title: Honour thy father and thy mother

text: The commentary of John Wesley on the commandment to honour father and mother is consistent with the interpretation in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. He summarizes the actions that express honour as follows: 1. Inward esteem of them, outwardly expressed 2. Obedience to their lawful commands (Ephesians 6:1–3), 3. Submission to their rebukes, instructions and corrections, 4. Acting with consideration of parental advice, direction and consent, 5. Giving comfort and providing for the physical needs of aged parents. Like the Catechism, Wesley also teaches that the commandment includes honouring others in legitimate secular authority. He also encourages people toward honour of those in spiritual leadership with the question, "Have ye all obeyed them that watch over your souls, and esteemed them highly in love for their work's sake?" This question is reminiscent of Paul's statements to the church in Galatia and to Timothy.


title: Honour thy father and thy mother

text: Matthew Henry explains that the commandment to honour father and mother applies not only to biological parents but also to those who fulfil the role of mother or father. He uses the example of Esther honouring her guardian and cousin Mordecai:


title: Honour thy father and thy mother

text: The commandment itself encourages obedience "so that you may enjoy long life and that it may go well with you". Henry, Wesley and Calvin affirm the applicability of this promise for all who keep the commandment, though each notes that for the New Testament Christian, the promise may be fulfilled as earthly rewards and/or heavenly rewards, as God sees fit in his wisdom and love for the individual.


title: Honour thy father and thy mother

text: In his commentary, Calvin notes the harsh consequences required in Exodus and Leviticus for specific failures to keep the commandment. Those who struck or cursed a parent were to be sentenced to death. Persistently disobedient sons were to be brought before the city elders and stoned by the whole community if the parents' testimony was judged to be accurate. Calvin writes that God knew capital punishment for these offences would seem harsh and be difficult to pronounce, even for those responsible for adjudicating the situation. This is why, he argues, the text specifically places responsibility for the consequences on the offender. The severity of the sentence emphasized the importance of removing such behaviour from the community and deterring others who might imitate it.


title: Honour thy father and thy mother

text: Although Calvin refers mostly to fathers in his commentary on the commandment to honour father and mother, he writes near the beginning that the commandment mentions both parents on purpose. As described above, Proverbs supports the value of guidance from both father and mother, and Paul specified that children should provide for their own widowed mothers and grandmothers, "which is pleasing to God".


title: Honour thy father and thy mother

text: Just as "honour" involves offering profound respect, the opposite of honouring someone is to trivialize him, as if of no importance.


title: Honour thy father and thy mother

text: Respect is not something based solely on personal or professional qualifications, but also on the position that God has given that person. In 1 Samuel 26 David spares Saul's life, even at the risk of losing his own, submitting to the authority God had placed over him as anointed king.


title: Honour thy father and thy mother

text: This commandment is distinct from the others in that a promise is attached to it: "...so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you." Deuteronomy 5:16 amplifies this: "...that your days may be prolonged, and that it may be well with you, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you."


title: Honour thy father and thy mother

text: As with most terms of the covenant between God and Israel, there are consequences for disobedience as well as rewards for obedience:


title: Swazi people

text: The Swazi or Swati (Swati: "Emaswati", singular "Liswati") are a Bantu ethnic group native to Southern Africa, inhabiting Eswatini, a sovereign kingdom in Southern Africa. EmaSwati are part of the Nguni-language speaking peoples whose origins can be traced through archaeology to East Africa where similar traditions, beliefs and cultural practices are found.


title: Swazi people

text: The Swati people and the Kingdom of Eswatini today are named after Mswati II, who became king in 1839 after the death of his father King Sobhuza who strategically defeated the British who occupied Eswatini. Eswatini was a region first occupied by the San people and the current Swazis migrated from north East Africa through to Mozambique and eventually settled in Eswatini in the 15th century. Their royal lineage can be traced to a chief named Dlamini I; this is still the royal clan name. About three-quarters of the clan groups are Nguni; the remainder are Sotho, Tsonga, others North East African and San descendants. These groups have intermarried freely. Swazi identity extends to all those with allegiance to the twin monarchs Ingwenyama "the Lion" (the king) and Indlovukati "the She-Elephant" (the queen mother). The dominant Swati language and culture are factors that unify Swazis as a nation.


title: Swazi people

text: EmaSwati are descended from Nguni-speaking clans, who migrated from north East Africa and later settled in south-east Africa in the fifteenth century. They moved into southern Mozambique, and then into the region of present-day Eswatini which at the time was inhabited by San people. The term "bakaNgwane" ("Ngwane's people") is still used as an alternative to "emaSwati", to refer to the Swati people. EmaSwati are people who are predominantly descended from Nguni-language speakers. However some of the Swati people originate from Sotho clans who were also inhabitants of Eswatini.


title: Swazi people

text: As part of the Nguni expansion southwards, the Swati people crossed the Limpopo River and settled in southern Tongaland (today in southern Mozambique near Maputo) in the late fifteenth century. The Ngwane people are recorded as having entered the present territory of Eswatini around the year 1600. Under the leadership of Dlamini III who took over from the Maseko and settlement took place in 1750, along the Pongola River where it cuts through the Lubombo mountains. Later on, they moved into a region on the Pongola River, which was in close proximity to the Ndwandwe people. Dlamini III's successor was Ngwane III, who is considered the first King of modern Eswatini. He ruled from around 1745 until 1780 at the Shiselweni region of Eswatini.


title: Swazi people

text: In 1815, Sobhuza I became the king of Eswatini and was responsible for the establishment of Swati power in central Eswatini. Here the Swati people continued the process of expansion by conquering numerous small Sotho and Nguni-speaking tribes to build up a large composite state today called Eswatini. Sobhuza I's rule occurred during the Mfecane. Under Sobhuza's leadership, the Nguni and Sotho peoples as well as remnant San groups were integrated into the Swati nation. It was during his rule that the present boundaries of Eswatini were fully under the rule of the Dlamini kings.


title: Swazi people

text: In the late 1830s, initial contact occurred with the Boers, who had defeated the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River, and were settling in the territory that would become the South African Republic. A substantial portion of Swati territory was ceded to the Transvaal Boers who settled around the Lydenburg area in the 1840s. The territory of Eswatini, and their king, Mswati II, were recognized by both the Transvaal and Britain. It was during the rule of Mswati II that the Swati nation was unified. Thereafter, the label "Swati" eventually was applied to all the peoples who gave allegiance to the Ingwenyama.


title: Swazi people

text: Later under Mbandzeni, many commercial, land, and mining concessions were granted to British and Boer settlers. This move led to further loss of land to the South African Republic. The result was that a substantial Swati population ended up residing outside Eswatini in South Africa. The Pretoria Convention for the Settlement of the Transvaal in 1881 recognized the independence of Eswatini and defined its boundaries. The Ngwenyama was not a signatory, and the Swazi claim that their territory extends in all directions from the present state. Britain claimed authority over Eswatini in 1903, and independence was regained in 1968.


