The President of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, seemed to unite all these qualities, so it was cheering when the first reports came through of unrest within his country – which was to mark the beginning of the end of the rickety
and self-serving regime of another East European Communist
dictator.
This was our story on December 19:
"Eyewitnesses leaving Romania say several hundred people have been killed in clashes with the army during the weekend.
Romania is the first communist state reported to have used gunfire and large-scale military force to repress demonstrations in this year's East European campaign for reform. And the country has sealed its borders.
The Yugoslav news agency, Tanjug, monitored by the BBC, said eyewitnesses who arrived in Yugoslavia last night had claimed that several hundred people were killed in clashes between the army and demonstrators in the city of Timisoara.
In West Germany, Radio Bremen said the Romanian writer, William Totok, quoted eyewitnesses as speaking of 300 to 400 people dead and several hundreds injured after a demonstration that started on Friday and increased to several tens of thousands of people on Saturday and Sunday.
Several Greek students studying medicine in Timisoara told Tanjug they saw several dead people and many with gunshot wounds in the town's main hospital.
They said the town was quiet on Monday but armoured vehicles and military patrols could be seen in the streets. All the shop windows in the centre of town had been broken, and several shops and buses set on fire, they said.
Mr Radislav Dencic, a graduate of Timisoara University, said security forces shot at the protesters from the street and from helicopters during Sunday's demonstration. Demonstrators had turned on the troops and attacked the tanks. "Hundreds of people were falling on the pavement in front of my eyes."
Two Romanian youths who swam to Hungary said they had also seen bodies on the street of Timisoara, a city of 200,000 people near the Yugoslav and Hungarian borders. The Hungarian and Yugoslav borders were closed. Mr Dencic said he saw smoke pouring from the city's police headquarters and believed the demonstrators had attacked the building. "Cars were overturned in the streets and windows were smashed. People broke into bookstores, took out books written by Ceausescu and burned them."
The demonstration was the biggest challenge to the harsh 24-year rule of Mr Ceausescu since thousands of workers rioted in Brasov, central Romania, two years ago. But President Nicolae Ceausescu felt confident enough yesterday to leave for a visit to Iran. According to Hungarian and Yugoslav press reports, quoting witnesses, the protest began when police attacked crowds trying to block the eviction of a popular church minister and human rights campaigner, the Rev Laszlo Tokes.
It turned into a demonstration against Mr Ceausescu as up to 10,000 people poured into the streets chanting "Freedom", "Down with Ceausescu" and "Romanians rise up".

William and Ffion tie knot

1997On Decem-ber 19, William Hague married his fiancée Ffion Llywelyn Jenkins in a private ceremony at Westminster.
The 36-year-old then Tory leader sealed the union with his 29-year-old bride with the Welsh marriage vow: "Yr wyfi i, William Hague, yn dy gymryd di, Ffion, yn wraig i mi." The bride wore an ivory silk crepe dress, the contours of which caused quite a stir, and she held a bouquet of lilies.
They reportedly fell in love as she taught him the words of the Welsh national anthem when he was Secretary of State for Wales in 1995. Ffion gave up her career in the Civil Service.

Charles Laughton dies, aged 63

1962 On December 17 we reported the death of Charles Laughton from cancer. Laughton was born on July 1, 1899 at the Victoria Hotel in Scarborough. He went into the family hotel business, served in the war and did amateur dramatics before taking the plunge and going to drama school, making his first stage appearance in 1926.
Despite not having the looks for a romantic lead, he impressed audiences with his talent and played many classical roles
before making his film debut in 1932.
His association with the director, Alexander Korda, began with The Private Life of Henry VIII for which Laughton won an Academy Award.
Later films included The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), and perhaps the best-known of all Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939).

Tributes as Ted Hughes is
named as Poet Laureate

1984At 54, Yorkshire-born Ted Hughes was appointed Poet Laureate. On December 20, Reginald Brace looked at the man and his work.

"IT is some years since Ted
Hughes lived in Hebden Bridge, but he is still referred to affectionately as the local bard by members of the township's lively artistic
community.
His former home, Lumb Bank, an 18th century mill house, is the Northern centre of the Arvon Foundation and a flourishing rendezvous for those interested in writing poetry, fiction or for TV.
Mr Hughes is on the management committee although he
lives near Tiverton, in Devon,
with his wife, Carol. He
usually travels north for quarterly meetings.
Some of his most powerful recent work was in Remains of Elmete (Faber and Faber), a vivid collection of poems, with photographs by Fay Godwin, about the decline of the Calder Valley.
This is Ted Hughes on Crown Point Pensioners:

Old faces, old roots
Indigenous memories
Flat caps, polished knobs
On favoured sticks
Under the blue, widening
morning and the high lark.
The map of their lives, like the chart in an old game
Lies open below them.
Their yarning moves over it,
this way and that,
Occupying the blanks.
Mills are missing. Chapels are missing.
But what has escaped the demolisher
Clings inside their masks –
Puppets of the graveyard's dreams
He draws this picture of Haworth Parsonage:

