Pictorial Journalism Aint What It Used To Be!

From ERIC SHACKLE, in Sydney. Australia.<ericshackleATbigpond.com>


Way back in 1937, when I was a teenage cadet/cub reporter on The Press in Christchurch, New Zealand, I was sometimes called on to hold a metal tray of flash powder high in the air for the newspaper's sole photographer. That was my introduction to pictorial journalism.


Twenty years later and 1200 miles to the west, I was for a brief period pictorial editor of the Sydney Daily Telegraph. I had to assign news jobs to six or seven photographers, select their best pictures, plan a layout for a page or pages, and write the captions.


Cameras in those days were cumbersome Speed Graphics, many times larger than today's dinky digital devices. The photographer adjusted the focus and took a single snap shot. Exactly when to take it required great skill and experience. Today anyone can point a camera in the right direction, and fire off a dozen shots in less than a second.


Those Telegraph cameramen were some of the best - perhaps THE best - in Australia. One of them, Ern McQuillan, now in his eighties, is still taking great pictures as a commercial photographer. In 1998 he was awarded an OAM (Order of Australia Medal) for his services to journalism,  particularly in the field of media photography. 




RELATED  STORIES
Simon Elliott, former Deputy Director, National Portrait Gallery, interviews Ern McQuillan.
http://www.portrait.gov.au/exhibit/ern/interview.htm

Mike McQuillan writes about his Dad: 
http://www.boxingreats.com/html/us.html

These words DO have rhymes!

From ERIC SHACKLE, in Sydney, Australia. <ericshackleATbigpond.com>


Frustrated poets sometimes claim that no words rhyme with purple, silver, orange and month. Rubbish! There ARE words that rhyme with them. Let's deal with them one at a time.

PURPLE
Hurple and curple rhyme with purple. Hurple is a scottish word, meaning to hobble, or walk with a limp, and curple is a strap under the girth of a horse's saddle to stop the saddle shifting forward.

Burple was a drink mix packed in an expandable accordion-like plastic container. Kids could poke a hole in the cap to convert the container into a squirt gun


SILVER
Discussing his family name, Trevar Chilver says "The Oxford English Dictionary lists chilver as an Old English noun meaning a ewe lamb, often referred to as a 'chilver lamb'."

There's a Chilver Street in the London (UK) borough of Greenwich. So a poet could write:
Jewellers sell gold and silver,
In the street that bears the name of Chilver.


The Urban Dictionary says that in the fashion world gilver is a color that is a mix of metallic gold and silver; pilver is a noun meaning the feeling one has after staying awake far too late doing nothing productive and knowing all the while that one is doing nothing productive, and a quilver is a mob of angry squirrels that may or may not be a part of a larger plot to take over the world. Pilver and Quilver are surnames.

Elizabeth Millicent (Sally) Chilver (b. 1914) a London Daily News journalist 1945-47, became a distinguished political scientist and anthropologist. The British Library of Political and Economic Science says she studied "the anthropology of the Cameroon grasslands... covering subjects including matrilineal society, witchcraft, magic and divination, with notes on the authors by Chilver; working notes on the Kingdom of Bum in the north-west province of Cameroon."

That's right: the Kingdom of Bum. We thought that must be a spoof. Not so. Take a look at the Kingdom of Bum, and Fonfuka and Lagabum websites. Fascinating!

ORANGE
In his amusing book "Adventures of a Verbivore" US language expert and best-selling author Richard Lederer wrote:
"It's not true that no words rhyme with orange... There was a man -- I'm not kidding -- named Henry Honeychurch Gorringe. He was a naval commander who in the mid-nineteenth century oversaw the transport of Cleopatra's Needle to New York's Central Park. Pouncing on this event, the poet Arthur Guiterman wrote:
In Sparkhill buried lies a man of mark
Who brought the Obelisk to Central Park,
Redoubtable Commander H. H. Gorringe,
Whose name supplies the long-sought rhyme for orange.

And a hill in South Wales is called "The Blorange"

MONTH
How about oneth (pronounced wunth)?  Discussing Dodie Smith's book The Hundred and One Dalmatians, a reviewer wrote: "This is the original novel, published in 1956, from which the movie adaptations were made--poorly... How many people know who the actual 101th dalmatian was?"

And on a genealogy site, we found this message, posted on February 29, 2004, from Kevin Oneth: "I am a descendent of Adam Oneth." Another read " I am looking to connect with descendants of John and Rebecca Alspaugh Oneth." 