title: Swazi people

text: Today, Swati people reside in both Eswatini and South Africa. People of Swati descent in South Africa are typically identifiable by speaking siSwati, or a dialect of that language. There are also many Swati migrants in South Africa and the United Kingdom. The number of emaSwati in South Africa is slightly larger than that of emaSwati in Eswatini, which is approximately 1.2 million people. In modern-day Eswatini, Swati people include all Eswatini citizens regardless of their ethnicity.


title: Swazi people

text: The Kings of Eswatini date back to some considerable time to when the royal line of Dlamini lived in the vicinity of Delagoa Bay. The Swazi people as a nation were originally formed by 16 clans known as bemdzabuko ("true Swazi") who accompanied the Dlamini kings in the early days. The 17 founding clans were Dlamini, Nhlabathi, Hlophe, Kunene, Mabuza, Madvonsela, Mamba, Matsebula, Mdluli, Motsa, Ngwenya, Shongwe, Sukati, Tsabedze, Tfwala, Mbokane and Zwane. Other Swazi clans are the Emakhandzambili clans ("those found ahead", e.g. the Gamedze, Fakudze, Ngcamphalala and Magagula), meaning that they were on the land prior to Dlamini immigration and conquest. The Emafikemuva ("those who came behind") who joined the kingdom later.


title: Swazi people

text: Dancing and singing, including praise-singing, are prominent in Swazi culture. Pottery and carving were minor arts. Swazi traditional marriage is called "umtsimba"; it is usually on a weekend in the dry season (June to August). The bride and her relatives go to the groom's homestead on Friday evening. On Saturday morning, the bridal party sit by a nearby river and eat goat or cow meat offered by the groom's family; in the afternoon, they dance in the groom's homestead. On Sunday morning, the bride, with her female relatives, stabs the ground with a spear at the groom's cattle kraal; later she is smeared with red ochre. The smearing is the high point of marriage: no woman can be smeared twice. The bride presents gifts to her husband and his relatives. Umhlanga is one of the most well-known cultural events in Eswatini held in August/September for young unmarried girls to pay homage to the Ndlovukati. Incwala is another Swazi cultural event held in December/January, depending on the phases of the moon. This ceremony, also known as the ""First Fruits"" ceremony, marks the King's tasting of the new harvest.


title: Swazi people

text: The traditional Swazi religion recognizes a supreme God/creator in its pure form while the ancestors are recognized. The Swazi religion is based on a creator known as "Mvelincanti" (he who was there from the beginning). Most Swazis intertwine this belief with modern day Christianity that was brought by the missionaries. Many continue to practice their traditional spiritual beliefs. Spiritual rituals are performed at the level of family associated with birth, death and marriage.


title: British Expeditionary Force (World War I)

text: The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was the six-divisions the British Army sent to the Western Front during the First World War. Planning for a British Expeditionary Force began with the 1906–1912 Haldane reforms of the British Army carried out by the Secretary of State for War Richard Haldane following the Second Boer War (1899–1902).


text: The term "British Expeditionary Force" is often used to refer only to the forces present in France prior to the end of the First Battle of Ypres on 22 November 1914. By the end of 1914—after the battles of Mons, Le Cateau, the Aisne and Ypres—the existent BEF had been almost exhausted, although it helped stop the German advance. An alternative endpoint of the BEF was 26 December 1914, when it was divided into the First and Second Armies (a Third, Fourth and Fifth being created later in the war). "British Expeditionary Force" remained the official name of the British armies in France and Flanders throughout the First World War.


text: Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, who was famously dismissive of the BEF, allegedly issued an order on 19 August 1914 to "exterminate ... the treacherous English and walk over General French's contemptible little army". Hence, in later years, the survivors of the regular army dubbed themselves "The Old Contemptibles". No evidence of any such order being issued by the "Kaiser" has ever been found.


text: Under the terms of the Entente Cordiale the United Kingdom had a diplomatic "understanding" with France to counter military aggression from the German Empire in the European continent. Detailed plans had been drawn up in advance for the British Army in the event of war breaking out between those two countries to dispatch a "British Expeditionary Force" to France which consisted of six infantry divisions and five cavalry brigades under the command of General Sir John French to repel any German attack in the West. The BEF was arranged into I Corps, under the command of General Sir Douglas Haig, and II Corps, under the command of General Sir James Grierson, which embarked for France on 15 August 1914.


text: In October 1914, 7th Division arrived in France, forming the basis of III Corps and the cavalry had grown to form the Cavalry Corps of three divisions. By December 1914, the BEF had expanded to such an extent that the First Army and the Second Army were formed.


text: By the end of 1914, after the battles of Mons, Le Cateau, the Aisne and Ypres, the old regular British Army had suffered massive casualties and lost most of its fighting strength but had managed to help stop the German advance.


text: The force was commanded by Field Marshal Sir John French until December 1915, when he was replaced by General Sir Douglas Haig. The BEF's Chief of Staff on mobilisation was General Archibald Murray. He was replaced in January 1915 by General William Robertson. Lieutenant-General Launcelot Kiggell then served as Chief of Staff from December 1915 to January 1917 when he was succeeded by Lieutenant-General Herbert Lawrence. The first two Corps were commanded by Haig (I Corps) and Horace Smith-Dorrien (II Corps).


text: As the Regular Army's strength declined, the numbers were made up, first by the Territorial Force, then by volunteers from Field Marshal Kitchener's New Army. By the end of August 1914, he had raised six new divisions and by March 1915, the number of divisions had increased to 29. The Territorial Force was also expanded, raising second and third line battalions and forming eight new divisions, which supplemented its peacetime strength of 14 divisions. The Third Army was formed in July 1915 and with the influx of troops from Kitchener's volunteers and further reorganisation, the Fourth Army and the Reserve Army, became the Fifth Army in 1916.


text: The BEF grew from six divisions of British regular army and reserves in 1914, to encompass the British Empire's war effort on the Western front in 1918 and some of its allies. Over the course of the war 5,399,563 men served with the BEF, the peak strength being 2,046,901 men.


text: The First Army was formed on 26 December 1914. Its first commander was Douglas Haig promoted from command of the I Corps. When Haig took over command of the BEF in 1915, the new commander was General Henry Horne. First Army remained in France until the end of the war.


text: The Second Army was formed at the same time as the First Army on 26 December 1914. The first commander was Smith–Dorrien promoted from command of the II Corps. In May 1915, Smith–Dorrien was sacked and replaced by General Herbert Plumer. Second Army served in France notably in the Ypres Salient, and later served in Italy between November 1917 and March 1918, then returned to France.


text: The Third Army was formed in July 1915, the first commander being General Edmund Allenby promoted after commanding the Cavalry Corps and the V Corps. He was replaced after the battle of Arras in May 1917, by General Julian Byng.


text: The Fourth Army was formed in February 1916, under the command of General Henry Rawlinson. Confusingly, when the Second Army was sent to Italy late in 1917, the Fourth Army was renumbered the Second Army whilst Rawlinson commanded the Ypres Salient. After Plumer's return from Italy Rawlinson spent a period as British Permanent Military Representative at the Supreme War Council at Versailles, but at the start of April he took over the remnants of Gough's Fifth Army after its recent defeat. It was renamed the Fourth Army.