Infatuated stones.
Hills seeming to strain
And cry out
In labour.
Three weird sisters
Imbecile silence
Of a stone god
Cut into gravestones.
The brother
Who tasted the cauldron of thunder
Electrocuted
A house
Emptied and scarred black
In a land
Emptied and scarred black

Craig Raine, poetry editor of Faber and Faber, outlined the strengths of Ted Hughes last night: "For many poets he is a number of things which are absolutely essential," he said.
"For a start, he makes his own noise, which means that when you hear his stuff it can only be his. He makes his own rhythm. He also has a rare ability to make his lines come alive in the mind.
"When he writes 'The gull bent in the wind like an iron bar' you can actually see that happening. It is the equivalent of being a very good photographer with words. His imagery is one of his great virtues.
"All good poets are in some ways imperialistic. They annex areas of territory to themselves. Ted is particularly good with animals. There is a kind of grandeur about his writing which was first spotted by TS Eliot when he was Faber's poetry editor in the 1950s."
Ted Hughes was born at Mytholmroyd, a member of a shopkeeping family. He was educated at Mexborough Grammar School and Cambridge and spent two years as a wireless mechanic in the Royal Air Force before moving into teaching.
He has two children, Freida and Nicholas, from his marriage to the late Sylvia Plath, an American poet.
Philip Larkin, librarian at the Brynmor Jones Library at Hull University, was another Yorkshire poet strongly tipped to succeed the late Sir John Betjeman as Poet Laureate. He is on leave until the New Year, and was not available for comment yesterday.
Asa Benveniste, a Hebden Bridge poet, expressed the community's pleasure at Mr Hughes's appointment last night – with one reservation. "Ted is an excellent poet and of all the candidates for Poet Laureate he was probably the best – but it is a curious position for him to accept," he said. "I don't know how he is going to cope with the business of being official poet appointed by the Crown. John Betjeman was a popular and accessible poet; Ted Hughes is a private person – a personal and subjective poet. It will be interesting to see what he has to say if he has to write an official poem to mark some public event."

The night my dad survived the Blitz... and found a penknife


From: Norma Sawyer, Leeds Road, Oulton, Leeds.
I was very interested to read in your Lives and Times section about the memories people had of the Blitz in Sheffield. I thought you might be interested to hear about my late father's recollections.
We lived in Leeds and my dad, Fred Crampton, had been called up and sent to Sheffield for basic training. If they had some free time they were allowed to go into Sheffield to the pictures. He and his mate had done this and after the pictures they had called into a fish and chip shop for some supper. They were walking along eating them when the sirens went. They started walking towards the nearest shelter when they heard the screech of a bomb falling quite close to them. They dropped to the ground, scattering fish and chips in all directions, and the bomb fell some distance away. Dad felt something hit his neck and thought he had been hit by flying glass or shrapnel. When he felt around and realised he was not hurt he found he had been hit by a penknife in the shape of an OK sauce bottle. He kept that penknife for years; it was a good one.
They reached the shelter and had to stay there, singing, till the All-Clear sounded. When they finally emerged, it was to a scene of devastation. They saw a tram which had been blown up on to the roof of a building! They helped the air raid wardens to check the damaged houses and they came to one house which was quite big and had no windows left and other damage. Inside they discovered two old ladies of about 90, sitting calmly in their living room knitting! "Don't worry about us, lad," they said, "We're all right."
They made them tough in those days. Best wishes for the paper's anniversary and many thanks for an excellent read.
Countryside beat
From: RW Place, Cornfield Avenue, Oakes, Huddersfield.
Regarding your request in Lives and Times for anyone who can remember anything interesting about the 1967 foot-and-mouth outbreak, at that time I had just taken up the post of the old fashioned village bobby at Marsden, Huddersfield. I was, of course, still a member of the West Riding Constabulary at that time, and the Huddersfield Division was the rural parts of the Pennines.
I had previously served for a period in the Diseases of Animals Section and was, therefore, an Inspector under the Diseases of Animals Act, a rare appointment for a mere constable.
My posting to Marsden was thus a gift to them as they had someone qualified to attend to the monotonous slog of supervising the movement of the animals.
The interesting thing which struck me was that despite all those cows and sheep roaming about freely on those moors we did not have a single outbreak. Those animals are well-renowned for being strong, sturdy and obviously healthy. As many motorists will know to their cost, a collision with one of those invariably did more damage to the vehicle than the animal.
I am retired now but I don't think we had any outbreak in the latest epidemic either.
Golf club's drive
From: CD Wilcher, hon secretary, The Alwoodley Golf Club, Wigton Lane, Leeds.
We are researching the early years of this golf club prior to our centenary in 2007. The club was founded at a meeting held at the Leeds Club on January 24, 1907. The 14 names of the first committee members are shown below, and we would ask ask any readers who may have any information about these gentlemen, or who have any family connections, to contact Richard Thomas or Nick Leefe at the above address.
Their help will be very much appreciated.
F Tennant
A H Mersey-Thompson
H I Bowring
A E Kirk
The Hon Rupert E Beckett
The Hon F S Jackson
Arthur Sykes
J M D Barwick
C F Clark
T L Taylor
Bernal Bagshawe
H D Bousfield
J H Brand
A MacKenzie