Of course, there are hundreds of stories read by seven-year-olds with missing front teeth, which begin Oneth upon a time.

W.S. Gilbert, a world-class rhymester, claimed in an open letter to The Graphic in 1887:
'It has long been supposed that there is no rhyme to 'month.' There is a rhyme to it--not any lisping version of such words as 'once' 'dunce,' etc., but a legitimate word in everyday use...
'millionth' as the best rhyme to 'month,' and I have the authority of the greatest poets in the English language for treating it as a tri-syllable, if I feel disposed to do so.'


One of our favorite rhymes is:
Shake, shake the ketchup bottle,
First none'll come, and then a lot'll.

No, the famous U.S. humorist Ogden Nash (1902-1971) was NOT the author of that immortal couplet, although many people claim he was. (He DID write Candy / is dandy / But liquor / is quicker.)

One website, noting that August 19 was the anniversary of Nash's birthday, gave this circumstantial but misleading account: "One summer afternoon in 1930, he jotted down a little nonsense poem and sent it to The New Yorker. The magazine bought it, and asked for more. Nash moved to Baltimore and for the next 40 years made his living entirely off of poems like:
You shake and shake the ketchup bottle,
nothing comes, and then a lot'll.

According to Nash's grand-daughter, Frances R. Smith of Baltimore, Maryland (and she should know) what he actually wrote was:
The Catsup Bottle
First a little
Then a lottle
[Catsup is another American word for ketchup. Brits and Aussies call it tomato sauce.]

Then, in 1949, another US humorist, Richard Willard Armour (1906-1989), seems to have gleefully seized on Nash's rhyme, and produced the couplet that many people enjoy reciting to this day.

Armour was a master of the comical one-liner. Here are three of his wisecracks:
o Middle age is the time of life / that a man first notices in his wife.
o It's all right to hold a conversation, but you should let go of it now and then.
o A rumor is one thing that gets thicker instead of thinner as it is spread.

Apart from lot'll, it's not difficult to find a suitable rhyme for bottle. We can think of throttle, wattle, dottle (a plug of tobacco remaining in a pipe after a smoke), glottal and mottle.

Ogden Nash found a rhyme for parsley by slightly changing the spelling of ghastly. He wrote Parsley / is gharstly.

Natty Bumppo - What a Great Name!

From ERIC SHACKLE, in Sydney, Australia. <ericshackleATbigpond.com>


Back in the early 1970s there were two young lawyers named John Dean. One of them, John Wesley Dean III, became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent Watergate scandal cover up. The FBI called him "master manipulator of the cover up"


So when the second John Dean was setting up shop as an attorney in Brownsville, Kentucky. he decided to adopt a new name, to avoid being mistaken for the Watergate criminal. He chose the memorable and resounding name Nathaniel John Balthazar Bumppo, and has revelled in that name ever since.


The original  Natty Bumppo, aka Hawkeye, was a character in James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales. A child of white parents, he grew up with Native Americans, becoming a fearless warrior who hunted only what he needed to survive, living by the rule, "One shot, one kill." 


The second Natty Bumppo was born in 1940.  As a young man, he was a reporter on (in turn) the Terre Haute Star; Associated Press, Indianapolis Star, Detroit News, Indianapolis Star, Chicago Sun-Times, San Francisco Examiner and Detroit Free Press,


He worked as a bartender at the Golden Horse Shoe saloon in Oakland, California, in 1968, as a Candygram delivery man for Western Union, San Francisco, on Valentine's Day, 1969.


He became a mail order minister of the Universal Life Church (bonded to perform marriages) in 1974.

Natty says he's been married five times but divorced only four. He wrote a hilarious article 'Why I'd Rather Be Natty Bumppo than John Dean (Wouldn't Everybody?),' published by Esquire magazine in June 1975.


In his spare time, Natty is an avid euchre player, and has written a book about that once-popular card game. "Euchre is a poor man's bridge," Natty declares. "Bridge is for discerners. Chess is for discerners. Euchre is for drunken slobs who think they know what they are doing."


He also edits an amusing and informative weekly newsletter, Tabloid Headlines. 

POSTSCRIPT. Today's email from Natty:
 In the early 1950s I was not yet even a teen-ager (until June 16, 1953, my 13th birthday); and neither was John W. Dean III until October 14, 1951, his 13th birthday.  He did not become a lawyer until 1965, and I did not become a lawyer until 1973.