text: The Reserve Army was formed in May 1916, under command of General Hubert Gough. Beginning as the Reserve Corps, it was expanded and renamed the Reserve Army and became the Fifth Army in October 1916. Fifth Army suffered heavy losses during the German spring offensive in March 1918. It was reformed again in May 1918 under the command of General William Birdwood.


text: The British Army first engaged the German Army in the Battle of Mons on 23 August 1914, which was part of the greater Battle of the Frontiers. The massed rifle fire of the professional British soldiers inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans who attacked "en masse" over terrain devoid of cover. The British held up the German advance until the evening when they began retiring to a second defensive line in the retreat from Mons during which they were engaged in the Battle of Le Cateau. Following the battle at Le Cateau, the BEF retreated unmolested by the Germans for a further five days, eventually retreating a full 400 km in thirteen days.


text: The Allied retreat finally ended at the River Marne, where Entente forces prepared to make a stand to defend Paris. This led to the First Battle of the Marne, which was fought from 5 to 10 September 1914. This battle would prove to be a major turning point of the war: it denied the Germans an early victory. From 13 September the First Battle of the Aisne took place, with both sides starting to dig trenches. Then for a three-week period following the development of trench warfare each side gave up frontal assaults and began trying to encircle each other's flank. This period became known as the Race to the Sea: the Germans aimed to turn the Allied left flank, and the Allies sought to turn the German right flank.


text: By the end of First Battle of Ypres both sides started to dig in and trench warfare replaced the manoeuvre warfare that had featured during the Race to the Sea. The continuous trench lines of the Western Front now stretched from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier. The British Army held a small portion of this 400 mile front: from just north of the pre-war Belgium border to the River Somme in France, varying in length from in 1914, to over in 1918, in the area commonly known as Flanders.


text: From the end of 1914, and in 1915, BEF attacks centred around the Ypres Salient. Then in September 1915, six divisions took part in the Battle of Loos – notable for the first use of poison gas by the British.


text: In 1916 the BEF had moved into the Picardy region of France. The Battle of the Somme dominated British military activity for the year. Allied forces attempted to break through the German lines along a front north and south of the River Somme in northern France. On the first day on the Somme the BEF suffered 57,000 casualties. After the war a final tally counted 419,654 British and 204,253 French killed, wounded, or taken prisoner; of the 623,907 total casualties, 146,431 were either killed or missing.


text: In 1917 the BEF's attacks moved along the front, they operated in the Pas-de-Calais during the Battle of Arras. They then concentrated in Belgium for the Battle of Messines and the Battle of Passchendale, and ended the year back in the Pas-de-Calais for the Battle of Cambrai.


text: In the spring of 1918 the BEF came under attack both in Flanders and on the Somme during the German Spring Offensive. The Second Battle of the Somme represented the BEF response to the German attack. This in turn began the Hundred Days Offensive, which led to the eventual defeat of the German Army on the western front, after the First and Third armies broke through the Hindenburg Line at the Battle of the Canal du Nord. This led to the final battle of the war in November 1918, the Battle of the Sambre by the First, Third and Fourth Armies and to the capture of Mons, 11 November 1918, by the First Army.


text: The British Empire responded to the British call for troops for the Western Front and major formations of the British Indian Army, Canadian Army, Australian Army, New Zealand Army and the South African Army all served in France. The BEF also integrated most of the Portuguese Army troops who fought on the Western Front.


text: In September 1914, the BEF was reinforced by the Indian Expeditionary Force A which eventually formed two corps each of two divisions, the Indian Cavalry Corps and the Indian Infantry Corps. Upon arrival in Marseilles on 30 September 1914, only six weeks after the declaration of war, they were moved to the Ypres Salient and took part in the Battle of La Bassée in October 1914. In March 1915, the 7th (Meerut) Division was chosen to lead the assault in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. The Expeditionary Force was hampered by a lack of familiarity with new equipment, only being issued Lee–Enfield rifles on their arrival in France and they had almost no artillery, relying on support from their neighbouring corps when in the front line. They were not accustomed to the continental weather and were poorly equipped to resist the cold, leading to low morale which was further compounded by the reserve system, whereby reinforcements were drafted in from any regiment and had no affiliation to their new units. Officer casualties were even more of a handicap, as replacements were unfamiliar with the Indian Army and could not speak the language. The infantry divisions were finally withdrawn to Egypt in October 1915, when they were replaced by the new British divisions of Kitchener's Army.


text: The South African Overseas Expeditionary Force consisted of the 1st South African Infantry Brigade of four infantry battalions supported by five Heavy Artillery batteries, a Field Ambulance, a Royal Engineers Signal Company and a General Hospital under the command of Brigadier General Henry Lukin. The brigade arrived in France in April 1916, and was assigned to the 9th (Scottish) Division and took part in the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, and on 14 July the Battle of Delville Wood. Of the 3,153 men in the brigade only 750 were left when the brigade was relieved on 20 July. Later in 1917, the brigade took part in the Battle of Arras and in the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele). The brigade was destroyed in the 1918 German spring offensive and by the end of the war had suffered 15,000 casualties, with 5,000 killed.


text: The Canadian Expeditionary Force was the designation of the field force created by Canada for service overseas in the First World War. Its major combat formation was the Canadian Corps, which eventually commanded four Canadian infantry divisions. The Canadian Corps' first commander was General Edwin Alderson, who was succeeded by General Julian Byng in 1916, who was in turn succeeded in 1917, by the Canadian General Arthur Currie until the end of the war. They distinguished themselves in battle from the Second Battle of Ypres, through the Somme and particularly in the Battle of Arras at Vimy Ridge in April 1917. Since they were mostly untouched by the German offensive in the spring of 1918, the Canadians were ordered to help spearhead the last campaigns of the War from the Battle of Amiens in August 1918.


text: The New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) under the command of General Alexander Godley was the title of the military forces sent from New Zealand to fight for Britain during the First World War. Upon the outbreak of war, New Zealand immediately offered to provide two brigades — one of infantry and one of mounted troops — a total of 8,500 men. The NZEF was closely tied to the AIF for much of the war. When the Gallipoli campaign began, the New Zealand contingent was insufficient to complete a division on their own so was combined with the 4th Australian Infantry Brigade to form the New Zealand and Australian Division. This division, along with the Australian 1st Division, formed the famous Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) under the command of General William Birdwood. After the end of the Gallipoli campaign, the NZEF formed its own infantry division; the New Zealand Division which served on the Western Front from April 1916. It took part in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, the Battle of Morval, the Battle of Le Transloy, and the celebrated Battle of Le Quesnoy. The New Zealanders were considered exceptional troops by the Germans, a captured intelligence report named them "...An exceptionally good assault division ...".


