The Cardiff Book of Days (3 page)

1873:
The funeral of PC William Perry (37) took place. He had been stabbed to death by a mentally-ill butcher, John Jones, in the entrance to the Westgate Hotel, Cathedral Road. Jones was buried with full honours at Adamsdown cemetery. A former soldier, he had served in the Cardiff Borough Constabulary for eight years. Ironically, he had been planning to move to West Wales soon. Such was the public sympathy for Perry that over 12,000 people lined the route from his home in Heath Street to the cemetery and a week later there was a memorial service at St John's. Perry's assailant died in custody on January 8th. The cause of death was given as a brain haemorrhage and he was buried in unconsecrated ground at Cathays the following day.

1969:
Twenty-three-year-old prostitute Margaret Sennett's half-naked body was found in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Bute Street. It had been partially hidden among leaves and some rubble from recently-demolished houses. An attempt had been made to burn her clothing, some of which was missing. Twenty-eight-year-old Royston Slater from Splott was charged with her murder. After evidence was presented of his mental state, Slater was placed in a secure hospital. (Mark Isaacs,
Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in Cardiff
, Wharncliffe, 2009)

1913:
Escapologist Harry Houdini began a week-long run at the Cardiff Empire. The theatre bills (illustrated by Stewart Williams in his
Cardiff Yesterday
series) proclaimed it ‘the Great Performance of his Strenuous Career, liberating himself after being locked in a
WATER TORTURE CELL
. Houdini's own invention, whilst standing on his head, his ankles clamped and locked above in the centre of the Massive Cover – A Feat which borders on the supernatural. Houdini offers £200 to anyone who proves that it is possible to obtain air in the upside down position in which he releases himself from this
WATER-FILLED TORTURE CELL
'. (Stewart Williams,
Cardiff Yesterday
)

2002:
Crowd trouble marred Cardiff City's 2-1 FA Cup third round victory over Leeds United. Cardiff had come from behind to win with a goal three minutes from time. Some Cardiff fans invaded the pitch and confronted the Leeds supporters. Coins and plastic bottles were thrown, the ugly scenes marring the underdogs' victory. However, the worst casualty was believed to be a Leeds supporter bitten by a police dog as he boarded a bus. (Dennis Morgan,
Farewell to Ninian Park
, 2008)

1871:
The
Cardiff Times
reported that ‘a capital dinner, consisting of roast beef, roast mutton and vegetables, accompanied by an abundant supply of plum pudding etc. was given to the whole of the poor of the parish in the National Schoolroom, Penarth. Judging from their appearance, they heartily enjoyed their repast. Before the guests departed the female portion had a quarter of tea given to them and those males who indulged in the soothing weed had some tobacco.' (Quoted by E. Alwyn Benjamin in
Penarth 1841-71, A Glimpse of the Past
, D. Brown & Sons, 1980)

1893:
Wales beat England for the first time in a rugby match at the Arms Park that nearly did not go ahead because of extreme cold. The pitch was frozen solid and play was only made possible by the groundstaff who lit fires all over the playing surface. Eighteen tons of coal were used and when the England team arrived in a blizzard they were amazed to see more than 500 hastily improvised braziers (buckets pierced with holes and raised up on bricks). (Robert Cole & Stuart Farmer,
The Wales Rugby Miscellany
, Sports Vision Publishing, 2008)

1930:
Cardiff City star Hughie Ferguson committed suicide at the age of 32. Transferred from Motherwell for a fee of £5,000 in 1925, Hughie had been a great favourite with the supporters, scoring 87 goals in 131 appearances, including the winning goal in the 1927 FA Cup Final. At the end of the 1928/29 season he was transferred to Dundee but never settled there. A back injury meant that he was less effective and the home crowd began to jeer him. A sensitive man, he could not adjust to this after the adulation he had experienced at Cardiff. Suffering from depression, he killed himself after a training session at Dundee and was found dead next to a gas ring in the dressing room.