I met him, by the way; and that's a rather interesting story in itself.  In June of 2004 (I think it was), the year his book Worse Than Watergate was published, he was a guest lecturer at the Kentucky Bar Association convention in Covington, Kentucky.  

After his lecture, he autographed copies of his new book.  I got in line.  When I got to the front of the line, I shook his hand and said, "Mr. Dean, I did not buy a copy of your book; I just wanted to meet you.  My name is Natty Bumppo."

"Oh," he said.  "That's a very interesting name."

Friends behind me in the line egged me on.  "Ask him what his name used to be," they urged him.

When I told him, he said, "Oh!  Didn't I read about you in the newspapers?"

Ha, ha.  Didn't he read about me in the papers?


Here's a link to the Esquire article, and here's one to Tabloid Headlines.


Natty Bumppo - YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_MN7stqiJ4

Ian and Beth's Apple Wedding

From ERIC SHACKLE in Sydney, Australia.<ericshackleATbigpond.com>


Apple people have some qualities that set them apart from other computer nerds. In a tribute to Steve Jobs, Stephen Fry wrote, "I cannot claim he was a friend but over thirty year or so years I bumped into him from time to time and he was always warm, charming, funny and easy to talk to."

My friends Ian Scott-Parker and his wife Beth Lock, both Apple devotees, share those qualities. Last week was their 10th  wedding anniversary.

Beth Lock used to write an amusing monthly column in MyMac Magazine, which said of her: "Beth has been around Macintosh computers since 1990, but still doesn't understand how they work. She admits that new software is a pain to learn and rarely upgrades anything. Beth's hobbies include reading the same internet sites every day and googling her friends to see if they are listed on the internet." 

Ten years ago she wrote a delightful story in MyMac  called I Married a Mac Man, in which she  described how she and Ian first exchanged emails after My Mac Magazine published one of her stories in November 1999.

Oh, there were obstacles, one of which was that he lived 6,000 miles away from me, in England, Beth recalled. But, being a Mac woman who knew the value of a good Mac man, I didn't let such a little thing as distance deter me. After all, this is the age of the internet. The World Wide Web. He was never more than a phone line away. 

We wrote, and wrote, and wrote to one another, long passionate emails full of hopes, wishes, laughter, crying and dreams. We graduated to Instant Messaging, then to telephone calls. Then it wasn't enough. We had to meet.
 
The naysayers warned me. They questioned me. They even prayed for me. But I got on the plane anyhow and flew to Scotland, to meet my Mac man. He booked a two bedroom self-catering cottage for us at Loch Lomond.

Our agreement was that if one or the other of us didn't smell right to the other, we'd just have a lovely vacation together, and be merrily on our mutual way. He even had the courtesy to write to my father and assure him that his intentions toward me were honorable in every way. Honor, one of the qualities of a true Mac man.


I didn't have to see his hardware to know, it was apparent from the moment we met.

We married two days after we met at the airport in Glasgow, on November 2, 2000. This man didn't haul me off to a preacher, though. No, this is a Mac man. He married me in Hell's Glen overlooking Loch Fyne on that star-filled frosty night...


On the way back to the cottage he stopped at a take out for fish and chips, for our wedding supper. There were no photographers, no witnesses other than God and the stars. 

My wedding ring is a silver 'fede' ring, handcrafted in the borders area. Only a Mac man would plan a wedding like that.

The couple had a "real" wedding, attended by friends and relatives, when they returned to Beth's hometown of Hurricane, Utah, a few days later.

RELATED STORY.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7275293/Apple-obsessed-American-couple-marry-at-New-York-store-on-Valentines-Day.html

How do you feel when the bells begin to peal?

From ERIC SHACKLE, in Sydney, Australia.<ericshackleATbigpond.com>

You'd have to be pretty long in the tooth to remember a catchy pop tune of the 1920s called Ever So Goosey.   It was written by two Australians, Wright Butler and Raymond Wallace, and was performed by Ray Starita and his Ambassadors Band. Here are the lyrics of what was called a comedy song: How do you feel when you marry your ideal? Ever so goosey, goosey, goosey, goosey. How do you feel when the bells begin to peal? Ever so goosey, goosey, goosey, goosey. Walking up the aisle, in a kind of daze, Do you get the wind up when the organ plays? How do you feel when the parson's done the deal? Ever so goosey, goosey, goosey, goosey.   Ray Wallace also composed an equally popular song, "All good friends and jolly good company" in 1931. It has been recorded by many artists including Randolph Sutton, Ella Shields, Paul Whitman and Jack Hylton and his Orchestra with vocalist Pat O'Malley. Here we are again, happy as can be All good friends and jolly good company Driving round the town, out upon a spree All good friends and jolly good company Never mind the weather, never mind the rain Now we're all together, whoops she goes again La Dee dah Dee dah, la Dee dah Dee Dee All good friends and jolly good company When those songs were in their infancy, errand boys  would whistle the tunes while riding their bikes. Today's boys still ride bikes, but they don't run errands.  Sadly, some of them don't even know how to whistle a lively tune.

