light. 24 October – the British government signs the United Nations Charter. 14 November – Harold Macmillan begins his third term as a Conservative MP, after winning the by-election in Bromley, Kent. 15 November – Gainsborough Pictures releases the period melodrama The Wicked Lady starring Margaret Lockwood, Patricia Roc and James Mason. 26 November – J. Arthur Rank releases David Lean's film of Noël Coward's Brief Encounter starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. 28 November – British fascist John Amery pleads guilty to treason and is immediately sentenced to hang. December Alexander Fleming and Ernst Boris Chain win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Howard Florey "for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases". John Maynard Keynes secures a fifty-year $3,750,000,000 Anglo-American loan for the Government from the United States at 2%, effective from 1946. Bernard Lovell establishes the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire. 10 December – forced repatriation of Liverpool Chinese seamen begins. 31 December – Britain receives its first shipment of bananas since the beginning of the war. Undated – the grammar school at Windermere reorganises itself to become Britain's first comprehensive school. Publications Rev. W. V. Awdry's children's book The Three Railway Engines, first of The Railway Series. Agatha Christie's novel Sparkling Cyanide. E. B. Ford's book Butterflies, first of the New Naturalist series. Winston Graham's novel Ross Poldark, first of the Poldark Novels. Henry Green's novel Loving. C. S. Lewis' novel That Hideous Strength. Nancy Mitford's novel The Pursuit of Love. George Orwell's novel Animal Farm. Karl Popper's book The Open Society and its Enemies. Bertrand Russell's book History of Western Philosophy. Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited Births 3 January – David Starkey, English historian 6 January – Barry John, Welsh rugby union footballer 10 January Jennifer Moss, actress (died 2006) Rod Stewart, rock singer 15 January – Princess Michael of Kent, German-born wife of Prince Michael of Kent 18 January – Rocco Forte, hotelier 21 January – Martin Shaw, English actor 25 January – Dave Walker, rock musician 26 January Jacqueline du Pré, English cellist (died 1987) Ashley Hutchings, folk rock musician 23 January – Richard Dearlove, English intelligence officer 29 January – Jim Nicholson, Northern Irish Unionist politician and MEP for Northern Ireland 30 January – Mike Kenny, paralympian swimmer 31 January – Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond, President of the Supreme Court of the