A booster seat is a seat cushion that is used to elevate children in cars. Children have to use booster seats so that the seat belt fits better.
In general most booster seats can be used for children who are between four and twelve years of age and between 40 and 59 inches (100–150 cm) tall. Children under 40 inches are usually too small to use booster seats and have to use a car seat (a child safety seat with an own seat belt system, used for children under the age of 4-6).
Many countries have laws that require the use of booster seats. In the United States of America children  under 57 inches (145 cm) and younger than 9 years old have to use a booster seat. Many European countries require a booster seat until the child is either twelve years old or 59 inches tall. There are some exceptions. In the United Kingdom for example children are allowed to ride without a booster seat when they are 53 inches tall and in Austria children who are not 59 inches tall have to use a booster seat until their 14th birthday. However booster seats are used to keep children safe, not because of a law. In general no child can ride safely in a car without booster seat when he is not 57 inches tall. It is proved that children under 57 inches who do not use a booster seat are more likely to suffer serious injuries or even death in the event of an accident.

References

Child safety

Booster seat


Mohammad Javed Miandad PP SI (Urdu: ; born 12 June 1957), popularly known as Javed Miandad (Urdu: ), is a Pakistani cricket coach, commentator and former cricketer known for his unconventional style of captaincy and batting. ESPNcricinfo described him as "the greatest batsman Pakistan has ever produced"  and his contemporary Ian Chappell extolled him as one of the finest batsmen in the history of cricket.

He played for Pakistan in Tests and One-Day Internationals between 1975 and 1996. Noted for his unique technique and impressive control, Miandad has won accolades and applause from cricket historians as well as contemporaries. Miandad was ranked 44th among the best cricketers of all time by the ESPN Legends of Cricket. He has served as a captain of the Pakistan team. He is widely known for his historic last ball six against India in 1986 at Sharjah, when 4 runs were required to win off the final ball, winning an international game in that fashion for the first time, and for his contribution with the bat in the 1992 ICC World Cup.
After his playing career, Miandad has held key positions in the Pakistan Cricket Board. He also had three coaching stints with the Pakistan national team.

In 2009, Miandad was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

Early and personal life
Javed Miandad, an ethnic Muhajir, was born on 12 June 1957 in Karachi. His parents moved from Palanpur, Gujarat, India, where his father, Miandad Noor Mohammad, worked in the police department, posted in cities like Ahmedabad and Baroda, whilst at the same time he was also overseeing the sports clubs in the city for the Nawab.

One of seven children, he has three brothers who played first-class cricket in Pakistan: Anwar Miandad, Sohail Miandad and Bashir Miandad. His nephew, Faisal Iqbal, was also a Test cricketer.

Javed Miandad married Tahira Saigol, daughter of Khalid Saigol and Farida Hayat in 1981. He has two sons and a daughter. His son Junaid Miandad is married to Mahrukh Ibrahim, daughter of Dawood Ibrahim, an Indian born mafia kingpin.  Miandad told the press that his son and Ibrahim's daughter met while studying together in the UK.

In 2011, Miandad recorded a na`at for Geo TV;  his Sakoon Paya was well received by his fans but he did not subsequently read any more na`at.

Test career

Debut and early years
Pakistan's first Test captain, Abdul Hafeez Kardar, upon seeing Miandad during the 1970s, predicted famously  about him: "the find of the decade". His inclusion in the Pakistan team was itself an achievement. A formidable batting line-up of Mushtaq Mohammad, Majid Khan, Sadiq Mohammad, Zaheer Abbas, Asif Iqbal and Wasim Raja were hard to break into, but Miandad's raw talent made it possible and he became an integral part of Pakistan's strong batting lineup. He made his Test debut against New Zealand at the Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore on 9 October 1976. He scored 163 and 25 not out in that match, and became the youngest batsman to score a century on debut, at the age of 19 years and 119 days; he also took a wicket in the match and Pakistan won the match by six wickets. In the third match of the same series, he scored a double century by scoring 206 runs at the National Stadium, Karachi. He broke George Headley's 47-year-old record, and became the youngest player—aged 19 years and 140 days—to score a double-century. He scored 85 runs in the second innings, failing to accomplish the unique feat of scoring a double-century and a century in a single match. Miandad was the highest run-scorer of the series, with 504 runs from five innings at an average of 126.00. His performance ensured Pakistan's victory in the three-match series by 2–0.

During Pakistan's tour to Australia in 1976–77, he played three Tests and scored 148 runs at the average of 29.60. He also took five wickets in the series, including three wickets for 85 runs at the Adelaide Oval. In the 1977–78 home series against England, Miandad scored 262 runs at the average of 131.00, including three half-centuries. His highest score in an innings in the series was 88 runs not out at the Niaz Stadium, Hyderabad. Miandad scored a Test century in his first match against India at the Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad, during the 1978–79 series between the teams. With 154 not out in the match, he completed his first 1,000 Test runs at the age of 21 years and 126 days; he took 23 innings and 14 matches to achieve the feat – the second youngest batsman after Kapil Dev to do so. In the same series, by scoring another century at the National Stadium, he accumulated 357 runs from five innings at the average of 178.50, and ensured Pakistan's victory 2–0. In the same season, Miandad played three matches in New Zealand, and accumulated 297 runs against them at the average of 99.00. Being the highest run-scorer of the series, he also scored 160 not out at the Lancaster Park, Christchurch. During the Pakistan's tour to Australia in the same season, he scored 183 runs at the average of 61.00, including 129 runs not out at the WACA Ground, Perth.

Success in the early 1980s

Under the captaincy of Asif Iqbal in 1979–80, Pakistan toured India and played a six-Test match series against them. Miandad was one of the most "consistent" batsmen, scoring 421 runs—behind Sunil Gavaskar's 529 and Wasim Raja's 450—with the help of four fifties, averaged 42.10. During the third series at the Wankhede Stadium, Bombay, he completed 2,000 Test runs of his career; he took 42 innings and 24 matches to achieve the feat, and became the fastest Pakistani to do so. In the same season, Miandad was appointed as Pakistan's captain for the first time, against the touring Australia. He scored 181 runs at the average over 60 in the series, including 106 runs not out at the Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad, and Pakistan won the three-match series 1–0. In the solitary series of the 1980–81 at home, against the West Indies, Miandad scored 230 runs at the average of 32.85. He scored 60 of the 128 runs in the Pakistan's first innings of the third Test match, after they were 14 runs for four wickets. In the 1981–82, during the Pakistan's tour of Australia, Miandad captained the Pakistan team in three Test matches. During the first Test at Perth, he was involved in an unpleasant controversy with Dennis Lillee, where the two players came into contact after Lillee blocked Miandad's way while he was taking a single, with Lillee kicking Miandad, who responded by shaping to strike him with his bat. Pakistan lost the first two matches of the series, but they won the third Test at Malbourne by an innings and 82 runs, and finished the series 2–1. Miandad batted consistently throughout the series, but could not get support from his teammates as a captain. He scored 205 runs from five innings at the average of 41.00, including two half-centuries.

In the home series of the same season against Sri Lanka, he captained the team in three Tests, although the players refused to play under his captaincy following the Lillee-Miandad controversy. Pakistan won the series by 2–0, with Miadad scoring 176 at the average over 35, including 92 runs at the National Stadium. After the refusal of senior players to play under Miandad captaincy, Imran Khan was appointed as a new captain for the 1982 England tour; Khan was leading the team for the first time. Pakistan lost the three-Test match series 2–1, with Miandad scoring 178 runs at the average of 35.60. In his next series against the touring Australia, he scored his eighth century—138 runs—in the third Test at the Gaddafi Stadium, and ensured Pakistan's third successive win in the series. On his performance in the series, the cricket almanack Wisden noted that he "grew further in stature as an international batsman, his youthful audacity now being supplanted by a technical competence and insatiable appetite for runs."

In their home series against India in 1982–83, Pakistan played six Tests and defeated them by 3–0; Pakistan's  victories at Karachi, Hyderabad and Faisalabad were gained by large margins. Miandad's consistency of scoring runs, along with Zaheer, Mudassar and Mohsin Khan, crushed the Indian bowling line. Miandad was the third highest run-scorer, with 594 runs – after Mudassar's 761 and Zaheer's 650 runs – at the average of 118.80; they made the record for the three top batsmen in any Test series. Miandad and Mudassar's partnership of 451 runs in the Hyderabad Test constituted a new world record for the third wicket, and equalled the all-time record for any Test wicket, made by Don Bradman and Bill Ponsford in 1938. They became the first two Pakistani batsmen to score double-centuries in an inning. Miandad scored his career best 280 not out, before the captain Imran Khan, decided to declare the innings, thus stopping him from "possibly breaking the individual Test world record of Sir Garfield Sobers". Cricket critics call this "one of the worst decisions by Imran as captain of Pakistan" as he "didn't even give him a particular time or the number of overs he could bat on for." Miandad, however never expressed displeasure on the decision. Pakistan won the match by an innings and 119 runs. Pakistan visited India in 1983–84 under the captaincy of Zaheer, and played a leveled three-Test match series. Miandad scored 225 runs in the series at the average of 75.00, including 99 runs at Bangalore. Miandad scored 131 runs against Australia at the Adelaide Oval, the third Test of the series between the teams. He could not perform consistently and finished the series with 302 runs at average of over 33, with Pakistan lost the five-match series 2–0.

During 1984–88
Miandad scored centuries in the each innings of the second Test of the 1984–85 series against New Zealand; he scored 104 and 103 not out at the Niaz Stadium, Hyderabad. In the second innings of the match, he established a partnership of 212 runs for third wicket with Mudassar, a Pakistani record at that time. This was the 1,000 match in the history of Test cricket. He was the highest run-scorer of the series, with 337 runs at the average over 84; Pakistan won the series 2–0. Miandad captained the Pakistan cricket team in the next series against the same team, which was played in New Zealand. He could not maintained his previous form against them, and only managed to score 138 runs, averaged below 28. During 1985–86 Sri Lankan tour to Pakistan, three Test matches were played between the teams. Miandad, who was captaining Pakistan, made his third double century in the first Test at Iqbal Stadium. During his innings of 203 not out, he made a partnership of 397 runs with Qasim Umar—who also made a double century in the innings—for third wicket, which was eighth highest overall and second highest for the third wicket at that time. Miandad's score of 306 runs from three innings were the most by any batsmen in the series, and his average for the score was 153.00. In the same season Pakistan visited Sri Lanka, and played three Tests against them. During the second Test, Two unpleasant incidents occurred: when an umpire started rubbing the new ball replaced with the older one on the ground, during Pakistan's second innings after sixteen overs to get the similar characteristics; Pakistan manager came to the umpire and showed him the 1985 Wisden's relevant Law; and Miandad's disagreement to the umpire's decision of lbw against him. Later on someone from the crowd threw a stone upon Miandad, and he went upstairs into the crowd to take revenge from the spectator.