text: The Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was originally supposed to supply 20,000 men organised into one infantry division and one light horse brigade plus supporting units. By the end of the war, the AIF on the Western Front comprised five infantry divisions. The first Australian troops arrived in France in June 1915, the 1st Siege Artillery Brigade was formed under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Walter Adams Coxen, the Australian Army's Director of Artillery, for service on the Western Front. About half the men in the unit were permanent gunners of the Garrison Artillery. The brigade departed Melbourne for England on 17 July 1915 and landed in France on 27 February 1916. Its 54th Siege Battery was equipped with 8 inch howitzers and its 55th Siege Battery with 9.2 inch howitzers. Five infantry divisions of the AIF saw action on the Western Front in France and Belgium, leaving Egypt in March 1916. Initially they were organised into I Anzac Corps and II Anzac Corps alongside the New Zealand Division, however, on 1 November 1917 the Australian divisions were re-grouped together to form the Australian Corps.


text: The 2nd Division was the first to arrive in France, followed by the 1st Division, while the 4th and 5th left Egypt later in June 1916. The 3rd Division was the last to arrive, having been formed in Australia in March 1916, and moving to England for training in July 1916, before being sent to France in December 1916. When originally formed in 1914 the AIF was commanded by Major General William Throsby Bridges, who also commanded the 1st Division. After Bridges' death at Gallipoli in May 1915, command transferred by default to Lieutenant General William Birdwood, a British officer who was commander of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Birdwood was officially confirmed as commander of the AIF on 14 September 1916, while also commanding I Anzac Corps on the Western Front. Birdwood was later given command of the Australian Corps on formation in November 1917. Lieutenant General John Monash, an Australian officer, took over command of the corps in May 1918. Despite being promoted to command the Fifth Army, Birdwood retained command of the AIF.


text: Following a British Government call for Portuguese troops, on 7 August 1916 the Parliament of Portugal agreed the participation of the Portuguese Army on the Western Front. In addition to a heavy artillery corps of 1,000 men under the command of the French Army, most of the Portuguese forces to be sent to the Western Front were to be incorporated in the CEP – "Corpo Expedicionário Português" (Portuguese Expeditionary Corps) under British command. The CEP was organised as an army corps of two divisions and corps troops, totalling 55,000 men, under the command of General Tamagnini de Abreu. The first CEP troops arrived in France on 2 February 1917. The first troops reached the front on 4 April. On 4 June, the 1st Infantry Brigade of the 1st Division repelled the first major attack made by the German Army against the lines defended by the CEP troops. On 5 November 1917 the CEP assumed the responsibility for an autonomous sector in the front, under the direct command of First Army. Most of the CEP was destroyed in the Battle of La Lys on 9 April 1918, losing more than 7,000 men. From July 1918, the remaining men of the CEP participated in the final allied offensives under the command of Fifth Army.


text: Newfoundland in 1914 was not yet part of Canada. The tiny Dominion with a population of only 240,000 raised a force that eventually reached a strength of three battalions to serve in the war. The Newfoundland Regiment deployed to France in March 1916, as part of the 29th Division, after already having served in the Gallipoli Campaign. The Newfoundland Regiment was practically wiped out on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, suffering over 90% casualties. After receiving reinforcements, the Newfoundland Regiment continued to serve on the Western Front until the war's end. In honour of the regiment's service the privilege of adding the prefix Royal to the regiment's name was granted in December 1917, and the regiment was known as the Royal Newfoundland Regiment from that point on.


text: Until 1914, British infantry officers still carried swords and the cavalry retained the cavalry sword throughout the war. The other officers' weapon was the revolver, the three most common being the Webley MK V or VI, the Colt New Service and the Smith & Wesson hand ejector.


text: All other ranks in the BEF carried a .303 Lee–Enfield rifle fitted with an easily loaded ten-round magazine and issued with a seventeen-inch (430 mm) bayonet. These rifles enabled a high rate of fire with good accuracy, such that pre-war British soldiers were trained to hit a target fifteen times a minute at a range of 300 yards. The devastating efficiency and accuracy of the BEF infantry led the Germans to incorrectly believe that there were approximately 28 machine guns in each battalion.


text: When the BEF landed in France each infantry battalion and cavalry regiment was equipped with two Vickers or Maxim machine guns. Part of the reason for only allocating two guns per unit was the cost of manufacture and the need of a ten-week intensive training course for a Vickers gunner. During the course of 1916, the quicker to manufacture and more versatile Lewis guns began to be issued on the intended scale of the sixteen per battalion, one for each platoon. At the same time, the Vickers guns and their trained operators were redeployed to specialist companies of the Machine Gun Corps; one company was attached to each infantry brigade.


text: As well as individual gallantry awards, all members of the BEF qualified for up to three campaign medals.


text: The 1914 Star was issued to officers and men of British forces who served in France or Belgium between 5 August and midnight 22/23 November 1914. The former date is the day after Britain's declaration of war against the Central Powers, and the closing date marks the end of the First Battle of Ypres.


text: The 1914–1915 Star was issued to officers and men of British and Imperial forces who served in any theatre of the War between 5 August 1914 and 31 December 1915 (other than those who had already qualified for the 1914 Star).


text: The British War Medal was issued to officers and men of British and Imperial forces who had rendered service between 5 August 1914 and 11 November 1918. Officers and men of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, and Dominion and Colonial naval forces (including reserves) were required to have completed 28 days mobilised service — the medal was automatically awarded in the event of death on active service before the completion of this period.


text: The Victory Medal was issued to all those who received the 1914 Star or the 1914–1915 Star, and to those who were awarded the British War Medal. It was never awarded singly. Women qualified for this and the earlier two medals, for service in nursing homes and other auxiliary forces.


text: The Territorial Force War Medal was only awarded soldiers in the Territorial Force. To qualify, the recipient had to have been a member of the Territorial Force on or prior to 30 September 1914, and to have served in an operational theatre outside of the United Kingdom between 5 August 1914 and 11 November 1918.


text: The Silver War Badge was issued in the United Kingdom to service personnel who had been honourably discharged due to wounds or sickness during the War. The badge, sometimes known as the Discharge Badge, Wound Badge or Services Rendered Badge, was first issued in September 1916, along with an official certificate of entitlement.


text: The British Army during the Great War was the largest military force that Britain had ever put into the field up to that point. On the Western Front, the British Expeditionary Force ended the war as a strong fighting force, more experienced and slightly bigger than the United States Army and with better morale than the French Army. The cost of victory, however, was high. The official "final and corrected" casualty figures for the British Army, including the Territorial Force, were issued on 10 March 1921. The losses for the period between 4 August 1914, and 30 September 1919, included 573,507 "killed in action, died from wounds and died of other causes" and 254,176 missing (minus 154,308 released prisoners), for a net total of 673,375 dead and missing. Casualty figures also indicated that there were 1,643,469 wounded.


title: Viva Zapata!

text: Viva Zapata! is a 1952 American Western film directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando. The screenplay was written by John Steinbeck, using Edgcomb Pinchon's 1941 book "Zapata the Unconquerable" as a guide. The cast includes Jean Peters and, in an Academy Award-winning performance, Anthony Quinn.