Who Really Wrote Shakespeare's Plays?

From ERIC SHACKLE, in Sydney, Australia. <ericshackleATbigpond.com>


Was Edward de Vere or Christopher Marlowe the real author of the plays and poems that most of us attribute to William Shakespeare? Two films, one American. the other Australian, suggest that the answer may be "Yes."

Hollywood Dishonors the Bard was the headline the New York Times gave to James Shapiro's review of Roland Emmerich's latest film, Anonymous.

The film's distributors claimed it “presents a compelling portrait of Edward de Vere as the true author of Shakespeare’s plays."
 
Shapro commented, "That’s according to the lesson plans that Sony Pictures has been distributing to literature and history teachers in the hope of convincing students that Shakespeare was a fraud. A documentary by First Folio Pictures (of which Mr. Emmerich is president) will also be part of this campaign."

The case for Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, Shapiro wrote, dates from 1920, when J. Thomas Looney, an English writer who loathed democracy and modernity, argued that only a worldly nobleman could have created such works of genius.
 
Shakespeare, a glover’s son and money-lender, could never have done so. Looney also showed that episodes in de Vere’s life closely matched events in the plays.

His theory has since attracted impressive supporters, including Sigmund Freud, the Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia and his former colleague John Paul Stevens, and now Mr. Emmerich.

"Promoters of de Vere’s cause have a lot of evidence to explain away," said Shapiro, "including testimony of contemporary writers, court records and much else that confirms that Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him.

"Meanwhile, not a shred of documentary evidence has ever been found that connects de Vere to any of the plays or poems.....

"Perhaps the greatest obstacle facing de Vere’s supporters is that he died in 1604, before 10 or so of Shakespeare’s plays were written...

"The most troubling thing about Anonymous is not that it turns Shakespeare into an illiterate money-grubber. It’s not even that England’s virgin Queen Elizabeth is turned into a wantonly promiscuous woman who is revealed to be both the lover and mother of de Vere.

"Rather, it’s that in making the case for de Vere, the film turns great plays into propaganda.

"In the film de Vere is presented as a child prodigy, writing and starring in 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream' in 1559 at the age of 9...
“Anonymous weds Looney’s class-obsessed arguments to the political motives supplied by later de Vere advocates, who claimed that de Vere was Elizabeth’s illegitimate son and therefore the rightful heir to the English throne.

"By bringing this unsubstantiated version of history to the screen, a lot of facts — theatrical and political — are trampled.

"Supporters of de Vere’s candidacy who have awaited this film with excitement may come to regret it, for Anonymous shows, quite devastatingly, how high a price they must pay to unseat Shakespeare. 

"Why anyone is drawn to de Vere’s cause is the real mystery, one not so easily solved as who was the true author of Shakespeare’s plays."

So much for de Vere.. But another band of scholars and researchers are convinced that the real author of the most famous plays and poems in the English language faked his own dramatic death, after conspiring with a village actor for his plays to be published as the work of that actor, one William Shakespeare.

They claim that Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe, officially reported to have been killed in a knife fight at the age of 29, had in fact faked his death and fled to Italy.

There, they believe, he continued to write, his work being published in England in Shakespeare's name.

Many others have doubts about the bard, and have suggested a wide range of other men who could have written Shakespeare's works.

If the Marlowe conspiracy theory is ever proved, millions of the world's text books will have to be rewritten, and the British tourism industry will have to shift its focus from Stratford-on-Avon to Canterbury, where Marlowe, "duelist, scapegrace, genius, and poet" (and probably homosexual atheist) was born in 1564, the same year as Shakespeare.

For centuries, doubts have been expressed about Shakespeare's ability to write the works attributed to him. 

Another film has a different explanation and  presents a different contender.

To quote Australian film-maker Michael Rubbo: 

"The doubts centre mainly around Shakespeare's education, or lack thereof. The plays and poems are very learned, the vocabulary gigantic, and yet there is no evidence he went to school, and he certainly did not go to university, the training ground for many of the best playwrights of the day.

