FUN AND FEAR

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6667, 21 July 1928, Page 6 (Supplement)

FUN AND FEAR

END TIMED TO MINUTE. TIDAL-WAVE TEAS. Weymouth, in the south of England, was the scene on May 30 of a most extraordinary exhibition of credulity and unbelievable apprehension when it was reported that a cataclysm was about to overwhelm the favoured holiday resort. The mischief started with the publication of advertisements foretelling the dire calamity about to take place and tho exact moment of its occurrence. Twenty thousand bewildered pcloplo crowded the sea front to wait a tidal wave, which, however, failed to eventuate.

The incident was the sequel to the British-Isracl World Federation’s whole page newspaper advertisements predicting the beginning of a' scries of world calamities “as foretold by the Pyramids.” The tidal wave was timed to occur at cactlyx 3.53-p.m,

Many holiday-makers cancelled their hotel bookings, but swarms of quasicurious folk early descended on i the town by rail and motor car, packing the hotels and boarding houses, and densely crowding the streets and the promenade, which is a mile long. There was a big run on chemists by , women for tonics and on drapers for bathing costumes. Some believed .that nothing was likely to happen, but all appeared to wonder what might. F;

“Closed for Cataclysm.” Special correspondents from the newspapers chronicled the whirl of events hourly. Intense interest was manifested as the fateful hour approached, not altogether unmixed with humour. One shopkeeper’s window contained a notice: .“Closed for cataclysm. Will re-open at 4.30 p.m.” Tennis parties arranged tidal wave teas to coincide ■ with the washout. The town’s tide expert took a tidal gauge periodically and found everything normal, but nobody wanted to believe him. Everybody had come to sec the town engulfed including 750 Dutch tourists aboard a liner anchored in the bay.

I By 3.50 p.m. everybody had crowded to the seafront looking-seawards. A tense silence replaced the hubbub of expectancy when tho crucial moment [passed without incident, i The timorous sighed with relief while others burst out laughing or expressed their disgust in lurid language at finding tho town still on the map. An aeroplane doing stunt trips with passengers at the time crashed into the sea. The pilot was killed and a passenger seriously injured.