title: Viva Zapata!

text: The film is a fictionalized account of the life of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata from his peasant upbringing through his rise to power in the early 1900s and his death in 1919.


title: Viva Zapata!

text: To make the film as authentic as possible, Kazan and producer Darryl F. Zanuck studied the numerous photographs that were taken during the revolutionary years, the period between 1909 and 1919 when Zapata led the fight to restore land taken from common people during the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz.


title: Viva Zapata!

text: Kazan was especially impressed with the Agustín Casasola collection of photographs and he attempted to duplicate their visual style in the film. Kazan also acknowledged the influence of Roberto Rossellini's "Paisan" (1946).


title: Viva Zapata!

text: Emiliano Zapata is part of a delegation sent to complain about injustices to corrupt longtime president Porfirio Díaz, but Díaz dismisses their concerns, driving Zapata to open rebellion, along with his brother Eufemio. He unites with Pancho Villa under the leadership of naive reformer Francisco Madero.


title: Viva Zapata!

text: Díaz is finally toppled and Madero takes his place, but Zapata is dismayed to find that nothing is changing. Madero offers Zapata land of his own while failing to take action to distribute land to the "campesinos" who fought to end the dictatorship and break up the estates of the elites. Zapata rejects the offer and seeks no personal gain. Meanwhile, the ineffectual but well-meaning Madero puts his trust in treacherous general Victoriano Huerta. Huerta first takes Madero captive and then has him murdered.


title: Viva Zapata!

text: As it becomes clear that each new regime is no less corrupt and self-serving than the one it replaced, Zapata remains guided by his desire to return to the peasants their recently robbed lands while forsaking his personal interests. His brother sets himself up as a petty dictator, taking what he wants without regard for the law, but Zapata remains a rebel leader of high integrity. Although he is able to defeat Huerta after Madero's assassination, as a result of his integrity, Zapata loses his brother and his position.


title: Viva Zapata!

text: Although in the end Zapata himself is lured into an ambush and killed, the film suggests that the resistance of the "campesinos" does not end. Rumors begin that Zapata never died, but is instead continuing to fight from the hills, feeding the "campesinos" a sense of hope. As several scenes suggest, over the years, the "campesinos" have learned to lead themselves rather than looking to others to lead them.


title: Viva Zapata!

text: Filming took place in locations including Durango, Colorado; Roma, Texas, San Ygnacio, Texas in Zapata County; and New Mexico.


title: Viva Zapata!

text: The screenplay was written by John Steinbeck based on Edgcomb Pinchon's 1941 book "Zapata the Unconquerable". Steinbeck's screenplay has been published as a book along with a narrative of Zapata's life that Steinbeck also wrote.


title: Viva Zapata!

text: The film tends to romanticize Zapata and in doing so may distort the true nature of the Mexican Revolution. Zapata fought to free the land for the peasants of Morelos and the other southern Mexican states. The film inaccurately portrays Zapata as illiterate, but he was raised in a family with land and money, and he received an education.


title: Viva Zapata!

text: Barbara Leaming writes in her biography of Marilyn Monroe that Monroe tried to obtain a part in the film but failed, presumably because of Darryl F. Zanuck's lack of faith in her ability, both as an actress and as a box-office draw.


title: Viva Zapata!

text: "Viva Zapata!" received generally positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that of 18 reviews, 61% of critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 6.2/10.


title: Viva Zapata!

text: Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" wrote a highly favorable review and commented that the film "... throbs with a rare vitality, and a masterful picture of a nation in revolutionary torment has been got by Director Elia Kazan." "Variety", however, criticized the direction and script: "Elia Kazan's direction strives for a personal intimacy but neither he nor the John Steinbeck scripting achieves in enough measure."


title: Diane Zamora

text: Diane Michelle Zamora (born January 21, 1978) is a former United States Naval Academy midshipman and convicted murderer who, in 1995, murdered Adrianne Jessica Jones, who she believed was a romantic rival for her ex-fiancé and accomplice, David Graham. Graham had confessed to giving Adrianne a ride home and having sex with her one month earlier, leading an enraged Zamora to demand that he kill Jones. In the early morning of December 4, 1995, Graham picked up Jones in Zamora's car while she hid in the hatchback. They went to a remote location and got into a struggle, at which point Zamora hit Jones over the head with weights and Graham shot her twice after she broke away from them.


title: Diane Zamora

text: Following the murder, Graham attended the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, while Zamora attended the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Zamora confessed the crime to her roommates, which ultimately led to notification of the local police in Texas, where the murder occurred. Both Zamora and Graham were arrested on September 6, 1996. They were both convicted in separate trials and are currently serving life sentences. Zamora's attorney filed an appeal in 2005, stating that prosecution withheld the information that Graham did not give Jones a ride after the meet, and probably did not have sex with Jones.


title: Diane Zamora

text: Diane Zamora and David Graham met at a Civil Air Patrol meeting at Spinks Airport, near Crowley, Texas, when they were both aged 14. Zamora had wanted to be an astronaut and Graham wanted to be a pilot. The two began dating about four years later in August 1995, when they were both high school honor students. Zamora was a student at Crowley High School, and Graham was a student at Mansfield High School. About a month after they began dating, Zamora and Graham announced their engagement to their families. They planned to marry after their college graduations.


title: Diane Zamora

text: Graham went to school with Adrianne Jones, who was on the cross-country track team with him. Jones, known to her acquaintances as A.J., was also an honor student who planned to attend Texas A&M University and become a behavioral analyst. Jones's family included her mother Linda, her father Bill and two brothers. Graham claimed that on November 4, 1995, he had given Jones a ride home from a regional meet and that during the ride he stopped the car to have sex with her. During her confession to police, Zamora said that she believed it was this night when Graham came over to her house, carrying a stuffed animal and having "this look in his eyes that was horrible, he looked so scared."


title: Diane Zamora

text: In Zamora's confession, she stated that about a month later she questioned Graham about other girls, including Jones. They got into a fight when he pressed her to study for the SAT. Graham then said that he had not had sex only with her, but also had sex with Jones. Zamora began screaming and hitting her head against the floor, shouting, "Kill her, kill her!" She said that beginning December 2, they tried to get in touch with Jones, and Graham continually tried to calm Zamora down. Graham claimed in 2008 that Zamora told him that she would kill herself or leave him if he did not kill Jones.


title: Diane Zamora

text: Although they were goal-driven and intelligent, Zamora and Graham each had issues "beneath the surface" that were reflected at times in their behavior. Court TV said that "from a surface view, no one would have expected that Diane and David would become a lethal combination. Although they both continued to advance in the military, their single-minded quests for recognition covered up deep-rooted problems leading to obsession and murder."


