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Tuesday, 11 October 2016

Scoop: Clare Hollingworth Turns 105

Clare Hollingworth, the British journalist who scooped the world with news of the outbreak of World War II, celebrated her 105th birthday in Hong Kong yesterday.
On August 31, 1939, the then 27-year-old Hollingworth had been working as a journalist for less than a week when London's Daily Telegraph sent her to Poland to report on worsening tensions in Europe. On September 1 - 
From Outbreak: 1939: The World Goes to War, by Terry Charman
Hollingworth went on to report on conflicts in Palestine, Algeria, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, China, Aden and Vietnam. She would "happily go anywhere with just a toothbrush and a typewriter". Hollingworth was born in Knighton outside Leicester, home of the Imperial typewriter, but she generally used a Hermes Baby.
Hollingworth with her second husband, Geoffrey Hoare.
In the months before she joined the Telegraph, to July 1939, Hollingworth earned the nickname the "Scarlet Pimpernel" by helping 3500 political and Jewish refugees to escape the Nazis, facilitating their evacuation from Katowice to Britain.
General Bernard Law Montgomery imposed a ban on British female correspondents on the front lines in Egypt in 1942, so Hollingworth became briefly accredited to TIME.
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4 comments:

  1. Johnpyyc12 October 2016 at 06:59

    Hello Robert:

    Nice to see you back in action.

    Very interesting story on Clare. I love the Baby Hermes and am always interested in the writers that used them.

    Thanks,

    J

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bill M12 October 2016 at 11:33

    Amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Robin Heilschild 【蓋面】12 October 2016 at 12:13

    W o W
    What an amazing story!! :D

    Hermes Baby? Really? W o W
    I never thought there also were workponies, regarding portable typewriters. xD
    Usually, oneself woudl think only huge and giant standard typewriters are able to resist the journalist's heavy rythm of work. Now I realize I was wrong. xD

    I have seen the Hermes Baby before, but I was reluctant to get one like that because I thought "it seems too flimsy to be used" (like my Olivetti Lettera 31). Now, I regret, because it's smaller than my actual portable machine:

    http://typewriterdatabase.com/1974-olivetti-lettera-31.6368.typewriter

    ReplyDelete
  4. Maura Casey16 October 2016 at 13:03

    The war correspondent Ernie Pyle used a Corona typewriter that folded up - I am told one of the first truly portable typewriters that were used by WWI correspondents. I know, because I saw his typewriter in the Newseum in Washington, DC - and was thrilled to realize that I had the same typewriter in my little collection.

    ReplyDelete

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