Later career
In 1992, during the Pakistan tour to England, he scored 153 not out in the first Test at Edgbaston, Birmingham. From then to his retirement he scored 578 runs, without scoring a century, at the average of 32.11 in 11 Tests. He made only four half-centuries during that period.

Miandad played 124 Test matches, batting in 189 innings. His aggregate of 8,832 Test runs was a Pakistani record until Younis Khan broke it in 2015. Inzamam ul Haq also came close to breaking this record just falling short by 4 runs. Even though his test career spanned 17 years, he failed to make it into the top-most category of batsmen with test aggregates of over 10,000 runs. Miandad's 23 centuries and 43 fifties were Pakistani national records, until they were broken by Inzamam-ul-Haq. Miandad's Test career batting average of 52.57 is currently the highest for Pakistani batsmen. He scored six double centuries which is the most by a Pakistani and 6th overall. He became the first batsman in the history of cricket to score a century in both his 1st and 100th test (against New Zealand and India respectively). He made his highest score of 280 not out against India. Pakistan went on to win that match by an innings and 119 runs.

One Day International career

Miandad made his One Day International debut against the West Indies at Edgbaston, Birmingham in the 1975 Cricket World Cup. His last ODI was also a World Cup match, and Pakistan lost the match. More, he scored 2 fours and 0 sixes and his strike rate was below 100 in both of his, first and last ODI innings. His highest ODI score came against India at the Gaddafi Stadium in a match which Pakistan lost in 1982. He scored 119 not out off 77 balls with a strike rate of 154.54 in the match.

Pakistan recorded their first win at a major tournament in 1986's Austral-Asia Cup held in Sharjah and Miandad finished his innings with 116 not out in the final against India. This is still considered one of the most historic moments in the history of ODI cricket and he became a national hero.

Javed Miandad is the first (and one of the only two, other being Sachin Tendulkar) player to have played in six World Cups, the first six, from 1975 to 1996.

Captaincy
After  Asif Iqbal's retirement following a series loss in the 1979–1980 tour of India, coupled with match fixing allegations for the very first time in Pakistan's history, a 22 year old Miandad was made the captain of Pakistan. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) preferred him over the senior cricketers like Zaheer Abbas, Sarfraz Nawaz, Majid Khan and Wasim Bari who were still playing. He faced a little opposition but his first two series as captain, in 1981/82, included a win against Australia, and a credible 0–1 loss to the West Indies. After a tough tour of Australia, opposition to his captaincy gained strength, and his first captaincy period ended during the following home series against Sri Lanka.

He captained Pakistan in six more tests in 1985, and thereafter broadly shared Test captaincy duties with Imran Khan until the end of his career. Pakistan won 14 and lost 6 of his 34 tests in charge.  He captained them to home and away Test series victories against England in 1987-8 and 1992, and averaged just over 50 as a batsman when Pakistan's captain.

In one-day cricket he captained Pakistan in 62 one-day internationals of which they won 26 and lost 33. None of his one-day international hundreds came as captain.

Coaching and commentary
Miandad is one of the few individuals (others being Waqar Younis and Richard Pybus) to have coached the Pakistan Cricket Team over three or more separate occasions. He was first appointed coach in September 1998. Under his reign, Pakistan defeated India in India (once in the Test series which ended 1–1, and once in the Asian Test Championship), won the tri-series in India, won the Asian Test Championship and won the 1999 Sharjah Cup in April. Strangely, Miandad faxed his resignation to the PCB in late April 1999, just before the 1999 Cricket World Cup. The reason for his first resignation was unknown. Many cited hiring of Richard Pybus (technical coach) and Sarfaraz Nawaz (bowling coach) as a possible reason. Others suggested unrest with senior players.

In 2000, after Moin Khan took over captaincy from Saeed Anwar, Miandad was reappointed as the coach. During his second reign, Pakistan won the Sharjah Cup (March 2000), the Asia Cup (May–June 200), the West Indies tri-series and the Test series in Sri Lanka. Pakistan lost the ICC Champions Trophy semifinal under his reign. Miandad was removed along with Moin Khan in April 2001 after Pakistan lost the ODI series in New Zealand. There were also reports of match fixing during the preceding Test series which Pakistan drew after losing the third game.

After Pakistan's dismal show in the 2003 Cricket World Cup, another cleanup operation was undertaken by the PCB, naming Rashid Latif as captain and Javed Miandad as team coach in March 2003. During this reign, Miandad won Pakistan the Sharjah Cup (April 2003) bereft of big names like Inzamam and Yousaf. Pakistan won the home Test series against South Africa after losing 3–2 in the ODI series. Pakistan lost the home ODI series to India in 2004 and following the loss of the Test series, Miandad was shown the door in June 2004, being replaced by South African Bob Woolmer.

Following this he was offered broadcasting and coaching positions in India. Also in November 2010, it was being planned to give Miandad a role as a batting coach.
Miandad was again appointed as a batting consultant for the 2012 twenty20 World Cup in Sri Lanka.

Records and achievements
 Miandad was amongst the six Pakistani players to have his name in the Hall of Fame at Lords.
 In 1986, he had received the President's Pride of Performance Award.
 Miandad is one of three cricketers (the other is Sachin Tendulkar and Mithali Raj) to appear in Six World Cup competitions.
 In 1982, Wisden named him as one of the cricketers of the year.
 Javed Miandad scored 1083 runs in 33 matches at 6 World Cup tournaments.
 He was also declared the 44th best Cricketer of all time in ESPN Legend of Cricket.
 He is the youngest player to hit a double-century. He broke George Headley's 47-year-old record.  Now the record is  old.
 Miandad holds the world record for the maximum number of consecutive half centuries in One Day Internationals- 9
 In 1992, Miandad was decorated by the President of Pakistan with the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, the third highest honor bestowed by Pakistan.

Performance

Test performance by opponent

ODI performance by opponent

Performance Graph

Autobiography

References

External links

1957 births
Living people
Coaches of the Pakistan national cricket team
Cricketers at the 1975 Cricket World Cup
Cricketers at the 1979 Cricket World Cup
Cricketers at the 1983 Cricket World Cup
Cricketers at the 1987 Cricket World Cup
Cricketers at the 1992 Cricket World Cup
Cricketers at the 1996 Cricket World Cup
Cricketers who made a century on Test debut
Glamorgan cricketers
Glamorgan cricket captains
Habib Bank Limited cricketers
Karachi Blues cricketers
Karachi Whites cricketers
Pakistani autobiographers
Pakistan Test cricket captains
Pakistani cricket coaches
Pakistani cricketers
Pakistan One Day International cricketers
Pakistan Test cricketers
Pakistani cricket captains
Recipients of the Pride of Performance
Sind A cricketers
Sindh cricketers
Sussex cricketers
Cricketers from Karachi
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
World Series Cricket players
Pakistani people of Gujarati descent
Recipients of Sitara-i-Imtiaz
D. B. Close's XI cricketers
People from Karachi
Muhajir people

Javed Miandad


Klaus Nordling (May 29, 1910 – November 19, 1986) was an American writer-artist for American comic books. He is best known for his work on the 1940s masked-crimefighter feature "Lady Luck", and as co-creator of the Marvel Comics superhero the Thin Man. Some of the early Nordling's pen names are Fred Nordley, F. Klaus, Ed Norris, and Clyde North.

Biography

Early life and career
Born in Pori, Finland, Klaus Nordling moved to the United States as a toddler in 1912. He broke into art professionally as a gag cartoonist for Americana Magazine in the 1930s. From 1935 to 1937, he wrote and drew the weekly newspaper comic strip Baron Munchausen for Van Tine Features, under the pen name Fred Nordley. In 1939, he joined the studio Eisner & Iger, a prominent comic book packager that produced comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium during the late-1930s and 1940s period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books.

Due to Golden Age comics work often going unsigned, comprehensive credits are difficult if not impossible to ascertain. Nordling's tentative credits begin with script and art for the naval adventure feature "Spark Stevens" in Fox Comics' Wonderworld Comics #3-4 (July-Aug. 1939). His first confirmed credit is as penciler-inker of the six-page feature "Lt. Drake of Naval Intelligence" in Fox's Mystery Men Comics #1 (Aug. 1939). Nordling, who is confirmably credited as the "Spark Stevens" writer-artist in Wonderworld Comics #5-#15 (Sept. 1939 - July 1940), also wrote and drew the humor features "Strut Warren" (in Fiction House's Fight Comics), "Bob Swab" (Quality Comics' Hit Comics), "Shorty Shortcake" in Wonderworld Comics, and "The Barker" (Quality's National Comics), plus the aviation feature "Shot and Shell" (Quality's Military Comics), among others. Some of his early comics are signed under the pen names F. Klaus, Ed Norris, and Clyde North.

Quality Comics editor Gill Fox recalled Nordling as "a little guy. Good-looking. And involved in local theatre. He had a very vivid imagination and was a good writer. In later years I'd send some work in his direction. But if you did something for him, he'd think you wanted something back. We got to know each other socially, but he still mistrusted people. Even me. But I admired his cartooning. And he was a great guy to sit and talk to".

Nordling created the feature "The Three Aces", also known as "Crash, Cork, and the Baron", in Harvey Comics' Speed Comics #1 (Oct. 1939), and the detective feature "Pen Miller" in National Comics #1 (July 1940). For Marvel Comics predecessor Timely Comics, Nordling and an unknown writer created the Thin Man, one of comics' first "stretching" superheroes, in Mystic Comics #4 (July 1940).

Lady Luck

In 1942, Nordling began his best-known comics work, "Lady Luck", which appeared as a four-page weekly feature in a Sunday newspaper insert colloquially called "The Spirit Section". This 16-page, tabloid-sized, newsprint comic book, sold as part of eventually 20 Sunday newspapers with a combined circulation as high as five million, starred Will Eisner's masked detective the Spirit. The titular crimefighting adventureress Lady Luck had been created and designed in 1940 by Eisner (who wrote her first two stories under the pseudonym "Ford Davis"), with artist Chuck Mazoujian. Writer Dick French then took over scripting. Writer-artist Nicholas Viscardi (later known as Nick Cardy) took over the feature beginning with the May 18, 1941 strip. Nordling succeeded him from the March 1, 1942 to March 3, 1946, strip, when "Lady Luck" was temporarily canceled. After briefly being replaced by the humor feature "Wendy the Waitress" by Robert Jenny, "Lady Luck" returned from May 5 to November 3, 1946, under cartoonist Fred Schwab.