title: Diane Zamora

text: According to Graham, he and Zamora planned to kill Jones and put her in a lake with weights tied to her body. Graham called Jones on the night of December 3, 1995, and arranged to drive her to Joe Pool Lake while Zamora hid in the hatchback of her car. Zamora said in her confession that they arrived at a spot by the lake after 12:30 a.m. on December 4, 1995. She said that when Graham stopped the car she came out from the hatchback and asked Jones if she had sex with Graham. She claimed Jones said that she had, but hadn't enjoyed it because she felt guilty. Zamora became enraged. Zamora and Graham both said in their confessions that they got into a struggle, Zamora hit Jones on the head with the weights, and Jones fought back. She got out of the car and ran into a field. Graham shot her twice with a 9mm handgun after she fell down. According to Zamora's confession, when he returned to the car, Graham said, "I love you, baby, do you believe me now?" Shortly thereafter, Zamora asked what they had just done, to which David answered, "I don't know. I can't believe we just did that". They cleaned up and/or disposed of their bloody clothes and went home. Zamora and Graham each said that she then cleaned her car that had blood in it, and that at that time Graham was vomiting. She wrote in her calendar for the day, "Adrianne 01:38 a.m."


title: Diane Zamora

text: Jones' body was found in an open field on Seeton Road, near Joe Pool Lake, on December 4, 1995. She was brought in to the medical examiner as a Jane Doe. It did not appear that she had been sexually assaulted, but it was clear that she had been shot and had "blunt traumatic head injury". The shooter had stood within a few feet of Jones when pulling the trigger. The second bullet was fired when the killer stood right over her, hitting her right between the eyes. Her body was positively identified to be the missing Adrianne Jones when the medical examiner received a photograph of Jones.


title: Diane Zamora

text: After the murder Graham went to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and Zamora went to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. While there she confessed to the murder to her two roommates, who contacted the authorities at the academy. The Grand Prairie police were then contacted, and Zamora and Graham were arrested for capital murder on September 6, 1996. They were held in the Tarrant County Jail.


title: Diane Zamora

text: Graham was interrogated for 30 hours, during which he confessed to killing Jones. Zamora also confessed to the murder during her interrogation by the police. The key details of the event were similar; each said that Jones was killed because Graham had sex with her, she was taken to a remote lake, and she was hit over the head by Zamora and shot twice by Graham.


title: Diane Zamora

text: Both later recanted their confessions. Graham said that he was not guilty of killing Jones, but helped cover up the murder, which he claimed Zamora committed by herself. Zamora claimed that Graham committed the murder by himself. A 9mm handgun, alleged to be the murder weapon, was found in the attic, which could be reached through David Graham's bedroom.


title: Diane Zamora

text: The police had investigated the case for nine months. Law enforcement officials associated with the case have stated that the sexual encounter between Graham and Jones did not happen, but was invented by Graham. Sgt. Alan Patton of the Grand Prairie Police Department stated: "For those who don't remember, this was a totally brutal, unnecessary murder. David had lied to Diane about an alleged sexual tryst that never happened with Adrianne Jones. If he had said, "I was just kidding, I was just trying to make you jealous", Adrianne Jones would still be alive today". However, Graham has since admitted that his original confession was accurate and the only reason he lied about the sexual encounter not happening was because of his defense lawyer's advice.


title: Diane Zamora

text: Zamora's two-week trial began in February 1998 in Fort Worth with Judge Joe Drago presiding. Linda Jones, Adrianne's mother, asked that the death penalty be removed as a sentencing option from both trials.


title: Diane Zamora

text: During the trial, Zamora admitted to being at the scene of the crime, but denied participating in the killing of Jones. The Naval Academy Midshipmen to whom Zamora confessed and another witness stated that she showed no remorse over Jones' death.


title: Diane Zamora

text: The case received national media attention, providing Court TV with some of its highest ratings ever in its film coverage of the trial. Some of the interest centered on whether Zamora was the submissive victim or the jealous driving force behind the murder. Under Texas law, murder is the intentional killing of another human being, while capital murder includes murder with an underlying felony of kidnapping, robbery, aggravated sexual assault, arson, or obstruction. In this case, the prosecutor believed that Jones was deceptively lured from her home by Graham asking her for a bogus date, or she would not have been in the car. Moreover, the couple committed obstruction when Zamora allegedly ordered Graham to stalk Jones into the field and to shoot her so that she could not tell the authorities.


title: Diane Zamora

text: The jury was asked to deliberate on the charges of capital murder or the lesser charges of assault, kidnapping, or false imprisonment. On February 17, 1998, after more than six hours of deliberations over two days, the jury found Zamora guilty of capital murder in the death of Adrianne Jones. Because of the Jones family's request that prosecutors not seek the death penalty against her, Zamora received a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment and would be eligible for parole after 40 years.


title: Diane Zamora

text: On July 24, 1998, after a separate trial, a jury found Graham guilty of capital murder. During the trial, Wendy Bartlett, also on the track team, and Coach Lee Ann Burke stated that Bartlett was the one who drove Jones home after the meet on November 4, 1995, and that Graham had left earlier, leaving Jones and Bartlett to put away equipment from the meet. Graham did not drive Jones home on the night he claimed to have had sex with her, lending credence to his later recantation. However, he ultimately repudiated his recantation, saying his lawyer had pressured him to lie, and again claimed to have had sex with Jones. Adding that to Zamora's story about Jones admitting to having had sex with Graham when Zamora asked her about it just before the murder, it might be that Graham and Jones had sex at some other time. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.


title: Diane Zamora

text: David Richards, Zamora's attorney, used the testimony from Bartlett and Burke as the basis of an appeal for Zamora. The petition, made in 2005, stated that the prosecution withheld this information during Zamora's trial. "From these witnesses, the state knew, and should have known, that the testimony it sponsored in support of a sexual encounter between Jones and Graham was probably false".


title: Diane Zamora

text: Due to the prominence of the case, in 2015 Tarrant County, authorities chose to keep the paper court documents of the case as historical documents even though they have been digitized.


title: Diane Zamora

text: Zamora was transferred from a jail in Fort Worth, Texas to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. She was initially held in a state prison diagnostic unit in Gatesville, Texas in February 1998, then held at the Murray Unit, also in Gatesville. At one point she was held in protective custody at Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, but she was later moved to the general prison population in the William P. Hobby Unit near Marlin. she is back in protective custody in the Lane Murray Unit. Zamora, opposed to her placement, filed a civil rights complaint with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but the complaint was dismissed.


title: Diane Zamora

text: Graham was held at the Ellis Unit near Huntsville after the trial. In 2016 he was held at the Darrington Unit near Rosharon. he is held at the Allred Unit in Wichita Falls. He is currently enrolled at the Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary's inmate seminary in order to become a pastor behind bars. In 2008, Graham said that his confession to the police was correct and expressed remorse for killing Jones. He also said that if he had it to do over again he would have pleaded guilty to murder.


title: Diane Zamora

text: Zamora got to know Steven Mora, a fellow Texas inmate, through the mail. He had committed auto theft and burglary and was in prison for threatening someone related to one of his cases. Although they never met in person, the two decided to get married and petitioned Bexar County for a marriage license in 2003. A wedding ceremony was performed on June 17, 2003. Zamora's mother and a male friend stood in for the imprisoned couple in the county's first proxy marriage, which was performed by a judge in San Antonio. They were divorced on or around 2008.


