Illustrated London News 1955

January - George Orwell's Novels of "1984" and "Animal Farm" are made into films
April 6th - Sir Anthony Eden became Prime Minister after the resignation of Winston Churchill
July - Bertrand Russell and supporters signed a declaration, sent to all the World leaders, "Nuclear weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind"
July - Disneyland opens in Los Angeles at a cost of $17,000,000
July - Donald Campbell sets a new water world speed record of 202mph on Ullswater
July 13th - Ruth Ellis, aged 28, became the last woman to be hanged in Britain after murdering her lover David Blakely for having an affair with another woman.
September 22nd - Commercial television went on the air in Britain
September - James Dean dies in a car crash, he was 24
September 30th - A general strike took place in Cyprus against British rule and EOKA, fighting for union with Greece, used bombs and bullets to make the point
October 30th - Princess Margaret decided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend
November 26th - Declaration of a state of Emergency in Cyprus as enosis (political union with Greece) campaign strengthens, British troops were placed on a wartime footing.
December - Clement Attlee resigned as leader of the Labour Party and was succeeded by Hugh Gaitskell
The film the Dam Busters was released in Britain
Grace Archer was ' murdered', died in a fire, by the scriptwriters in the series of The Archers in order to get publicity for the BBC on the evening that ITV first broadcast
Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot opened in London and left many people bewildered!
Ian Flemings' second James Bond book Moonraker was published
Malenkov resigns and Kruschev and Bulganin take over power in the USSR
Christopher Cockerell invents the Hovercraft
Albert Einstein dies, aged 76

1955 Vital figures behind the election: Official statistics on the state of the country (cont... below)

Statistic are notoriously dangerous weapons, and the same figures can be used to prove diametrically opposed propositions. Nevertheless, good and sound figures do provide the basic index
of the way the world - or the country - is going. On the eve of an election stistics play an unwonted part in private conversation and public oratory when political party records are up for challenge.
For the benefit of our readers, therefore, we publish above, in graphic form, a number of fundamental statistics relating to the United Kingdom in the post war period in order
that they maysee where the country stands and be able to check the various claims made by the various candidates for their votes on May 26. We would like to stress that these
statistics are strictly non-political and are merely the records of facts as... (cont...below)

...in graphic form - to assist the elector in checking the claims of various candidates

... far as they can be ascertained and tabulated. They have all been supplied from the various Government departments concerned and from other official and non party sources.
Our readers will, of course, draw their own individual conclusions from the figures quoted; but looking for trends, it would appear to be a record of increase; wages, employment, the cost of living, have all gone up ;
population, human and animal - and especially that of pigs - has risen ; imports are steady and exports have increased, and so have the hours lost through industrial disputes.
Defence expenditure has risen, but more house are being built, National Health expenditure has begun to sink, subsidies are decreasing and there has at last been a welcome fall in the standard rate of income tax.

An experimental wind electrical generator at St. Albans, which if success will be entirely automatic

* World of the Theatre: Ghosts In St. James. by J C Trewin. A new English Opera: Tippett's "The Midsummer Marriage."

* full page photo VIVIEN LEIGH AND HUSBAND LAURENCE OLIVIER - upcoming Theatre performance at Stratford-On-Avon.

* Full Page Ads (color and black & white): DEWAR'S SCOTCH, HORROCKSES COTTON FABRICS, COSSOR ELCTRONICS, SHELL OIL (W. ILLUSTRATION OF BIRDS BY MAURICE WILSON), FORD OF DAGENHAM, BRITISH STEEL, RADIO GRAMOPHONE DEVELOPEMENT CO. LTD, DAVID BROWN COMPANIES.

* Partial Page Ads: (colour and Black & white): BENTLEY AUTOS, MACKINLAY'S, PLAYER'S MEDIUM TOBACCO, BENEDICTINE BRANDY, HAIG, THORNYCROFT, TRIUMPH LINGERIE STRAPLESS, BALLANTINE'S SCOTCH.

Rescuers from HMS Maidstone evacuating the crew of the doomed HMS Sidon as she sinks by the bow following an explosion in her torpedo compartment. Twenty minutes after this picture was taken she had sunk in 36 feet of water in Portland Harbour. After his successful rescue of two injured crewmen, Surgeon Lieutenant C.E.Rhodes was amongst those who lost their lives.
Dangers of mines on Britain's beaches, fully ten years after the war had ended. On May 13 1955 five schoolboys lost their lives whilst trying to lever off the top of a mine on the beach of Swanage Bay.
Trinity College, Oxford (with double page centrepiece drawing of Durham Quadrangle).

adverts include:-Benson & Hedges, Aertex, Morris motors, Smith's watches, Hillman autos, Standard Cars