
Advanced
Those 1950 tests of mine, although made in an unsuitable aircraft of limited power and with ΠΟ pressure cabin, did show the advantage to be ob- tained
in test-dying at high Much credit must go to the altitude--yet, this line of de Germans for research in high- velopment was not pursued. Six speed aerodynamics and rocket years later Britain still awaits fight. rocket power.
"Why is this?
·
Less risky
the same, we should Germans remember that the did press on with their experi- ments under even more difficult conditions.
Some critics have suggested that our line of pilotless rosen:ch was "lena risky." They forget
Axformation gained during the present period of piloted test
aircraft.
What must be remembered is the foresight required Today, The layman often assumes that
plane is in the air a few months after being designed.
Д
He has no conception of the time spent in testing different tapects of the plane at all stages. For instance, the Skyrocket was
way when Bridge
well under
to fly,
man was just learning Balore supersonic flight, design- ers knew how a plane would
behave at all speeds and in all
conditions.
Now, we are advancing deep- er into unknown regions. Als craft are becoming more and more complicated and that itself incans further delaya planning and manufacture,
A purpose
design
in.
P.S-Please do not bother
to tell me that 147 is not a máximum break. i know you can score 155 if your op- ponent starts the game with a Jout and gives you a free ball, which you then pot with a sub- Aequent black. This i like have would #aying Hillary climbed higher if Everest had had a flag-pole on top.
(COPTRIGHT)
|POCKET CARTOON by OSBERT LANCASTER
the
Thin means that Government must hang on to Cupru at all costs, as otherwise there'll be no tohera left for the Socialists to get us slung out from } { /*
EVE PERRICK
BE WARNED....
IF
YOUR HUSBAND'S
A GENIUS
TIMELY word in your car, ladies, be fore all the ballyhoo about the soon-to-be-seen
"Wer
and Peace" epic bursts upon us.
those
Spare a thought, from you will be using on Audrey Hepburn, Anila Ekberg, and the other more spectacular women
for
Countess involved,
poor Tolstoy, wife of the mather of the original book.
She,
poor thing, was made to copy it out in its entirety, and in her own fair hand, no fewer than "War and Peace" happens
the longest novel ever o written.
to
heroines of the past. Together we were struck by the amy thought.
"Do you think." I queried, that the great men of this day and ago treat their wives as badly?"
who
one
"I can tell
you one doesn't," replied Lady Cynthia. "Sir Winston Churchill is of the most devoted and con- siderate husbands I've ever met the hand with plways on cologne if Lady Churchill has a headache."
MRS ORSON
seven times. HOWEVER, still obsessed with this subject of the matri- monial miseries of the girls who marry the great, and recalling a comment by an earlier Mrs on the Orson Welles (Rita),
all impossibility of life with that genus," I asked the pre-
how she Mrs W. sent coping.
It was Lady Cynthia Asquith,” the society hostess with the mosicet literary fame, who told me the hard-luck tale.
She has started on a new book devoted to the lives anti terribly, terribly hard times of the wives of the great men of history.
NO FUTURE
ND from her researches to
to Cute she has come this conclusion; in the good old days often was no fun, and there no future, in being married to the famous.
"
wie
↑
"Why, just fine," said Paola Mori Welles. "It's a wonderful
married to to be feeling genlus. He is the most normal man in the world. He la simple and kind. He is always fearful, like a little boy, and he is wise and affords me the protection I need.
"He is full of fun. Every day is different. There is a new day, yet Orson Welles every always he is the same man. "Although he is busy with him all the time. He likes
I am
"The so-called great writers were usually the worst hus- bands,” she said. Thomas Carlyle, the brute, insisted on kimming his wife with lighted to see me knitting on the side- cigar in his mouth,
"Heine
man
lines
wherever he is working.
I just couldn't be married to tho (that's
German an ordinary man." of letters)
exhorted his wife, on his deathbed, to marry again so that at least one man bis would have cause to rue dying!
"Shelley's first wife drowned herself. Mrs Charles Dickens put up with an awful lot, but I can't go into that in my book too many Dickens descendants still around."
"Good, griet," I said aptly. "Any more sad cases lite that?" "That's the trouble," sald Lady Cynthia, "So many, I'll never get them all into coe book, The tale of the Tolstoya. alane would All a volume,
"That poor misused wife bere her husband 13 children, took over the management of his estates when he turned against private property but still some- times found himself inconsis- tently whipping a stri
"And then, to show gratitude, he finally left her
hls'
when he was 82, and died in a railway station,"
WEDDED WOES
CERVED hlm right,” I said.
"Any more like him in
history?"
"Lols," said Lady Cynthia, "I want to look up Lady Nelsony for one, Just think what she must have suffered. It's all. right for a sailor to have a wife Overy port, But you don't have to take so damboyant & mistress as Lady Hamilton and
use your family 80 embarrassment."
in
to
at
much
And today a designer can do that it involved preliminary with, In addtion to technical fest work in, piloted craft diving ability, come mystle power vertically from moderate sili- know what, will be wanted tudes, as against the American the
time. his
will method of specially designed materialise, for Service require During the latter wor years projects operating at extreme ments have a habit of fluctunt-
Lady Cynthia continued cata they new
designs, altitude. advanced
ing during the hatching period. loguing the woes at women equipped with equally advanced One vital reason stands out armament,
wedded to the world's perfuses on operational
The advantage here is that at An airplane is designed for a extreme altitude tests can be specifie sharply from these books. It la service.
purpose and will who were also domestic tyranta: the American intention of "goinų
carried out in level or climbing function admirably for that Edmund Kean, the actor, places"--the tremendous,
of the painters. "Wearly all of Another factor in the Amert- night and at comparatively low fob. I, however, heavier arma- con- stant urge to get to grips quick can read is the use they made of alrepeeds, with conequant, re- ment or a different role is called them did something mean like ly with all problems.
this German knowledgo and duced structural loading.
for by the Service planners, Clauguin, who ran off to the experience of swept winga. An
and the airplane is expected to South Seas, leaving his family the the
dealign of the postwar But, here again, we have to do more than it was originally
to starve." was Amerloon fighter and resenral remember the physiological Intended to do, there may be
hazards at extreme heights, A disappointments.
Together we shed a slični tear pilot' blood boils when exposed
11_lanobody's fault and 1
Even in the middle of war conaldernbie anergy being employed on these search projects, laid down under the directive of General Arnold,
re- aircraft. ........
proceed, on a limited
mort
to the AIMING
Work in this country, did to the outside atmosphere at one of the many hazards to be basis, 65,000 feet-and American accepied. The two books will Obviously It never occurred to long similar. Enes, and resulted pilots have been flying at at least give rendera, some idea Earle daughter who was the American designers that the In the Miles rocket alreraft 10,000 dest or more.
s of the role played by the human acretary to and biographer of project which, however, never
́element in bending machinem, to flow. But our energies – were
We shall aimòst certainly see penetrafa -Dew relims "ofibeln Aliz James Elurries; as: "well; di author two books of memoirs and pulled.
and a couple of collectiona of
Lundgren,
Across the High Printer, G.W.R.devoted chiany to the produce pilotless pircraft of all types Lonely sky, by William Bridgeman tion of rocket-powered: pilot», flying in the future, but their and "Vaqusiína Haverd, kuselfiem, lew modela in än sodesroute, to, aiocese will have best-dua - to
Well there's the evident, Either today's geniuses are less Or tetchy than hey used to be.
their wives
that much tougher.
are
(COPYRIGHT)
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