As historians at the Chicago, Illinois, comics retailer Atlas Comics noted in "The Top 100 Artists of American Comic Books", which listed Nordling at #78,

"Lady Luck" stories were reprinted in the Quality Comics comic book Smash Comics #42-85 (April 1943 - Oct. 1949), whereupon the series changed its title to Lady Luck for five more issues. Nordling providing new seven- to 11-page stories in Lady Luck #86-90 (Dec. 1949 - Aug. 1950), with Gill Fox drawing the covers. Lady Luck #90 was Nordling's last known original comics work.

Nordling assisted Eisner on "The Spirit" pencil art from 1948 until 1951, sometimes doing full ghost-art penciling.

Later life and career
Following the end of "The Spirit Section" in 1952, Nordling worked for Eisner's American Visuals Corporation through the 1970s. There he helped design instructional publications and other materials for a variety of clients. For the U.S. Army, he contributed to the instructional "Joe Dope" feature in PS, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly, which American Visuals produced. Working with Eisner, he wrote and drew the comic Job Scene, designed to teach job-seeking skills to economically disadvantaged youth.

At some point, as well, Nordling penciled and inked a promotional comic book for Borden, Inc. He also was ghost artist on Guy Gilchrist's Register and Tribune Syndicate comic strip The Rock Channel.

Nordling died at his home in Ridgefield, Connecticut, survived by his wife, Tel, as well as by a son and a daughter.

Reprint collections
Ace Comics Presents #3: The Golden Age of Klaus Nordling (2000)
Includes "Bob and Swab" and "The Barker" stories, and January 21, 1982 Nordling letter to Jerry DeFuccio
Lady Luck (Kitchen Sink Press, 1977–1978)
Lady Luck (Ken Pierce, Inc. trade paperback, 1980)

References

External links
Alter Ego vol. 3, #60 (July 2006): Golden Age panel discussion with Nordling, Otto Binder, and Larry Ivie

Emigrants from the Grand Duchy of Finland to the United States
Golden Age comics creators
1986 deaths
1910 births

Klaus Nordling


In computer science, debugging is the process of finding (and correcting) errors in a computer program.  When programmers think that the program may have an error, they debug the program.  They look for an error, and when they find it, they try to correct it so the program will work correctly.  This improves the quality of the product.

Software
Computer science

Debugging


Sir Ernest Bullock  (1890–1979) was an English organist, composer, and teacher. He was organist of Exeter Cathedral from 1917 to 1928 and of Westminster Abbey from 1928 to 1941. In the latter post he was jointly responsible for the music at the coronation of George VI in 1937.

When the Abbey's choir was dispersed during the Second World War, Bullock took up an academic career, first in the dual post of professor of music at the University of Glasgow and principal of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and then, from 1953 to 1960, as director of the Royal College of Music in London.

As a composer, Bullock wrote mostly church music, including twenty anthems and motets, two settings of the Te Deum and two of the Magnificat and organ pieces. He also published a few part-songs and other secular vocal works.

Life and career

Early years
Bullock was born on 15 September 1890 in Wigan, Lancashire, the youngest of six children of Thomas Bullock and his wife Eliza, née Stout. As a small boy he joined the choir at Wigan parish church, where Edward Bairstow was then organist. Thomas and Eliza Bullock died when Ernest was still a boy, and Bairstow took charge of his musical and general education, taking him as an articled pupil and sending him to Wigan Grammar School.

In 1906, Bairstow moved to a more prominent post, organist of Leeds parish church; he took his pupil with him into his home, along with his own three children. At Leeds, Bullock was appointed assistant organist to Bairstow at the parish church, and organist of St Mary, Micklefield (from 1908), and St John the Baptist Church, Adel (1910–12).

At that time non-residential students were able to qualify for music degrees from the University of Durham; Bullock graduated Bachelor of Music in 1908 and became a Doctor of Music in 1914. In 1909 he passed the examination to become a fellow of the Royal College of Organists.

Career as organist
After serving as sub-organist to Sydney Nicholson at Manchester Cathedral from 1912 to 1915, Bullock joined the army during the First World War, serving as captain and adjutant until 1919. On his return to civilian life, he was briefly organist of St Michael's College, Tenbury, and then organist and choirmaster at Exeter Cathedral from 1919 to 1927. In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Sir Thomas Armstrong writes of Bullock's time at Exeter: "with determination that was considered at times ruthless, he put new life into the music of the cathedral, the diocese, and the region"

In 1919, Bullock married Margery Newborn, daughter of a Lincolnshire solicitor. They had two sons and a daughter.

In 1928, Nicholson, who had moved from Manchester to be organist and master of the choristers at Westminster Abbey, retired. The post was offered to Bairstow, who was by then master of the music at York Minster; he preferred to stay in Yorkshire, his native county, and, probably on his recommendation, Bullock was appointed to the Abbey.

Armstrong writes that at the abbey, Bullock showed the same reforming energy as he had at Exeter. He reorganised the daily choral offices and led the musical side of many state occasions. Among the latter was the coronation of George VI on 12 May 1937, for which Bullock composed fanfares and acted as joint musical director, together with Sir Adrian Boult. The music-making on that occasion was described in the Dictionary of Composers for the Church in Great Britain and Ireland as the finest music ever heard in the abbey.

In May 1940, enemy bombing during the Second World War, destroyed much of the Little Cloister of the abbey, where senior officials of the abbey had their houses. Bullock's was among them; all his property and papers were destroyed along with the building. The abbey itself was hit, though less seriously, and it was decided that its musical establishment had to be dispersed.

Academic and principal
The music at the abbey being much scaled down, Bullock resigned in 1941 and took up the dual post of Gardiner Professor of Music at the University of Glasgow and principal of the Scottish National Academy of Music, which became the Royal Scottish Academy of Music during his time in charge. The Times later commented that Bullock's immediate predecessor in the dual role, W. G. Whittaker, had "for various personal reasons ... found some difficulty in making Glasgow academic music run smoothly." Bullock reorganised and co-ordinated the two posts, leading to the post-war expansion of the institutions. After he left, the dual role was divided between two holders. Armstrong comments that in Bullock's eleven years in Glasgow he made a significant contribution to Scottish music; he chaired the music committee of the Scottish Arts Council from 1943 to 1950.

On the retirement of Sir George Dyson as director of the Royal College of Music, London in 1952, Bullock was appointed to succeed him. Drawing on his experience in Glasgow, he redesigned the training of music teachers, and, in Armstrong's phrase, was admired for "his skill in dealing with temperamental students and even more temperamental professors". In addition to running the college he gave classes in improvisation that were regarded as "among the finest experiences that the curriculum offered".

Bullock was appointed CVO in 1937 and was knighted in the 1951 King's Birthday Honours List. In 1955 he was awarded an honorary LLD at Glasgow University. He was an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music and president of the Incorporated Society of Musicians (1947) and of the Royal College of Organists (1951–52), and was joint chairman of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (1952–60).

Bullock retired from the RCM in 1960, and settled in Long Crendon near, Aylesbury, where he died aged 88 on 24 May 1979.

Music
Bullock is known for his church music, including the anthems "Give us the wings of faith", and "O most merciful". His output includes three evening services, two Te Deums, two Magnificats, a Jubilate, twenty anthems and motets, organ music and a small number of part-songs and other secular vocal pieces.  Armstrong describes his style, as derived from Parry and Stanford, "highly conservative but effective in the liturgical context for which much of it was intended."

Notes

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

1890 births
1979 deaths
20th-century English composers
Directors of the Royal College of Music
Alumni of Durham University
Cathedral organists
Commanders of the Royal Victorian Order
Composers awarded knighthoods
English classical organists
British male organists
Knights Bachelor
Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey
Musicians awarded knighthoods
Musicians from Wigan
20th-century organists
20th-century British male musicians
Male classical organists
Presidents of the Independent Society of Musicians

Ernest Bullock


Enrico Fernando Fermi (September 29, 1901 — November 28, 1954) was an Italian-American physicist who worked on the first nuclear reactor and helped make quantum theory. He also was important to particle physics, and statistical mechanics. Fermi won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938 for his work on induced radioactivity. He built the world's first nuclear reactor. Fermi was one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century.

Early life
Fermi was born in Rome and went to a local grammar school. He was very good at maths and science and won a prize from Scuola Normale   Superiore of Pisa. He went to the University of Pisa where he studied physics. In 1923 he was given a scholarship from the Italian government and went to Göttingen for more study. He was given a Rockefeller scholarship in 1924 and studied in Leyden. He came back to Italy at the end of 1924 and became Lecturer in Mathematical Physics and Mechanics at the University of Florence.

Scientist in Italy
In 1926, Fermi discovered the statistical laws, now called Fermi statistics. These laws explain the actions of the particles which are subject to the Pauli exclusion principle, which are now called fermions. These are different to the particles called bosons which are explained by Bose-Einstein statistics. In 1927 he became Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Rome. He spent time studying electrodynamics, and began to closely look at the atomic nucleus. In 1934, using discoveries made by Wolfgang Pauli, Frédéric Joliot, Irène Joliot-Curie, he was able to show changes in almost every element bombarded with neutrons. This led to the discovery of slow neutrons, nuclear fission and making elements that were not in the Periodic Table.

Fermi expressed his concerns about the dangers of nuclear energy at one of the meetings of the University of Chicago before the end of the WWII.

References

1901 births
1954 deaths
Cancer deaths in Chicago
Burials at Oak Woods Cemetery
Deaths from stomach cancer
Italian scientists
Naturalized citizens of the United States
American nuclear physicists
People from Rome
American theoretical physicists
Italian Nobel Prize winners

Enrico Fermi


Dulla Bhatti or Dullah Bhatti real name Abdullah Bhatti (popularly referred to as the Son of Punjab' or 'Robin Hood of Punjab') (died 1599) was a famous Punjabi Folk hero and freedom fighter who led a revolt against Mughal rule during the rule of the emperor Akbar.

Career
He belonged to the Bhatti Muslim Rajput tribe and was a zamindar or rural farmer. On becoming a young man, Dulla was angered to see the injustice of the Mughal rulers against local Punjabis, and he turned against them. He started guerilla warfare against the Mughal forces in the Punjab and was successful to some extent for 10 or 12 years. Later, however, he was defeated by the Mughal forces through the betrayal of some enemies and was imprisoned in Lahore Fort, Lahore. He was later hanged there in 1599.