1977:
A happier anniversary for City fans. In one of the shocks of the FA Cup third round Cardiff defeated the mighty Tottenham Hotspur 1-0. The goal was scored by Peter Sayer who was only in the team because Robin Friday, Cardiff's recent signing from Reading, was ineligible for the game. It was only his third goal in fifty-three matches and he later described it as ‘a moment of magic that I shall remember for the rest of my life'. (Dennis Morgan,
Farewell to Ninian Park
, 2008)

1927:
Hilda Medd of Stanway Road in Ely died following an illegal termination of pregnancy. The operation had been performed by Reginald Morris, later described as ‘a quack physician and amateur abortionist of the lowest order'. She was discovered dead in bed by her daughter. Her husband, a marine engineer, was away at sea at the time – and not, it was said, the father of the child. Police investigated, knowing that the woman had been ‘medically attended' by Morris. The baby's body was discovered buried in the garden, hardened by the winter frost. Morris was found guilty of manslaughter, having induced her miscarriage and left her in a condition that allowed a fatal infection to set in. He was sentenced to four years imprisonment. (Mark Isaacs,
Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in Cardiff
, Wharncliffe, 2009)

1982:
The roof of Sophia Gardens Pavilion collapsed after a snowstorm. Opened in 1951, the pavilion had been used for dances, meetings and exhibitions. The boxing matches in the 1958 Empire Games had taken placed there. (Stewart Williams,
Cardiff Yesterday
)

1941:
A large crowd gathered in Cathays cemetery to pay their last respects to the victims of the German bombing raid on the city the week before. The mourners were led by the Lord Mayor, Alderman C.H. McCale. He wore black crêpe on his chain of office and the maces held by the city macebearers were similarly covered. The remains of thirty or more bodies had already been interred and the ground covered by a large Union Jack. ‘That flag was a symbol of the spirit of Cardiff people,' the
South Wales Echo
observed, ‘a mute but infinitely significant portent of the shape of things to come'. The report continued ‘survivors of families which had been practically wiped out were comforted by relatives and friends as they broke down under the stress of pitiful emotion. In one case ten members of one family, their ages ranging from seventy down to a boy of four, lost their lives.' Many of the bodies interred could not be identified. ‘High and low, young and old, mingled around communal graves while they tearfully but silently honoured the dead.'

1962:
Smallpox arrived in Cardiff. A traveller from Pakistan arrived by train from Birmingham, unwittingly carrying the virus. Four other people infected with the disease were on the same flight from Pakistan and went to Bradford or Leeds. The outbreak that followed caused fifteen deaths across Britain. One of the Welsh victims was a pathologist who had carried out a post-mortem on one of the first people who died of smallpox. There was mass panic. Nine hundred thousand people in South Wales were vaccinated between January and April. There were forty-six confirmed cases of the disease in the Valleys but only one in Cardiff. In
Cardiff: A Centenary Celebration
, O'Sullivan and Jones explain why the
South Wales Echo
was always first with the news of any new case in the area. It seems that the paper's Rhondda reporter Oscar Rees had a contact in a bookie near the ambulance station in Porth. One ambulance had been reserved for carrying smallpox suspects and every time this vehicle left the ambulance station the bookie phoned to tip him off!

1635:
The Bailiff and Aldermen of Cardiff were summoned to attend a meeting at Chester to decide on the apportionment of Ship Money throughout Wales. This meeting had originally been scheduled for Ludlow on the previous 29th December but it was rearranged at short notice because the original summonses had only been sent out on December 1st. But the representatives from Cardiff (along with those from Glamorgan, Monmouthshire and Newport) had already had a wasted journey to Ludlow and were not best pleased at having to trek north again. A letter now in the Pembrokeshire Record Office and addressed to the King's ministers protests ‘havinge made a long and troublesome journey in vaine' [
sic
]. (Lloyd Bowen,
The Politics of the Principality
, University of Wales Press, 2007)