The Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced a number of measures designed to curb hire purchase and, as expected in some quarters, has lifted the minimum deposit to 33.33% (6s 8d in the pound). The maximum period for repayment of the balance remains at 24 months. The Daily Express illustrates the difference by noting that a deposit for a television set costing £65 will have risen from £9.15s.0d to £21.13s.4d.
Included in these restrictions are radio and television sets (including portables and sets designed for use in road vehicles) whether or not these are assembled or complete, television aerials, cathode ray tubes, gramophones, radio-gramophones and record players. These are not the only categories of item to be affected. In fact, it’s quicker to list those unaffected by the change: domestic furniture, floor coverings, mattresses, cookers, water heaters, prams, caravans, pedal cycles, clocks and watches.
Today’s cricket could be exciting. England start the day on 120/2 needing a total of 480. The BBC’s cameras, and commentators Brian Johnston and Peter West will be there from noon to 1.30pm, from 4.30pm to 5pm and from around 5.30pm until close of play with part of Brian Johnston’s commentary – between 5.30 and 6 – being aimed especially at children.
The mainstay of the evening’s programming is The Vale of the Shadows, a television version of Jean Anouilh’s “Euridyce”, with Laurence Payne as Orpheus and Jeannette Sterke as Eurydice. It’s a Rudolph Cartier production, and he had cast Sterke and Payne as the leads in a television play he produced in April entitled Midsummer Fire. Among the guest actors this time are Roger Delgado, Eric Pohlmann, Cyril Shaps and Arthur Lowe.
But before this is yet another new panel show. This time it’s Who Said That? and Gilbert Harding is one of the panellists, along with Nancy Spain, John Betjeman and Joanna Kilmartin.