"Shakespeare was so uninterested in culture that he appears to have owned no books, to have not educated his own daughters, and made no cultural contribution to the town in which he lived and died."

Back in 1955, Calvin Hoffman, a Broadway (New York) press agent and writer, published The Murder of the Man Who Was 'Shakespeare. In his book, long out of print, Hoffman claimed that Marlowe did not die young, that his "death" was a ruse to escape the 'English Inquisition', and that he fled to live in Italy. 

There, he continued writing plays, to be published at home under the name of a front man in the London theatre world - William Shakespeare.

Michael Rubbo became so engrossed in the theory that he explored it for five years. Wondering whether Hoffman had exposed what might be "the biggest cover-up in literary history," he made a film called Much Ado About Something.

His documentary has been shown several times in the US by the PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), twice in the UK by the BBC, in other European countries, and at least three times in Australia.

In New York, where the film had a two-week season at Film Forum, a West Village art house, it received mixed but generally favorable reviews.

Here in Australia, Mike bought a projector and toured New South Wales and Victoria with Much Ado as well as presenting one-night screenings in the State capitals.

After the film was shown in London, Britain's best-selling history monthly, BBC History Magazine, said: "Michael Rubbo takes a rather weary topic... and gives it a hugely entertaining new lease of life."

And in Melbourne, Melanie Sheridan wrote in Beat Magazine: "The story contains espionage, conspiracy theories, faked deaths, cover-ups, identity theft, homosexuality and sex... it's so outrageous Hollywood would love it. It could be re-written as the next Bond flick: Murder, He Wrote."

The film plays as a road movie as Rubbo goes to England into the very heart of what he calls bardolatry to debate the academics in their dens. He uses actors and recreations to test his version of the Hoffman Theory. He gives screen time to the Marlovians, some persuasive, others somewhat eccentric.

"I began to shoot my documentary, working solo with a small digital camera, making a vow that I would stop at any point," says Rubbo. "I was quite ready to cut my losses if anyone could convince me that Hoffman's thesis was silly.

"I took several years, on and off, shooting the film. I slept at a friend's house in south London, and made frequent visits to Italy, where Marlowe might have gone in exile.

"Then, I spent a very long period editing, coupled with approaches to broadcasters who were hostile at first but gradually came around. 

"As the editing progressed, I circulated many copies, asking for feedback from scholars and lay viewers alike. I was obsessed with eliminating all errors.

"I continue to read on the subject and wake in the middle of the night with a new angle on the mystery, or a new reason to doubt the bard.

"Just as some people become obsessed with this authorship question, others find it profoundly upsetting. As Sue Hunt says in the film, the English, and not just the English, take in Shakespeare with their mother's milk.

"All over the world, he is loved beyond all questioning, beyond all doubts. And yet once you know a bit of the story, the doubts may begin. Also, the more one is told that one must blindly believe in Shakespeare, the more the doubts multiply.

"It is human nature I suppose for the forbidden to fascinate, and to doubt Shakespeare is virtually forbidden, certainly in academic circles. Not only forbidden, but very upsetting. 

"One famous scholar, Tucker Brooke, said in a candid moment, 'Even if Shakespeare stood up in his grave and said he was not the author, we would not believe him.'

"In unguarded moments some fierce defenders of Shakespeare do show some puzzlement. Harold Bloom, author of the magnificent book Shakespeare, the Invention of the Human, wonders why the man is so colorless. It does not seem to fit with the huge power and personality of the Bard.

"And Sam Schoenbaum, the great American scholar, author of Shakespeare's Lives, wonders why Shakespeare cut such a low profile in his time. One would think that such a towering talent would have attracted much interest from his contemporaries, and yet he did not.

"Mark Rylance, director of Shakespeare's Globe theatre, says William could not have done it alone. He joins a long line of intellectuals and theatre people, including Henry James, Mark Twain, Charles Chaplin, Sigmund Freud, and Derek Jacobi, who have doubts. The list grows by the day."

Distinguished English historical researcher and writer Katherine Duncan-Jones in her book, Ungentle Shakespeare, said Shakespeare was not the divine William of legend, but a rather unlikable man, a money-minded fellow who dealt eagerly and profitably in real-estate, and lent money to people at high rates of interest.
 
