Age of Innocence – 1962, Cold War and Cold Winter

These days people pay good money to stay in an ice hotel in Sweden and spend an evening shivering in sub-zero temperatures.

When I was a boy a cold Winter would have been quite an ordeal I’m certain because like most people in 1962 we lived in a house without central heating and this was in the days long before double glazing and thermal insulation.

I don’t think we even had a fitted carpet!  We didn’t have a fitted carpet for at least another five years or so.  The house had an open coal fire in the lounge and a coke boiler in the kitchen to heat the water and that was it.  Sitting around the fire was quite cosy of course but when it came to bed time tearing yourself away from it was a real ordeal – rather like Scott’s preparation for walking to the South Pole!

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Age of Innocence – 1962, The Joy of Sex and Marilyn Monroe

I unexpectedly came across Marilyn once in Haugesund  in Norway and I discovered that the reason she should surprisingly turn up here is that her father, Martin Mortensen, came from the village of Skjold, just twenty kilometres away and lived in Haugesund before emigrating to America in about 1880.  After abandoning his family after only six months of marriage, he was killed in a motorcycle crash without ever seeing his daughter – Norma Jean Mortensen.

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Age of Innocence – 1958, The Cod Wars With Iceland

“Ross Tiger” by Grimsby Artist Carl Paul – www.carlpaulfinearts.co.uk

In 1958 Britain went to war – this time with Iceland.  The First Cod War lasted from 1^st September until 12^th November 1958 and began in response to a new Icelandic law that tripled the Icelandic fishery zone from four nautical miles to twelve to protect its own fishing industry.

The British Government declared that their trawlers would fish under protection from Royal Navy warships in three areas, out of the Westfjords, north of Horn and to the southeast of Iceland.  All in all, twenty British trawlers, four warships and a supply vessel operated inside the newly declared zones.  This was a bad tempered little spat that involved trawler net cutting, mid ocean ramming incidents and collisions.  It was also a bit of an uneven contest because in all fifty-three British warships took part in the operations against seven Icelandic patrol vessels and a single Catalina flying boat.

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