Place in popular literature and culture
 Bhatti still remains a big and popular hero for Punjabi people, and he is mostly remembered in the traditional Punjabi var (ballads or songs about heroes).
 He is also remembered in the traditional dhadhi performances, like poems acted out, where actors show his many brave deeds.
 A number of books, stories (fiction) and plays (drama) have been written about his life and deeds, most famous of these is Takht Lahore a 1973 play or drama written by the Pakistani writer Najam Hussain Syed.
 A number of Urdu and Punjabi films have been made about him, including Dullah Bhatti (1956) by famed director Anwar Kamal Pasha.

References

1599 deaths
16th century in India
Punjabi people
Folklore

Dulla Bhatti


Poomani (born 1947) is an Indian writer and novelist. He won the Sahitya Akademi award in 2014 in the Tamil language category for his novel Agnaadi.

Life and works

Poomani was born in 1947 into a family of marginal farmers in Andipatti, a village near Kovilpatti.

In his youth, Poomani was enchanted by the stories he heard around him growing up, as told by his mother and in his community. As a young man, the works of Ki. Rajanarayanan, a senior writer from Kovilpatti, inspired Poomani to take up writing. According to Poomani, KiRa combined in his writing "the scent of the soil with the natural flow of life's energies to enable the writing to develop its own traits, instead of borrowing from other models". He was also influenced by P. Kesavadev's Malayalam novel, Ayalkar, published in English as The Neighbours (1979). Poomani found in Ayalkar a worthy model: "It is a strong story, told with an aesthetic narrative style and keen imagination. The imagination adds lustre to the nature of the story, instead of dominating it. Changes and values arise anew on their own. The narration brings many things alive for the reader, carries him to the terrain of the story and stands him there. It makes him walk alongside, cry and laugh. When everything is wrapped up at the end, it makes him think."

Poomani's historical novel Agnaadi (January 2012) has been called "a landmark work". It covers a period of more than 170 years from the beginning of the 19th century, revolving mainly around the lives and fortunes of several families dispersed over villages in the region: Kalingal, Kazhugumalai, Chatrapatti, Veppankadu, Chinnaiahpuram and Sivakasi. The families are from a range of castes (Devendrakula Velalars, Vannaars, Panaiyeri Nadars, Naickers and Thevars) and occupations (farmers, washermen, toddy-tappers, landed squires and warriors). Poomani received a 28-month study and research grant from Indian Foundation of the Arts in Bengaluru to study the history of the novel. The novel won the inaugural Gitanjali Literary Prize.

Poomani's Vekaai was also translated from Tamil to English by N. Kalyan Raman and published as Heat (2019) by Juggernaut Books.

Poomani's debut novel and one of the pioneering subaltern novels of Tamil Nadu "Piragu" has been translated into English by T. Marx and published as "And Then" by Emerald Publishers (December 2019)
Poomani directed the award-winning movie Karuvelam Pookkal (1996) for NFDC.

Awards
1996 Tamil Nadu State Film Award Special Prize for the film Karuvelam Pookkal (dir. Poomani)
2011 Vishnupuram Award for his contribution to literature
2012 Gitanjali Literary Prize for Agnaadi
2014 Sahitya Akademi Award for Agnaadi

Bibliography
Novels
 Agnaadi
 Piragu
 Vekkai
 Varappugal
 Vaaikkal
 Neivethiyam
 Kommai

Short story collections
 Vayirugal
 Reethi
 Norungalkal

Film
 Karuvelam Pookkal

References

External links
 Blog coverage

Tamil-language writers
Indian postmodern writers
Living people
Tamil writers
People from Thoothukudi district
1947 births
Novelists from Tamil Nadu
Screenwriters from Tamil Nadu
20th-century Indian novelists
21st-century Indian novelists
Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Tamil

Poomani


Jean-Pierre Dionnet (; born 25 November 1947) is a French comics writer and TV presenter. He has also worked as an editor-in-chief (in Métal Hurlant), journalist, editor, film producer/distributor, and blogger.

He was the co-founder of the comics magazine Métal Hurlant in 1974. His works include Exterminateur 17, with art by Enki Bilal.

Biography
Jean-Pierre Dionnet was born on 25 November 1947 in Paris, and at that time there was still rationing, so he spent the first five years in the Creuse. He fell behind in school and focused solely on his goal of working in comics. While pursuing his dream of becoming a comics writer, he worked as a broker on the weekend, and he was also a bookstore clerk in the first rendition of Futuropolis.  In the year of 1968, Jean-Pierre Dionnet began working for Pilote where he wrote scripts for Jean Solé, Yves Got, Philippe Druillet, Moebius, Annie Goetzinger, and Enki Bilal.

Notes

References
 Online biography from Editor website
 Comic Book DB

1947 births
Living people
French comics writers
French male writers

Jean-Pierre Dionnet


In marine geology, a guyot (), also called a tablemount, is an isolated underwater volcanic mountain (seamount) with a flat top more than  below the surface of the sea. The diameters of these flat summits can exceed . Guyots are most commonly found in the Pacific Ocean, but they have been identified in all the oceans except the Arctic Ocean. They are analogous to tables (such as mesas) on land.

History
Guyots were first recognized in 1945 by Harry Hammond Hess, who collected data using echo-sounding equipment on a ship he commanded during World War II. His data showed that some undersea mountains had flat tops. Hess called these undersea mountains "guyots", after the 19th-century geographer Arnold Henry Guyot. Hess postulated they were once volcanic islands that were beheaded by wave action, yet they are now deep under sea level. This idea was used to help bolster the theory of plate tectonics.

Formation
Guyots show evidence of having once been above the surface, with gradual subsidence through stages from fringed reefed mountain, coral atoll, and finally a flat-topped submerged mountain. Seamounts are made by extrusion of lavas piped upward in stages from sources within the Earth's mantle, usually hotspots, to vents on the seafloor.  The volcanism invariably ceases after a time, and other processes dominate.  When an undersea volcano grows high enough to be near or breach the ocean surface, wave action and/or coral reef growth tend to create a flat-topped edifice.  However, all ocean crust and guyots form from hot magma and/or rock, which cools over time.  As the lithosphere that the future guyot rides on slowly cools, it becomes denser and sinks lower into Earth's mantle, through the process of isostasy.  In addition, the erosive effects of waves and currents are found mostly near the surface: the tops of guyots generally lie below this higher-erosion zone.

This is the same process that gives rise to higher seafloor topography at oceanic ridges, such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the Atlantic Ocean, and deeper ocean at abyssal plains and oceanic trenches, such as the Mariana Trench. Thus, the island or shoal that will eventually become a guyot slowly subsides over millions of years.  In the right climatic regions, coral growth can sometimes keep pace with the subsidence, resulting in coral atoll formation, but eventually the corals dip too deep to grow and the island becomes a guyot.  The greater the amount of time that passes, the deeper the guyots become.

Seamounts provide data on movements of tectonic plates on which they ride, and on the rheology of the underlying lithosphere. The trend of a seamount chain traces the direction of motion of the lithospheric plate over a more or less fixed heat source in the underlying asthenosphere, the part of the Earth's mantle beneath the lithosphere. There are thought to be up to an estimated 50,000 seamounts in the Pacific basin. The Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain is an excellent example of an entire volcanic chain undergoing this process, from active volcanism, to coral reef growth, to atoll formation, to subsidence of the islands and becoming guyots.

Characteristics
The steepness gradient of most guyots is about 20 degrees.  To technically be considered a guyot or tablemount, they must stand at least  tall.  One guyot in particular, the Great Meteor Tablemount in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, stands at more than  high, with a diameter of .  However, there are many undersea mounts that can range from just less than  to around .  Very large oceanic volcanic constructions, hundreds of kilometres across, are called oceanic plateaus. Guyots are much larger in area (mean of ) than typical seamounts (mean area of ).

There are 283 known guyots in the world's oceans, with the North Pacific having 119, the South Pacific 77, the South Atlantic 43, the Indian Ocean 28, the North Atlantic eight, the Southern Ocean six, and the Mediterranean Sea two; there are none known in the Arctic Ocean, though one is found along the Fram Strait off northeastern Greenland. Guyots are also associated with specific lifeforms and varying amounts of organic matter.  Local increases in chlorophyll a, enhanced carbon incorporation rates and changes in phytoplankton species composition are associated with guyots and other seamounts.

See also

 Evolution of Hawaiian volcanoes
 Kodiak–Bowie Seamount chain
 New England Seamounts

References

External links
 NOAA: What is a guyot?

Physical oceanography
Plate tectonics
Seamounts

Guyot


Sam Hollis (1866 – 17 April 1942) was an English football trainer and manager.

Born in Nottingham as Samuel Woodroffe Moore, he had comparatively little football experience, having previously worked in the local registry and as a landlord in a pub. He joined Woolwich Arsenal in 1894 as first team trainer.

In April 1897, Hollis was tempted away by newly formed Bristol City, where he became manager; he ended up spending three separate spells with the Robins. His first ended in March 1899 when he left to become secretary-manager of Bedminster. Bedminster merged with Bristol City in 1900 and Hollis lost his job. However, in 1901, he returned to manage Bristol City. During this second and most successive spell, City finished as Southern League runners-up and were promoted to the Football League.

He left in March 1905, and managed a hotel between 1905 and 1911, having previously run a pub between 1899 and 1909. He took over as Bristol City manager for the third time in January 1911, and oversaw the club's relegation from the First Division back to the Second. He left Ashton Gate in April 1913, and in July that year took over as manager of Southern League Newport County where he remained until 1917. After that, he left football management altogether, though he spent a number of years as chairman of Bristol City's shareholders. He died in Bristol in April 1942.

References

1866 births
1942 deaths
Sportspeople from Nottingham
English football managers
Arsenal F.C. non-playing staff
Bristol City F.C. managers
Newport County A.F.C. managers

Sam Hollis


Richard Stankiewicz (1922–1983) was an American sculptor, known for his work in scrap metal.

Stankiewicz was born in Philadelphia, but spent his formative years in Detroit.  He began painting and sculpting while in the United States Navy, in which he served from 1941 until 1947.  Beginning in 1948 and continuing into the following year, he studied in New York City with Hans Hofmann; in 1950–51, in Paris, he studied with Fernand Léger and Ossip Zadkine.  Upon his return to New York, Stankiewicz joined the cooperative Hansa Gallery; he exhibited there until the end of the 1950s, moving to the Stable Gallery in 1959.  In 1962 he left the city for Huntington, Massachusetts.  Stankiewicz continued to exhibit internationally until his death in 1983.  Today his work may be seen in numerous museum collections, including those of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Walker Art Center.