At a screening of his film in Australia, Rubbo was asked if he believed Marlowe was the real Shakespeare. "I'm not sure," he said. "But if Shakespeare didn't write his own works, Marlowe seems to be the most likely alternative." 
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How Far Can a Ball Be Thrown?

From ERIC SHACKLE, in Sydney, Australia  <ericsdhackleATbigpond>


Irish-born James Patrick Garvan (1843-1896), who migrated to Sydney, once threw a cricket ball a record distance of 121 yards 1 foot (98.75 metres). Does that record still stand?
 
Apart from his ball-throwing prowess, Patrick Garvan was a remarkable man indeed. He was a competitive sculler and amateur heavyweight boxer. He was an insurance entrepreneur who founded today's MLC insurance company, and a politician who was Minister of Justice, Attorney General and Colonial Treasurer of New South Wales in the late 1880s.


His daughter later donated 100,000 pounds towards the cost of establishing The Garvan Institute of Medical Research.

But we digress. We tried to find how far a cricket ball or baseball (they're much the same size) - or even a golf ball - has ever been thrown.

Scouring the internet, we found that British Olympic javelin-thrower Roald Bradstock holds the world record for throwing an iPod (154 yards), an egg (118 yards) and a goldfish (56 yards). And he has thrown a golf ball 170 yards (160 metres).

Back in 1884, another Englishman, Robert Percival, threw a cricket ball 422 feet (128.6  metres) at Durham Sands racecourse.

On August 1, 1947, a Canadian, Glen Gorbous, hurled a baseball 445 feet 10 inches (135.89 metres). It has been estimated that Glen's "muzzle" velocity would have been around 120 mph (193 kph), with a running start.

The Gorbous drill, a special training technique developed for baseball throwing, was named after him. It involves throwing the ball straight up in the air as a way of developing the muscles used in distance throwing.

World-famous athlete Mildred "Babe" Didrikson threw a baseball 296 ft. (90.22 metres) on July 25, 1931, and that probably is still the furthest a woman has ever managed to throw a ball.

You might think that a cricket ball, being slightly heavier and smaller than a baseball, would fly further, but that's not borne out by past statistics.

 Spectators at The Oval (London) in 1878 wildly applauded cricket icon, Dr. William Gilbert Grace, when he threw a ball more than 116 yards (106.07 metres) three times with the wind, and more than 100 yards (91.44 metres) in the opposite direction.

In a profile of the great doctor, Duncan Hewett, who lives in Bristol (Dr. Grace's home town) says: "W.G. Grace was a legend in England in his lifetime. The nation admired him. 

"He perhaps could have been an even better player if is wasn't for food. He enjoyed his lunch at matches too. A number of times he got out shortly after a big meal.

"A whiskey often accompanied his food. He was once compared to Henry VIII.

"Grace scored 54,896 runs at an average of 39.55. He is still the fifth highest scoring player of all time. He wasn't just a batsman though. He took 2876 wickets at an average of 17.92 - the sixth highest wicket taker of all time.

"On two occasions (1873, 1876) he scored 2000 runs and took 100 wickets in one season. He also make 887 catches, which is still the second highest number of catches taken by anyone in their career. 

"All of this was done in 43 years between 1865 and 1908 when he eventually retired, aged 59."

By throwing a cricket ball more than 116 yards (106.07 metres), Grace narrowly beat what may have been the record, set by a famous bare-knuckle fighter, William Abednego Thompson (1811-1880), better known as Bendigo.

Naturally lefthanded, Bendigo fought as a southpaw, but used his right hand to throw a cricket ball 115 yards (105.16 metres). On another memorable occasion, using his left hand, he hurled half a brick across the River Trent - a distance of 70 yards (64.01 metres).

Bendigo, the youngest of 21 children, was one of triplets named Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego, after the young men in the Old Testament who emerged unharmed from the fiery furnace of Babylon.

A biographer wrote "He excelled at all outdoor sports - running, somersaulting, cricket and stone throwing, and like many others indulged in badger-baiting and cock-fighting at local pubs... His angling gained him a few prizes and he was also known to swim a bit, pulling three drowning folks out of the River Trent during his lifetime."

Bendigo became so famous that an Australian goldmining town adopted his name (with a population of 92,000, Bendigo is now Victoria's fourth largest city). 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a ballad entitled Bendigo's Sermon which can be found on the internet at Wikisource


You can see Roald Bradstock throwing a golf ball 170 yards in this video: 
http://www.youtube.co/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=njPiif2pPZs
or google "longest golf ball throw"