: Nick Rennison
: 1974 Scenes from a Year of Crisis
: Oldcastle Books
: 9780857305831
: 1
: CHF 7.50
:
: Geschichte
: English
: 256
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
1974 WAS A YEAR OF MAJOR CHANGE AROUND THE WORLD. Presidents resigned, emperors were deposed, and new governments came to power. On both sides of the Atlantic, major political figures left the scene, either through resignation or electoral defeat. Leaders of nations died. Regimes crumbled. In society, the second wave of feminism grew in strength and the rights of historically underrepresented groups were more powerfully asserted. The BBC aired the first lesbian kiss on British TV. In Italy, the right to divorce was protected in a landmark referendum. However, terrorism and the pursuit of political ends through violence became ever more commonplace. The arts and entertainment industries were in the midst of a period of great creativity and innovation. In America, Scorsese, Spielberg and Coppola were making their mark. Popular music was arguably at a low point but the first stirrings of the punk revolution to come could be heard in New York clubs. And a Swedish band that were to become a phenomenon won the Eurovision Song Contest. The roots of many aspects of today's society which we take for granted lie in the 1970s and particularly in this, the decade's pivotal year.

NICK RENNISON is a writer, editor and bookseller with a particular interest in modern history and in crime fiction. He is the author of 1922: Scenes from a Turbulent Year, A Short History of Polar Exploration, Peter Mark Roget: A Biography, Freud and Psychoanalysis, Robin Hood: Myth, History& Culture and Bohemian London, published by Oldcastle Books, and the editor of six anthologies of short stories for No Exit Press. He is also the author of The Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide to Crime Fiction, 100 Must-Read Crime Novels and Sherlock Holmes: An Unauthorised Biography. His crime novels, Carver's Quest and Carver's Truth, both set in nineteenth-century London, are published by Corvus. He is a regular reviewer for both The Sunday Times and Daily Mail.

New Year’s Day

In 1974, the New Year in the UK began with an extra holiday. Most people probably assume that New Year’s Day had been a British public holiday ever since bank holidays were first introduced in the nineteenth century. In fact, it was only in Scotland that 1 January officially became a holiday in 1871.The rest of the country had to wait more than a century. (Many people, recovering from over-exuberant celebrations the night before, had unofficially decided it was a day of rest for many years.) The prime minister, Ted Heath, included plans for the extra holiday amidst a whole host of other measures in a televised press conference to announce the third phase of the government’s prices and incomes policy on 8 October 1973. Amidst all the less than cheering news about the state of the economy, he may have felt the need to throw in something to please his listeners. The announcement of a New Year’s Day bank holiday, which had been proposedin a private member’s bill two years earlier and rejected, must have seemed just the ticket. Later that same month a Royal Proclamation (‘We… do hereby appoint New Year’s Day in the year 1974 to be, in England and Wales and Northern Ireland a bank holiday…’) confirmed his statement. Scotland, where the day after Hogmanay had long been a holiday, received a further day for rest and recuperation. As if to prove that it is impossible to please all the people all the time, even when providing them with an extra day’s holiday, the Tory MP Richard Hornby wrote a letter to theTimes, published a week into the New Year, bemoaning the fact that all cultural venues had chosen to shut on 1 January. It’s safe to assume that he was in a small minority in not welcoming the new bank holiday.

Ali v. Frazier

Muhammad Ali always referred to himself as ‘The Greatest’ and plenty of boxing aficionados would agree with him. In proof of their claim that he was the greatest of all heavyweight champions, his fans can point to the years of his prime when he defeated Sonny Liston to take the world title for the first time and then defended it against a succession of fighters. They can also cite his achievements in 1974 when he fought bouts against, arguably, the two best boxers he ever faced and beat them both.

The first fight took place at Madison Square Garden in New York on 28 January and was against ‘Smokin’ Joe’ Frazier. It was the second time that the two boxers had faced one another in the ring. The previous bout, which had been in the same venue nearly three years before, had been nicknamed ‘The Fight of the Century’. Frazier had won a unanimous decision on points, inflicting on Ali the first defeat of his professional career and retaining the world titles Smokin’ Joe had won earlier that same year. Neither man was now champion, Frazier having lost his titles the previous year when George Foreman despatched him in two rounds in a contest in Kingston, Jamaica. In many ways it was a grudge match. Ali wanted revenge for his defeat; Frazier wanted to prove that his victory in March 1971 had been no fluke.

Tension between the two fighters was already high before they even stepped into the ring. Five days earlier, during a joint appearance in a TV studio, Ali had called Frazier ‘ignorant’. Justifiably indignant, Frazier stood menacingly over his seated opponent, shouting, ‘Why you call me ignorant? How am I ignorant?’ The confrontation had developed into fisticuffs in front of the TV cameras. Both men were later fined for ‘deplorable conduct demeaning to boxing’.

After they entered the ring in Madison Square Garden, Ali started the fight as if he meant to bring it to an end as quickly as possible. He nearly did. In the second round, Frazier took a right punch which left him wobbling and in difficulty. The contest might have finished at that point. Frazier retreated to the ropes and Ali moved in for the kill but the referee, Tony Perez, thinking he had heard the bell to end the round, stepped between them. In fact, the bell had malfuncti