References
Biography at Ro Gallery
Richard Stankiewicz Online

1922 births
1983 deaths
Artists from Philadelphia
20th-century American sculptors
20th-century American male artists
American male sculptors
Sculptors from Pennsylvania
United States Navy personnel of World War II

Richard Stankiewicz


David H. Strack (March 2, 1923 – January 25, 2014) was an American athletic director for the University of Arizona and head basketball coach of the University of Michigan. He was inducted to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.

Early life
Strack grew up in Indiana and graduated from Shortridge High School in Indianapolis, where he was the basketball team's captain and MVP in 1941 and named to the Indiana All-Star team. Strack played college basketball at the University of Michigan (UM), earning MVP honors in 1943 and 1946.

Basketball career
Strack briefly played professionally for the Indianapolis Kautskys of the NBL. He returned to UM and served as an assistant coach from 1948 to 1959, then left in June 1959 to become the head coach at the University of Idaho.

In May 1960, Strack was hired as the head coach back at the University of Michigan, and served from 1960 to 1968. He led the Wolverines to three Big Ten Conference titles (1964, 1965, 1966) and to the 1965 NCAA Tournament title game. Following his team's 24–4 record and runner-up finish in 1965, Strack was named the UPI College Basketball Coach of the Year.

Athletic director
In 1968, Strack became the University of Michigan's business manager, then the associate athletic director in 1970.

Strack resigned in January 1972 to become the athletic director of the University of Arizona. Strack's tenure at Arizona included the hiring of the first African-American head coach of a major university (basketball coach Fred Snowden) and the school's transition into Pac-10 athletic conference. In 1980, Strack was criticized following a scandal involving the football program's use of an athletic slush fund for improper payments to coaches, alumni and recruits. Strack resigned in July 1982 to become a professor of physical education.

In 1992, Strack was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.

Personal life
In 1947, while attending the University of Michigan, Strack met and married Ruth Ann Mayer. They briefly lived in East Lansing, Michigan before moving to Ann Arbor to raise their five children. When he took the Arizona athletic director job, they moved to Tucson for his tenure and then to Prescott upon his retirement. They later returned to Tucson, where she died in 2011. Strack, aged 90, died of pneumonia in 2014.

Head coaching record

See also
 List of NCAA Division I Men's Final Four appearances by coach

References

External links
Strack coaching stats
Strack interview with the Arizona Daily Star (March 2013)

1923 births
2014 deaths
American men's basketball coaches
American men's basketball players
Arizona Wildcats athletic directors
Basketball coaches from Indiana
Basketball players from Indianapolis
College men's basketball head coaches in the United States
Idaho Vandals men's basketball coaches
Indianapolis Kautskys players
Michigan Wolverines men's basketball coaches
Michigan Wolverines men's basketball players
Shortridge High School alumni

Dave Strack


The magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) is the most numerous of the Spheniscus family. There are about 3,600,000 magellanic penguins in the world. They breed once a year and lay two eggs of a similar size.  They are 70 centimetres tall and weigh 9 pounds or 4 kilograms.

They are found in the Falkland Islands, South America, Chile and Argentina and migrate Brazil. They are warm weathered penguins and during the warm weather they lose feathers around their eyes. When it gets colder they grow these feathers back around their eyes. They were first seen in 1519 on a voyage (trip) to South America. They hunt for food on their own when they are 60-70 days old.

Other websites

Penguins

Magellanic penguin


In local usage, a burn is a kind of watercourse. The term applies to a large stream or a small river. The word is used in Scotland and England (especially North East England) and in parts of Ulster, Australia and New Zealand.

Etymology
The cognate of burn in standard English is "bourn", "bourne", "borne", "born", which is retained in placenames like Bournemouth, King's Somborne, Holborn, Melbourne. A cognate in German is Born (contemp. Brunnen), meaning "well", "spring" or "source", which is retained in placenames like Paderborn in Germany. Both the English and German words derive from the same Proto-Germanic root.

Scots Gaelic has the word bùrn, also cognate, but which means "fresh water"; the actual Gaelic for a "burn" is allt (sometimes anglicised as "ault" or "auld" in placenames.)

Examples

Blackburn
Broxburn
Bucks Burn
Burnside
Braid Burn
Dighty Burn
Burn Dale, East Donegal
Burnfoot, Inishowen
Burn of Elsick
Burn of Pheppie
Burn of Muchalls
Bannockburn
Crawfordsburn
Cronaniv Burn, Gaoth Dobhair
Gisburn
Hebburn
Jordan Burn
Kilburn (disambiguation)
Lyburn
Ouseburn
Routeburn Track
Seaburn
Seaton Burn
Shirburn
Tedburn
Tyburn
Westburn
Whitburn
Whitlawburn
Winkburn
Winterburn
Wooburn

References

External links

 Scottish Words and Place-Names:Place-Name Glossary

Water streams
Landforms
Northumbrian folklore
Rural Scotland
Scots language
Scottish English
Scottish toponyms
Rivers of Scotland
Rivers of Northumberland

Rivers of Ireland

Burn (landform)


{{Infobox writer
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| language         = English
| education        = in Punjab s
| alma_mater       = Bishop Cotton School
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| notable_works    = The Room on the RoofOur Trees Still Grow in Dehra A Flight of Pigeons The Blue UmbrellaGranny's Tree Climbing Angry River
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| relatives        = Aubrey Bond (father)Edith Dorothy (mother)William Bond (brother)Ellen Bond (sister)
| awards           = John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (1956) Sahitya Akademi Award (1992) Padma Shri (1999) Padma Bhushan (2014)
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Ruskin Bond (born 19 May 1934) is an Indian author. His first novel, The Room on the Roof, was published in 1956, and it received the  John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1957. Bond has authored more than 500 short stories, essays, and novels which includes 69 books for children. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and Padma Bhushan in 2014. He lives with his adopted family in Landour, Mussoorie, in the Indian state of Uttarakhand.

Life and career

Ruskin Bond was born on 19th May 1934 , in Kasauli, Punjab States Agency, British India. His father, Aubrey Alexander Bond, was born in a military camp in Shahjahanpur, a small town in north India. Later he became a tutor in a small school in the Jamnagar palace for their princes and princesses, where Ruskin also studied for his first six years. He taught English to the princesses of Jamnagar palace and Ruskin Bond and his sister Ellen lived there till he was six. Later, Ruskin's father joined the Royal Air Force in 1939 and Ruskin along with his mother and sister went to live at his maternal home at Dehradun. Shortly after that, he was sent to a boarding school in Mussoorie. When Ruskin was eight years old, his mother Edith Clerke separated from his father and married a Punjabi Hindu, Hari. His father arranged for Ruskin to be brought to New Delhi where he was posted. He was very close to his father and describes this period (1942-1944) with his father as one of the happiest times of his life. When he was ten, his father died due to malaria, while he was posted in Calcutta. He was buried in the Bhowanipore War Cemetery in Calcutta. Ruskin was at his boarding school in Shimla and was informed about this tragedy by his teacher. He was thoroughly heartbroken. Later, he was raised in Dehradun.

He did his schooling from Bishop Cotton School in Shimla, from where he graduated in 1951. He won several writing competitions in the school including the Irwin Divinity Prize and the Hailey Literature Prize. He wrote one of his first short stories, "Untouchable", at the age of sixteen in 1951.

Following his high school education he went to his aunt's home in the Channel Islands in 1951 for better prospects and stayed there for two years. In London when he was 17 years old, he started writing his first novel, The Room on the Roof, the semi-autobiographical story of the orphaned Anglo-Indian boy named Rusty; he did various jobs for a living. It won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, (1957) awarded to a British Commonwealth writer under 30. He moved to London and worked in a photo studio while searching for a publisher. After getting it published, Bond used the advance money to pay the sea passage to Bombay and settle in Dehradun.

He worked for a few years freelancing from Delhi and Dehradun. He sustained himself financially by writing short stories and poems for newspapers and magazines. On his youth, he said, "Sometimes I got lucky and some [work] got selected and I earned a few hundred rupees. Since I was in my 20s and didn't have any responsibilities I was just happy to be doing what I loved doing best." In 1963, he went to live in Mussoorie because besides liking the place, it was close to the editors and publishers in Delhi. He edited a magazine for four years. In the 1980s, Penguin set up in India and approached him to write some books. He had written Vagrants in the Valley in 1956, as a sequel to The Room on the Roof. These two novels were published in one volume by Penguin India in 1993. The following year a collection of his non-fiction writings, The Best of Ruskin Bond was published by Penguin India. His interest in supernatural fiction led him to write popular titles such as Ghost Stories from the Raj, A Season of Ghosts, and A Face in the Dark and other Hauntings. Since then he has written over five hundred short stories, essays and novels, including The Blue Umbrella, Funny Side Up, A Flight of Pigeons(Hindi film junoon was based on this story) and more than 50 books for children. He has also published his autobiography: Scenes from a Writer's Life describes his formative years growing up in Anglo-India and a further autobiography, Lone Fox Dancing, was published in 2017. The Lamp is Lit is a collection of essays and episodes from his journal.

Since 1963 he has lived as a freelance writer in Mussoorie, a town in the Himalayan foothills in Uttarakhand where he lives with his adoptive family in Landour, Mussoorie's Ivy Cottage, which has been his home since 1980. Asked what he likes the most about his life, he said, "That I have been able to write for so long. I started at the age of 17 or 18 and I am still writing. If I were not a professional writer who was getting published I would still write." In his essay, "Scenes from a Writer's Life", he explains his Indian identity, "Race did not make me one. Religion did not make me one. But history did. And in the long run, it's history that counts."

His sister Ellen lived in Ludhiana with his stepsister until she died in 2014. He also has a brother, William, who lives in Canada.

Writing life
Most of his works are influenced by life in the hill stations at the foothills of the Himalayas, where he spent his childhood.The Room on the Roof, was written when he was 16 and published when he was 21. It was partly based on his experiences at Dehradun, in his small rented room on the roof, and his friends. His earlier works were written without it being meant for any particular readership. His first children's book, Angry River, published in 1972, had its writing toned down on a publisher's request for a children's story. On writing for children, he said, "I had a pretty lonely childhood and it helps me to understand a child better." Bond's work reflects his Anglo-Indian experiences and the changing political, social and cultural aspects of India, having been through colonial, postcolonial and post-independence phases of India.

Ruskin Bond said that while his autobiographical work, Rain in the Mountains, was about his years spent in Mussoorie, Scenes from a Writer's Life described his first 21 years. Scenes from a Writer's Life focuses on Bond's trip to England, his struggle to find a publisher for his first book The Room on the Roof and his yearning to come back to India, particularly to Doon. "It also tells a lot about my parents", said Bond. "The book ends with the publication of my first novel and my decision to make writing my livelihood", Bond said, adding: "Basically, it describes how I became a writer".

