Tuesday, January 30, 2007

pandas in famous history

the telegraph obit for paul channon contained the following:

"The Lord Kelvedon, who died on Saturday aged 71, was, as Paul Channon, the final Guinness to represent the pocket borough of Southend West and was Transport Secretary at the time of the traumatic Kings Cross, Clapham and Lockerbie disasters. Son of the American-born diarist Sir Henry "Chips" Channon, whose seat, wealth, taste and place in society he inherited, he proved a more accomplished politician, and a gifted administrator. His 38-year Commons career began while still at Oxford and spanned five Tory leaders from Macmillan to Major. Amiable, self-deprecating and intense, Channon was never a self-projector or a dilettante. He did, however, have a sense of fun, including an ability to speak backwards and a penchant for asking his staff to speak in foreign accents.

From the start he moved in charmed circles. *****King Edward VIII interrupted his preparations to abdicate to give him a toy panda.***** Channon and his lifelong friend the Duke of Kent were born on the same day, and their nurses wheeled them round the park together. Terence Rattigan dedicated The Winslow Boy to him "in the hope that he may live to see a world in which this tale will point no moral"."

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