title: Diane Zamora

text: Zamora was interviewed by Stone Phillips on "Dateline" in a show broadcast in April 2007. Her appeals were exhausted, and with her lawyer's permission she took a polygraph test administered by "Dateline". Her new story was that Graham and she had been breaking up, and that Graham was using the murder to "tie her to him". She noted that she obstructed justice by cleaning the car afterwards and was an accessory after the fact; however, Zamora pointed out that the jury had convicted her of intending to kill Jones, which she denied. When she took the polygraph, the administrator repeatedly told her to stop her exaggerated breathing, a counter-measure for such tests. He said that he believed he had enough to actually say that Zamora had failed the crucial question on whether she had intended to kill Jones. Two other independent polygraph administrators, who were not at the test, were contacted by "Dateline" and asked to review the results; they said that they could offer no opinion due to counter-measures. Zamora responded to Phillips that she was nervous and hyperventilating despite being told all the questions in advance and reviewing them with the administrator before the test.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: Jeffrey Schlupp (; born 23 December 1992) is a professional footballer who plays as a forward or winger or occasional left back for club Crystal Palace and the Ghana national team.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: Jeff Schlupp was born to Ghanaian parents in Hamburg, Germany, on 23 December 1992, and raised mostly in England after his family moved there when he was young. He attended Oakgrove School in Milton Keynes along with former Salford City F.C goalkeeper Max Crocombe.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: A product of the Leicester City youth academy, Schlupp was given a squad number, 31, for the first time for the 2010–11 season along with fellow academy players Tom Parkes and Jorrin John by then manager Paulo Sousa. Schlupp signed a new contract keeping him at the club until 2013 on 14 March 2011. Schlupp was named amongst the Leicester City substitutes for the first time by, then manager, Sven-Göran Eriksson in the 3–2 home defeat to Norwich City on 8 March 2011.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: Schlupp joined Brentford on a one-month loan on 14 March 2011, declining a call up to the Germany Under-19 squad in order to complete the move. He made his senior debut in a 1–0 defeat to Huddersfield Town coming on as a substitute on 77 minutes on 15 March 2011. On his first full senior appearance in his career he scored two goals winning the match against Carlisle United 2–1 on 25 March 2011. Schlupp earned a start in Brentford's next match and proved himself once more by scoring a header from a Lewis Grabban cross against Sheffield Wednesday in a 3–1 victory.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: On 3 April Schlupp started in the 2011 Football League Trophy Final, playing the full 90 minutes. Schlupp hit the post with an effort on goal. Carlisle United won the match 1–0.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: On returning to Leicester, Schlupp travelled with the squad on their tour to Sweden often playing in friendlies as a left-back. He was given the squad number 27 for the 2011–12 season. In his first competitive senior appearance for the club he scored a hat-trick against Rotherham United in the League Cup first round on 9 August. He made his league debut in a 2–0 defeat to Reading on 13 August, and scored his first league goal in a 4–0 win over Derby County on 1 October. Schlupp scored his second league goal, and Leicester City's 4,000th home league goal, against Birmingham City in the 80th minute of 13 March 2012 Championship clash. Schlupp ended his first season in the Leicester first team, scoring six times in 26 games in all competitions.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: Schlupp spent a week in January 2013 training with Manchester United. This trial was extended into a second and third week into the beginning of February. During his time at Manchester United he played two under-21 games, a game against Liverpool and then a game against West Ham at Upton Park.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: Upon Schlupp's return to Leicester he found his way into the Leicester team both at left back and in attack, scoring three goals towards the latter part of the 2012–13 season. Schlupp scored key goals in back to back home games against Birmingham City and Bolton Wanderers.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: Schlupp opened his goalscoring account for the 2013–14 season, rounding off a 3–1 away win to against Millwall on New Year's Day 2014 with smart finish through the goalkeeper's legs on his weaker foot. Following regular left-back Paul Konchesky receiving a three-match suspension for a red card against East Midlands rivals Nottingham Forest, Schlupp found greater opportunities at the back of the Leicester side, putting in highly rated performances against Ipswich Town and Charlton Athletic.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: On 16 August 2014, Schlupp made his Premier League debut as a second-half substitute against Everton on the opening weekend of the season. On 4 October, Schlupp scored his first Premier League goal, in the 2–2 draw with Burnley. Schlupp scored his second goal of the season on 29 November, in the 2–3 defeat against Queens Park Rangers before adding his third in the 2–2 draw against Liverpool on 1 January 2015. On 18 May 2015, Schlupp's fine first season in the Premier League was met with reward as he was named Leicester City's Young Player of the Year, as voted by the fans, as well as winning the Players' Player of the Year award.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: Schlupp started as the left back during Leicester's flying start to the season, although he later moved into a midfield role as the season progressed. Schlupp scored his first goal of the season in the 2–1 away victory against Norwich City. He was ruled out for six weeks in December with a hamstring injury. After returning from the injury Schlupp had a strong impact on Leicester City's season, and contributed hugely to Leicester's unlikely title triumph. As a result of his successful season Schlupp was named Leicester's Young Player of the Year for the second year running beating Demarai Gray and Ben Chilwell to the award.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: On 13 January 2017, after only four league appearances for Leicester City in 2016–17, he joined Premier League club Crystal Palace for a reported £12 million. His first appearance for the club ended in defeat by three goals to nil to London rivals West Ham United.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: Schlupp was called up to a Germany under-19 training camp in early 2011, but did not earn a cap in Ralf Minge's side.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: On 7 November 2011, Schlupp was called up to the Ghana squad to face Sierra Leone and Gabon. Schlupp made his Ghana debut against Gabon on 15 November, coming on as a late substitute for Prince Tagoe.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: In April 2014, it was reported that The Black Stars' coaching team are believed to have watched Schlupp play with a view to taking him to the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil following a string of impressive performances for Leicester. Schlupp played in a friendly against Netherlands on 31 May but wasn't named in Ghana's final 23. Schlupp was recalled to the Ghana squad for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Uganda and Togo in September 2014. He earned his fourth cap as a late substitute in Ghana's 3–1 win against Togo in the Black Stars' last African Cup of Nations qualifier on 19 November 2014. Schlupp returned to the Black Stars squad in March 2015, coming on as a second-half substitute in the 2–1 defeat to Senegal on 28 March and playing the full 90 minutes in a 1–1 draw with Mali on 31 March.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: Schlupp scored his first goal for Ghana in a 7–1 win over Mauritius in an African Cup of Nations qualifier on 14 June 2015.