Being a writer for over 50 years, Bond experimented with different genres; early works include fiction, short stories, novella with some being autobiographical. Later, he tried out non-fiction, romance and books for children. He said his favourite genres are essays and short stories. He considers himself a "visual writer" because for short stories, he first imagines it like a film and then notes it down. For an essay or travelogue, such planning is not needed for him. He feels the unexpected there makes it more exciting. Bond likes Just William by Richmal Crompton, Billy Bunter by Charles Hamilton and classics such as Alice in Wonderland and works by Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.

 Filmography
The 1978 Bollywood film Junoon is based on Bond's  novel A Flight of Pigeons (about an episode during the Indian Rebellion of 1857). It was produced by Shashi Kapoor and directed by Shyam Benegal.

The Rusty stories have been adapted into a Doordarshan TV series Ek Tha Rusty. Several stories have been incorporated into the school curriculum in India, including The Night Train at Deoli, Time Stops at Shamli and Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra.

In 2005, the Bollywood director Vishal Bhardwaj made a film based on his popular novel for children, The Blue Umbrella. The movie won the National Film Award for Best Children's Film.

Ruskin Bond made his maiden big-screen appearance with ain Vishal Bhardwaj's film 7 Khoon Maaf in 2011, based on his short story Susanna's Seven Husbands. Bond appears as a Bishop in the movie with Priyanka Chopra playing the title role. Bond had earlier collaborated with Bharadwaj in The Blue Umbrella which was also based on one of his works.

 Rusty
Rusty is a popular fictional character created by Ruskin Bond. Rusty is a sixteen-year-old Anglo-Indian boy living in Dehradun. He is orphaned and has no real family. He starts living with his guardian Mr. John Harrison, who is stern and harsh in his manners. Rusty is obliged to follow the orders and rules of his guardian and doesn't dare to disobey him. He feels helpless because he knows that if he disobeys Mr. John, he will get caned. He doesn't have any real friends and he finds himself very lonely in his guardian's house. He lives in the European part of Dehradun, but wants to embrace Indian culture and lifestyle. He makes friends with some Indian boys in the local marketplace. He hides the fact from Mr John and continues to go on secret adventures with them. Very soon he decides to run away from the captivity of Mr John and go back to England. Rusty's character offers a teenager's perspective who is battling with his confusions about life, relationship, happiness and love.

 Inspiration for the character
Rusty was created by Ruskin Bond to write stories about his own past. His first book, The Room on the Roof, which he wrote at the age of 17, was a semi-autobiographical story with Rusty being the protagonist. It was based on his friends and the time he spent in a rented room, when he was in Dehradun. Most of Rusty's initial years are set in the location of Dehradun, a scenic place in northern India. Ruskin Bond was deeply attached to Dehra and most of his stories are inspired by the hills and valleys of this region.

 Novels and short stories featuring Rusty

 The Room on the Roof Vagrants in the Valley (a sequel to Room on the Roof)
 Rusty, the Boy from the Hills (collection of short stories)
 Rusty Runs Away (collection of short stories)
  Rusty and the Magic Mountain Rusty goes to London Rusty Comes Home
 The Adventures of Rusty Delhi is not far"Rusty plays Holi"
 "Rusty and the leopard"

Novels

 The Room on the Roof Vagrants in the Valley Rusty Runs Away A Flight of Pigeons The Sensualist The Panther's Moon Once Upon A Monsoon Time Delhi is Not Far Angry River The Woman on Platform 8 Strangers in the Night All Roads Lead To Ganga Tales of Fosterganj Maharani Leopard on the Mountain Grandfather's Private Zoo The Blue Umbrella Too Much Trouble When The Tiger Was King "Cherry Tree"
 "The Great Train Journey"
 Children Of India
 Owls In The Family
 Dust On The Mountain
Adventures Of Toto
 The House Of Strange Stories
 Big Business
 When the Night Falls

 Memories Landour Days – A writers JournalScenes from a Writer's LifeWith Love From The HillsRoads To MussoorieLooking for the RainbowTill the Clouds Roll ByComing Round the MountainA Song of IndiaAll the roads lead to GangaNon-fiction
 It's a Wonderful Life: Roads to Happiness A Golf Story: Celebrating 125 Years of the Bangalore Golf Club Happy Birthday, World!''

See also

 List of Indian writers

References

External links

 Interview with Ruskin Bond by Atula Ahuja

Living people
1934 births
Anglo-Indian people
English-language writers from India
Ghost story writers
Indian male novelists
John Llewellyn Rhys Prize winners
Outlook (Indian magazine) people
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Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in literature & education
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Ruskin Bond


The 1988 Raleigh tornado was a natural disaster in the state of North Carolina in the United States on November 28, 1988. The outbreak was mainly centered in North Carolina and Virginia between 1:00 and 5:45 a.m. Eastern Time.

Synopsis
The weekend prior to the tornado event was very warm and humid, with temperatures in the 70s and dew points in the 60s. All that weekend the National Severe Storms Forecast Center (NSSCFC) was watching the eastern part of the United States for the possibility for severe weather.

The tornado event
A line of thunderstorms was spotted in the Charlotte area during the afternoon and evening hours, including some severe weather in the area and it crossed nearby Chatham County. No tornado watch had been issued for the Raleigh-Durham area when the tornado began touching down at 1:00 a.m. on Monday, November 28.  The storm was rated F4 on the Fujita scale.

Warnings were quickly issued as the storm began carving a path through suburban north Raleigh. It damaged or destroyed nearly 2500 residences and over 75 businesses including entire shopping centers. By 1:30 AM, the tornado had moved out of northern Wake County and into Franklin County, North Carolina. Fluctuating between F1 and F3 in strength, the storm finally fell apart after crossing Interstate 95 in North Carolina between Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina and the Virginia state line. Overall, four people were killed: 2 children in Raleigh, 9-year-old Janet Barnes and 12-year-old Pete Fulghum, and a couple in their mobile home in  Nash County)..  The tornado was responsible for destroying 425 residences and 78 businesses, including a K-Mart. Over 157 people were injured as a result of the storms.

Shortly after this tornado, other tornado storms began breaking out across North Carolina and Virginia.

References

Other websites
News coverage from WRAL-TV, 11/28/88

Tornadoes in the United States
1988 in the United States
1980s in North Carolina
1980s in weather

1988 Raleigh tornado


A graduated cylinder (also called measuring cylinder) is a piece of laboratory glassware used to measure the volume of liquids. It is used to accurately measure the volume of chemicals for use in reactions.

Often, the biggest graduated cylinders are made of polyethylene or other stiff plastic, making them lighter and less fragile than glass, but more difficult to sterilize.

Laboratory equipment

Graduated cylinder


Sir Frederick Alfred Laker (6 August 1922 – 9 February 2006) was an English airline entrepreneur, best known for founding Laker Airways in 1966, which went bankrupt in 1982. Known as Freddie Laker, he was one of the first airline owners to adopt the "low cost / no-frills" airline business model that has since proven to be successful worldwide when employed by companies such as Ryanair, Southwest Airlines, easyJet, Norwegian Air, and AirAsia.

Biography
Laker came from Canterbury in Kent, and attended the Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys, before starting work in aviation with Short Brothers in Rochester. He was a member of the Air Transport Auxiliary during and immediately after the Second World War (1941–46).

He then worked briefly for British European Airways (BEA) and London Aero Motor Services (LAMS). Having borrowed £38,000 from a wealthy friend to top up his own savings of £4,500, he subsequently went into business as a war-surplus aircraft dealer. The Soviet blockade of West Berlin in 1948–49, during which all available aircraft were needed to fly essential supplies into West Berlin, allowed his business to flourish, as this provided more than a year's work for his planes and employees almost immediately. During this period Laker often flew the aircraft himself.

By 1954, Channel Air Bridge, his second airline venture, was flying cars and their owners in Bristol Freighters from Southend Airport (Rochford) to Calais.

In 1958, he sold Air Charter, Aviation Traders and Channel Air Bridge to Airwork. All three companies joined the Airwork group in 1959. Following the Airwork–Hunting-Clan merger in 1960, he became managing director of British United Airways.

He left British United in 1965 and formed his own Laker Airways, in 1966, initially operating charter flights with a pair of turboprop planes acquired second-hand from British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC). The livery was a mixture of black and red with a bold LAKER logo on the tailplane. He offered a new, revolutionary concept of economic air travel requiring passengers to purchase their tickets on the day of travel as well as to buy their own food. These flights were operated by Laker Airways and marketed under the Skytrain trademark.

He was knighted in 1977, the year after the successful launch of Skytrain, in recognition of his services to the airline industry.

He received an honorary degree from the University of Strathclyde in 1981.

Laker divided his final years between his waterfront home in Princess Isle, Grand Bahama Island, where he kept his yacht, The Lady Jacqueline, and Florida. Laker died at the age of 83 in a suburban hospital in Hollywood in Florida, following complications from cardiac surgery to implant a pacemaker. He was survived by his fourth wife, Jacqueline Harvey, a former airline hostess he married in 1985, and also by two of his children. His daughter, Elaine, was by his first wife Joan with whom he also had a son, Kevin, who died in 1965 at the age of 17 after crashing a sports car Freddie had given him for his birthday. His son Freddie Allen Laker – also a successful entrepreneur – was born to his third wife, Patricia Gates, with whom he also had another son who died in infancy.

Business ventures
Throughout his working life Laker was involved in a number of aviation-related business ventures. Even when he was working for others, his decisions had far-reaching strategic consequences for the business that employed him.

Early business ventures
Laker's early post-war business ventures (prior to 1960) included:

Aviation Traders

Freddie Laker founded Aviation Traders in October 1947. It was based at Southend Airport, Essex, England and specialised in converting numerous war-surplus bombers and transporters into freighters. This included the conversion of Handley Page Halifax bombers into freighters, six of which were sold to Bond Air Services, an early post-war British independent airline. Bond Air Services based these planes at Wunstorf aerodrome in West Germany to carry essential supplies into West Berlin during the Berlin Blockade of 1948–49. Bond Air Services furthermore contracted Aviation Traders to service these planes. In return, Aviation Traders got half of Bond Air Services' freight charges.

Following the end of the Berlin Airlift in 1949, Laker had most of the Halifaxes he had supplied to various independent airlines during the Airlift scrapped at its Southend facilities. He also made use of these facilities for the subsequent conversion of several DC-4/C-54 Skymaster airframes into Carvairs for various operators around the world.

In addition, Aviation Traders re-engined Argonauts, BOAC's Canadian-built Canadair North Stars, with unused Rolls-Royce Merlin piston engines, which it sourced from the 88 spare Merlins Freddie Laker had acquired earlier along with BOAC's entire fleet of Haltons – former Royal Air Force Halifax bombers that had been converted to carry passengers and cargo – and several Avro Tudors purchased from the Government. It also produced an all-new aircraft design, the ATL-90 Accountant.

In 1951, Aviation Traders (Engineering), a sister company of Aviation Traders, won a contract from Bristol Aircraft to manufacture wing centre sections for Bristol Freighters. Between the beginning of 1952 and the end of 1955, Aviation Traders (Engineering) built 50 wing sections for Bristol Aircraft.

In 1958, Laker announced his decision to sell both Aviation Traders and Air Charter to Airwork for £600,000 cash plus a further £200,000, subject to the valuation of stock. The deal became effective in January 1959, when Aviation Traders and Air Charter joined the Airwork group.

Air Charter
This was his first airline venture, which he took over in 1951. Since its inception in 1947, Air Charter had been based at London's old Croydon Airport. The airline participated in the 1948–49 Berlin Airlift. (Following the end of the Airlift in 1949, Laker sold the Air Charter Yorks that were still airworthy to other independent airlines, two of which were acquired by Dan-Air in 1956).)

On 14 April 1955, Air Charter inaugurated its first vehicle ferry service between Southend and Calais using a Bristol 170 Mark 32 Super Freighter.

In 1958, Laker announced his decision to sell both Air Charter and Aviation Traders to Airwork for £600,000 cash plus a further £200,000, subject to the valuation of stock.

In January 1959, Air Charter became a subsidiary of the Airwork group.

Following a rationalisation of Air Charter's flight crew and ground staff in February 1959, Laker decided to transfer all vehicle ferry services along with the Bristol 170 fleet to the newly formed Channel Air Bridge.

Air Charter was absorbed into British United Airways in June 1960, as a result of Airwork's merger with Hunting-Clan and several other contemporary, British independent operators.

Channel Air Bridge
His second airline venture began flying cars and their owners across the English Channel in 1954, initially using a fleet of Bristol Freighter twin-engined, piston-powered planes. These were later supplemented and eventually superseded by the larger-capacity, four-engined Carvairs. The Carvair design was based on the Douglas DC-4 piston-engined airliner. It involved raising the aircraft's cockpit "above" the fuselage in a 747-style bulge so as to create more space for vehicles and/or passengers on the main deck. It also involved replacing the DC-4's original tail fin with a newly designed, larger DC-7-style fin as well as equipping the aircraft with a Bristol Freighter-type nose-loading cargo door, more powerful brakes and a stronger undercarriage.

At the end of 1958, he sold Channel Air Bridge together with his other two companies – Air Charter and Aviation Traders – to Airwork. All three officially became part of the Airwork group in January 1959. In June 1960 Airwork and Hunting-Clan merged to form British United Airways. Channel Air Bridge continued operating under its own identity for more than two years.

On 1 January 1963, Channel Air Bridge merged with Silver City Airways, which had pioneered commercial cross-Channel vehicle ferry flights in 1948. The merged entity traded as British United Air Ferries.

In the meantime, Laker had been appointed British United's managing director.

During his tenure (1960–65), British United became Britain's biggest wholly privately owned, independent airline. It also became the UK's first independent airline to re-equip its entire fleet with new jet aircraft.

In 1961, British United became the launch customer for the BAC One-Eleven short haul jetliner when it placed an order for ten series 200 aircraft. Laker had personally negotiated this deal with the manufacturer. This was the first time that an independent airline had placed an order for brand-new jets. The first of the new One-Elevens entered service on 9 April 1965, on the airline's scheduled London Gatwick—Genoa route. Laker also placed an order for Vickers VC10 series 1103 long-haul jets on behalf of British United. The first two aircraft were delivered towards the end of 1964. (These aircraft differed from other operators' VC10s by having a large cargo door on the left-hand side of the forward fuselage where the aircraft's first class section was located. They also had extended wingtips that were slightly bent downwards to reduce the aircraft's cruise drag as well as to help it overcome the instability encountered when entering a stall.)

By the end of that decade, British United had an all-jet fleet, which gave it a competitive edge over its contemporary independent rivals.

Laker was furthermore instrumental in securing the transfer of the traffic rights for BOAC's loss-making South American routes to Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay to British United. The airline commenced service on these routes in November 1964 using its brand-new VC10s and managed to make them profitable within five years.

In 1965, Laker decided to leave British United to set up his own airline following an alleged disagreement with British United's chairman Myles Wyatt.

Subsequent business ventures
Laker was involved in the following business ventures during the later postwar years of the 20th century (post-1960):

Laker Airways
Laker Airways was formed in 1966. This was Laker's third and most prominent airline venture. Laker Airways commenced commercial airline operations that July with a fleet of two ex-BOAC Bristol Britannias. These were subsequently supplemented and eventually replaced with a brand-new fleet of BAC One-Eleven jetliners as well as a pair of second-hand Boeing 707 jets.

Initially, Laker Airways was a charter airline and wholesale tour operator. British (as well as other European) airline regulations at the time required that charter-based low-price air travel be sold to the public only as a component of an air-hotel package. Other big British charter airlines were also owned by tour operators, mainly selling low-priced packages to Mediterranean beach destinations. For many years Laker had been the most profitable as well as the best-run charter airline in Britain.

Laker Airways pioneered many new, cost-saving as well as profit-enhancing, commercial concepts and operational techniques.

In 1969, Laker Airways announced its intention to buy the proposed BAC Three-Eleven, an all-British widebodied jet powered by two rear-mounted Rolls-Royce RB211 engines. The airline's letter of intent was for four aircraft to be delivered in 1974. It was anticipated that these 250-seaters would replace the entire narrow-bodied fleet, which was envisaged to comprise two 158-seat Boeing 707s and four 84-seat BAC One-Elevens by that time. Following the project's cancellation in 1971 due to a lack of Government funding, Laker remarked that this would force him to spend the £3 billion he had planned to invest by 1986 in a fleet of British-built widebodied airliners (including options) on competing foreign models.

Laker Airways eventually became the first independent British airline to actually operate widebodied equipment when it introduced its first two McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 series aircraft into commercial airline service in November 1972, the first European operator to do so. These aircraft were the first UK-registered DC-10s.

In 1973, Laker Airways operated the world's first Advance Booking Charter (ABC) flight. By the mid-1970s it had become the undisputed, global ABC flight market leader.

Laker Airways scored another industry first when it introduced its first daily Skytrain low-fare scheduled service between London Gatwick and New York John F. Kennedy Airport on 26 September 1977.

Skytrain
On 15 June 1971, Laker Airways submitted an application to the UK's Air Transport Licensing Board (ATLB), one of the forerunners of today's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), to launch the world's first daily transatlantic, low-fare scheduled service between London and New York City, charging an incredibly low one-way fare of £32.50 in winter and £37.50 in summer. This was one third of what the major, established "flag carriers" were charging at the time. The proposed service was to be marketed using the Skytrain trademark and was to be initially operated with 158-seat, single-class Boeing 707-138Bs that were acquired second-hand. Skytrain was to be a "walk-on", "walk-off" operation that did not require any advance reservations. Instead, seats were to be sold to the travelling public at each end of the route on a "first come, first served" basis only.

The ATLB rejected Laker's application before the year was out, and Laker appealed against the ruling. The appeal was successful, and the ATLB eventually granted Laker the requested licence in February 1972.

However, on 30 March 1972, the UK government revoked Laker's licence and instructed him to reapply to the CAA, which came into being on 1 April 1972.

Laker duly reapplied to the CAA for permission to operate eleven weekly Skytrain services each way between London Gatwick and New York's John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) during the summer and seven weekly round-trips during the winter. The summer schedule was to be operated with Laker's brand-new DC-10 widebodied jet aircraft to take advantage of increased demand he anticipated for his new low-fare service during the peak months from June to September as well as of the DC-10's low break-even load factor of only 52%. The winter schedule was to be operated with 707 narrowbodies as specified in Laker's original application to the ATLB.

The newly formed CAA approved Laker's application on 5 October 1972, granting a ten-year licence. However, it specified Stansted rather than Gatwick as the service's UK departure/arrival point and limited the number of seats that could be sold in winter to 189 per trip, the maximum number of passengers a Boeing 707 could accommodate in a high-density, all-economy configuration. The unexpected change of the UK departure/arrival point for Laker's Skytrain service as well as its capacity limit during the lean winter season were intended not to undermine the planned launch of a daily British Caledonian (BCal) Gatwick—JFK full-service scheduled operation, for which the ATLB had already granted that airline a 15-year licence, along with another 15-year licence for a daily Gatwick—Los Angeles International Airport full-service scheduled operation, during the so-called "cannon ball" hearings earlier the same year.

The UK government designated Laker Airways as a scheduled transatlantic UK "flag" carrier on 11 January 1973.

However, under intense pressure from the established airlines, including Laker's archrival and next-door Gatwick neighbour BCal, against a backdrop of huge losses and overcapacity on the North Atlantic in the aftermath of the global energy crisis caused by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' oil embargo, the UK's Labour government of that era decided to revoke Laker's licence on 29 July 1975.

Freddie Laker took the government to the UK High Court, which overturned the latter's decision to revoke the airline's licence for a Skytrain service between London and New York.

It took another two years until Laker gained final approval, including a reciprocal permit from the relevant US authorities, which was granted for a one-year experimental period on 13 June 1977 by US President Jimmy Carter – to commence Skytrain.

In the meantime, Peter Shore, the then Secretary of State for Trade, had conducted a review of the government's aviation policy and in 1976 announced a new "spheres of influence" policy that ended dual designation for British airlines on all long-haul routes. As a result of this new aviation policy, BA and BCal were no longer permitted to run competing scheduled services on the same long-haul routes and the latter was forced to withdraw from the London—New York and London—Los Angeles routes, resulting in the suspension of BCal's Gatwick—JFK and Gatwick—Los Angeles licences. The same year, Edmund Dell, Peter Shore's successor, renounced the original Bermuda air services agreement of 1946 and initiated bilateral negotiations with his US counterparts on a new air services agreement, which resulted in the Bermuda II treaty of 1977.

Laker's long-running Skytrain application was finally granted in 1977 upon designating the airline as the second UK flag carrier between London and New York under the then just-concluded Bermuda II UK-US air agreement. At the last minute prior to the inaugural Skytrain flight from London to New York, Laker also received government permission to use its Gatwick base as the service's UK departure and arrival point, rather than Stansted as originally specified in its licence. The restriction limiting it to 189 seats per aircraft in winter was lifted as well and the baggage allowance was brought into line with International Air Transport Association (IATA) rules.

Skytrain took to the air for the first time on 26 September 1977 when the inaugural flight departed London Gatwick for New York JFK. This flight carried 272 passengers on one of the airline's 345-seat McDonnell Douglas DC-10 widebodied aircraft. The fares charged at the time were £59 () one-way from London and $135 () one-way from New York.

Skytrain was originally envisaged to achieve a 50% load factor in winter. By summer 1978, the actual load factor was 80%.

After unsuccessfully trying to block Laker through government regulation, the incumbent giant lines, British Airways, Pan Am and TWA, immediately matched Laker's standby fares and rules for at least a portion of their economy-class seats. Pan Am also introduced a new low-fare alternative, "budget," where a traveler could confirm a seat at the time of purchase, but only for travel within a three-day travel "window," with a specific flight and date confirmed by the airline a week before departure.

Laker claimed that Skytrain helped to grow passenger numbers for all airlines in the London—New York market, citing statistics comparing passenger numbers for the July—September peak season in 1977 with those of the corresponding period in 1976 as evidence. These had shown that in the days before Skytrain, total traffic between London and New York for the aforesaid period in 1977 was down 2% on the same period in 1976. He contrasted these figures with those comparing the October—December 1977 off-peak period with the corresponding 1976 off-peak period. The latter set of figures had shown a 30% increase, boosted by "Skytrain", which launched on 26 September 1977.

A closer analysis comparing the figures for October 1977 with those of the same month in 1976 had shown an increase of 31.8% (37,902 passengers) for all airlines. A further breakdown of these figures had shown that Laker's "Skytrain" accounted for 15% (17,501 passengers) of the overall increase while competing services of rival airlines accounted for the remaining 16.8% (20,401 passengers). The latter included IATA members British Airways, Pan Am, and TWA, which had initially opposed "Skytrain" but subsequently matched its low fares. (Statistics for November and December 1977, as well as for January—June 1978, had also shown that the overall monthly growth in the London—New York market was maintained at that level for the remainder of this period while Skytrain managed to grow its share of the overall monthly increase to 50% and keep up this performance until the end of the period.)

Skytrain became a financial success in its first year of operation, leading to further expansion over the coming years, in terms of new routes as well as additional frequencies.

As a result of his clever publicity stunts to market the then brand-new London—New York Skytrain service, Freddie Laker himself became popular with the public ("the forgotten man's hero") and was regarded as one of Margaret Thatcher's "golden boys" of industry (along with Sir Clive Sinclair and Sir Alan Sugar). The future Conservative Prime Minister was a self-confessed "Freddie Laker fan".

However, it was James Callaghan's "pro-union" Labour Government that awarded Laker his knighthood for services to the airline industry in 1978, rather than Margaret Thatcher's subsequent "pro-business" Conservative administration (although the latter had recommended him for his service to private enterprise in her capacity as the then leader of the opposition).

As Skytrain expanded to other British and U.S. gateways, the airline placed orders for additional McDonnell Douglas DC-10 widebodies, including the company's first order for five longer-range series-30 aircraft required for its Los Angeles flights. These were delivered from December 1979 onwards to support its growing number of destinations and frequencies.

The airline also became one of the early buyers of the first Airbus airliner, the A300, ordering ten of these widebodies in 1979 and had plans to deploy the aircraft on a new network of intra-European Skytrain routes.

Skytrain came to an end the day the airline went into receivership at the behest of the Midland Bank on 5 February 1982.

Collapse and the end of Skytrain
In 1982, the company went bankrupt, owing over £250 million (equivalent to £ million in ). The airline made its last flight on 5 February 1982, the day it went into receivership.

There were numerous reasons for what was termed the biggest corporate failure in Britain at the time:

 Laker Airways had expanded too quickly in the late 1970s and early 1980s when it took delivery of a large fleet of brand-new DC-10 and A300 widebodies, which had been bought with US funds borrowed at too high a rate of interest.  Subsequent devaluations of sterling meant increased costs in servicing the debt.
 The company was undercapitalised and did not enjoy the financial backup of any significant assets, which seriously undermined its ability to withstand a concerted and prolonged campaign to put it out of business at the depth of the 1981–82 recession at the hands of its financially stronger competitors.
 Laker Airways incurred a revenue loss estimated at £13 million when the worldwide DC-10 fleet was grounded as a result of having its certificate of airworthiness temporarily withdrawn in the aftermath of the American Airlines DC-10 crash at Chicago O'Hare in May 1979.
 Some passengers may also have perceived the DC-10 as unsafe as a result of a string of fatal accidents involving the aircraft within a short timespan during the late 1970s (including the aforementioned 1979 American Airlines crash at Chicago O'Hare, and the previous 1974 crash of a Turkish Airlines DC10 at Beauvais, near Paris).
 The implications of the strategic decision to build its business on discount travellers only.
 The conspiracy of large airlines throughout Europe and North America, which were aggressively price-matching Laker Airways even at the expense of massive losses. This charge, which was brought to court as the largest aviation antitrust case in history, was later settled out of court. Sir Freddie sued IATA member airlines British Airways, BCal, Pan Am, TWA, Lufthansa, Air France, Swissair, KLM, SAS, Sabena, Alitalia and UTA for conspiracy to put his airline out of business by predatory pricing. They settled out of court for US$50 million, with British Airways later agreeing to contribute a further $35 million. British Airways also reached a separate out-of-court agreement with Sir Freddie personally for £8 million.
 Aggressive, non-profitable price dropping in Australia by Qantas, which later went on to enjoy a monopoly and pushed east/west airline prices through the roof.
 Fallout from the company's demise descended into litigation, which delayed the privatisation of British Airways.

Laker Airways Mark II
Laker was undaunted and almost immediately attempted to relaunch the airline with assistance from one of Britain's titans of industry, Tiny Rowland, the Managing Director of Lonrho, plc – one of the nation's largest conglomerates – and on the back of a strong public following (a relief fund gathered over £1 million, including a benefit concert in San Francisco by the music band The Police, who had used the airline to tour America in their formative years).

However despite Rowland's offer of funding being described as "adequate" by Laker, the attempt was unsuccessful due to their failure to secure the necessary licensing.

Laker, by now living in the Bahamas, got off the ground again in the early 1990s, moving his refounded business's base to Freeport. Laker Airways flew from there until it shut down in 2005. It was Laker's final airline venture.

Legacy
Laker was the 2002 recipient of the Tony Jannus Award for his distinguished contributions to commercial air transportation. He is remembered for his famous advice to fellow airline entrepreneurs Richard Branson, of Virgin Atlantic, and Stelios Haji-Ioannou, of easyJet, to "sue the bastards", a reference to the bullying tactics of British Airways in trying to force upstarts out of business.

Virgin Atlantic had earlier named one of its Boeing 747s The Spirit of Sir Freddie. In addition, Malaysia's low-cost, long-haul carrier AirAsia X named its first Airbus A330 Semangat Sir Freddie in homage to the pioneer of "no-frills" air travel. The third plane to be named in spirit after Freddie Laker happens to be a Boeing 737 MAX that belongs to Norwegian Air Shuttle, delivered in May 2017.
His name has also recently been applied to a Norwegian Air Sweden Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, with the registration SE-RXZ.

He was also the subject of a musical, Laker!, as performed at Not in Front of the Audience in 1982, and written by Mel Smith and Peter Brewis in reaction to Laker Airways' bankruptcy.

In the 1984 comedy film Top Secret!, Laker was referenced in a climactic moment when the heroine Hillary realizes that her former lover Nigel is a traitor. Nigel gloats that in becoming a villain that he was exposed to great thinkers, "Like Karl Marx, Lenin, L. Ron Hubbard, Freddie Laker!"

In 1988, InsideFlyer magazine's editor and publisher Randy Petersen created the Freddie Awards to honor Freddie Laker's accomplishments in marketing travel. The awards recognize excellence in frequent traveler awards programs. The Freddie Awards were touted as the frequent traveller's answer to the Oscar, Emmy and Grammy Awards by Petersen. The individual categories for the Freddie Awards are Best Award, Best Bonus, Best Affinity Credit Card, Best Newsletter/Member Communications, Best Web Site, Best Customer Service, Best Award Redemption, Best Elite Level and Program of the Year.

When the new passenger terminal at London Southend Airport was opened in 2012, the upstairs bar was named Laker's Bar, and featured a montage of Laker and his airline across the walls. In 2015, the bar was moved into the departure lounge and renamed Laker's Bar & Restaurant, and displays images of Laker and his company like its predecessor.

In June 2017, Norwegian Air International placed Laker's image on the tail of their first 737-8 MAX (EI-FYA). Laker is one of the company's five "British tail fin heroes", joining Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, children's author Roald Dahl, pioneering pilot Amy Johnson and England's World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore.

Notes and citations
Notes

Citations

References

  (Airliner World online)
  (Airliner World online)
  (Aviation News online)

External links
 Reuters News announcing his death
Obituary from BBC News
Obituary from Miami Herald
Obituary from The Daily Telegraph
Obituary from The Independent
Final Interview
Armstrong, P. (2005). The Flight of the Accountant: a Romance of Air and Credit, Flight to insolvency
Stansted Airport Consultative Committee, Stansted — The Early Years (1942–1966), Sir Freddie Laker Arrives
Skytrain: new Laker bid, Flight International, 27 July 1972, p. 116
Skytrain ..., 'Flight International'', 27 July 1972, p. 117

Further reading

1922 births
2006 deaths
People from Canterbury
Businesspeople awarded knighthoods
Knights Bachelor
People educated at Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys
Air Transport Auxiliary pilots
British airline chief executives
20th-century English businesspeople
British expatriates in the Bahamas
British expatriates in the United States

Freddie Laker


An anagram is a puzzle where the player has to move all the letters in a word to make a new word.  An example would be The Morse Code and Here Comes Dots. Anagrams are often used in fiction when a character wants to use a different name. For example, the Harry Potter character named Tom Marvolo Riddle made an anagram based on his name, "I Am Lord Voldemort", and began calling himself "Lord Voldermort". And the pen name of Voltaire comes from "Aroueti". The word 'nag a ram' is actually an anagram of the word anagram. Common anagram examples are "dormitory"-rearrange to dirty room, "listen"-rearrange to silent, "astronomer"-rearrange to moon starer, and "a decimal point"-rearrange to I'm a dot in place.

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Palindrome

Words

Anagram