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: Schlupp is known for his extreme pace and athleticism, which allows him to be a versatile option and able to play anywhere on the left wing. Former teammate Andrej Kramarić once said of Schlupp, "I've never played with a more powerful player than Jeffrey Schlupp, such power and speed like I've never seen before."


title: Jeffrey Schlupp

text: Schlupp became a father in January 2014 to a son, Arlo. Outside football, Schlupp is involved in property investment, which he plans to do full time upon retiring from football.


title: Sinclair C5

text: The Sinclair C5 is a small one-person battery electric recumbent tricycle, technically an "electrically assisted pedal cycle". It was the culmination of Sir Clive Sinclair's long-running interest in electric vehicles. Although widely described as an "electric car", Sinclair characterised it as a "vehicle, not a car".


title: Sinclair C5

text: Sinclair had become one of the UK's best-known millionaires, and earned a knighthood, on the back of the highly successful Sinclair Research range of home computers in the early 1980s. He hoped to repeat his success in the electric vehicle market, which he saw as ripe for a new approach. The C5 emerged from an earlier project to produce a small electric car called the C1. After a change in the law, prompted by lobbying from bicycle manufacturers, Sinclair developed the C5 as an electrically powered tricycle with a polypropylene body and a chassis designed by Lotus Cars. It was intended to be the first in a series of increasingly ambitious electric vehicles, but the development of the follow-up C10 and C15 models never progressed further than the drawing board.


title: Sinclair C5

text: On 10 January 1985, the C5 was unveiled at a glitzy launch event, but it received a less than enthusiastic reception from the British media. Its sales prospects were blighted by poor reviews and safety concerns expressed by consumer and motoring organisations. The vehicle's limitations – a short range, a maximum speed of only , a battery that ran down quickly and a lack of weatherproofing – made it impractical for most people's needs. It was marketed as an alternative to cars and bicycles, but ended up appealing to neither group of owners, and it was not available in shops until several months after its launch. Within three months of the launch, production had been slashed by 90%. Sales never picked up despite Sinclair's optimistic forecasts and production ceased entirely by August 1985. Out of 14,000 C5s made, only 5,000 were sold before its manufacturer, Sinclair Vehicles, went into receivership.


title: Sinclair C5

text: The C5 has been described as "one of the great marketing bombs of postwar British industry" and a "notorious ... example of failure". Despite its commercial failure, the C5 went on to become a cult item for collectors. Thousands of unsold C5s were purchased by investors and sold for hugely inflated prices, as much as £6,000 compared to the original retail value of £399. Enthusiasts have established owners' clubs and some have modified their vehicles substantially, adding bigger wheels, jet engines, and high-powered electric motors to propel their C5s at speeds of up to .


title: Sinclair C5

text: The C5 is made predominately of polypropylene, measuring long, wide, and high. It weighs approximately without a battery and with one. The chassis consists of a single Y-shaped steel component with a cross-section of about by The vehicle has three wheels, one of diameter at the front and two of at the rear.


title: Sinclair C5

text: The driver sits in a recumbent position in an open cockpit, steering via a handlebar that is located under the knees. A power switch and front and rear brake levers are positioned on the handlebar. As a supplement to or replacement for electric power, the C5 can also be propelled via bicycle-style pedals located at the front of the cockpit. The maximum speed of an unmodified C5 is . At the rear of the vehicle is a small luggage compartment with a capacity of 28 litres (1 cu ft). As the C5 does not have a reverse gear, reversing direction is done by getting out, picking up the front end and turning it around by hand.


title: Sinclair C5

text: The C5 is powered by a 12-volt lead–acid electric battery driving a motor with a continuous rating of 250 watts and a maximum speed of 4,100 revolutions per minute. It is coupled with a two-stage gear-drive that increases torque by a factor of 13, without which the motor would not be able to move the vehicle when a person is on board. However, the motor is vulnerable to overheating. The torque increases as the load on the vehicle increases, for instance by going up too steep a gradient. Sinclair's tests showed that it could cope under power with a maximum slope of 1 in 12 (8%) and could manage a 1 in 7 (14%) slope using the pedals. As the speed of the motor reduces, the current flow through its windings increases, drawing up to 140 amps at stall speed. This would very quickly burn the motor out if sustained, so the motor's load is constantly monitored by the C5's electronics. If it stalls under full load the electronics disable the motor after 4 seconds, while if it is under heavy load (around 80 or 90 amps) it trips after two or three minutes. A heat-sensitive resistor inside the motor warns the driver if the vehicle is beginning to overheat and disconnects the motor after a short time, and a third line of defence is provided by a metallic strip mounted on the motor. If an excessive temperature is reached the strip distorts and the power is disconnected.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Although it was usually billed as an electric vehicle, the C5 also depends significantly on pedal power. The vehicle's battery is designed to provide 35 amps for an hour when fully charged or half that for two hours, giving the C5 a claimed range of . A display in the cockpit uses green, amber, and red LEDs to display the state of the battery charge. The segments are extinguished one after the other to indicate how much driving time is left. The last light indicates that only ten minutes of power are left, after which the motor is switched off and the driver is left to rely on the pedals. Another display indicates via green, amber, and red LEDs how much current is being used. The C5 is in its most economical running mode when a low amount of current, indicated by the green LEDs, is being used. When the lights are red, the motor is under a high load and the driver needs to use pedal power to avoid overheating and shutdown.


title: Sinclair C5

text: The C5 was initially sold at a cost of £399, but to keep the cost under the £400 mark a number of components were sold as optional accessories. These included indicator lights, mirrors, mud flaps, a horn, and a "High-Vis Mast" consisting of a reflective strip on a pole, designed to make the C5 more visible in traffic. Sinclair's C5 accessories brochure noted that "the British climate isn't always ideal for wind-in-the-hair driving" and offered a range of waterproofs to keep C5 drivers dry in the vehicle's open cockpit. Other accessories included seat cushions and spare batteries.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Sir Clive Sinclair's interest in the possibilities of electric vehicles originated in the late 1950s during a holiday job for the electronics company Solatron. Fifteen years later, in the early 1970s, he was the head of his own successful electronics company, Sinclair Radionics, based in St Ives in Cambridgeshire. He tasked one of his employees, Chris Curry – later a co-founder of Acorn Computers – to carry out some preliminary research into electric vehicle design.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Sinclair took the view that an electric vehicle needed to be designed from the ground up, completely rethinking the principles of automotive design rather than simply dropping electric components into an established model. He believed that the motor was the key to the design. Sinclair and Curry developed a wafer-thin motor that was mounted on a child's scooter, with a button on the handlebars to activate it. The research got no further, however, as Sinclair's development of the first "slimline" pocket calculator – the Sinclair Executive and its successors – took precedence. No further work on electric vehicles took place for most of the rest of the 1970s.


title: Sinclair C5

text: It was not until late 1979 that Sinclair returned to electric vehicle development. Around Christmas that year, he approached Tony Wood Rogers, an ex-Radionics employee, to carry out consultancy work on "a preliminary investigation into a personal electric vehicle". The brief was to assess the options for producing a one-person vehicle which would be a replacement for a moped and would have a maximum speed of . Although Wood Rogers was initially reluctant, he was intrigued by the idea of an electric vehicle and agreed to help Sinclair. The vehicle was dubbed the C1 (the C standing for Clive). He built a number of prototypes to demonstrate various design principles and clarify the final specifications.


title: Sinclair C5

text: A specification of the C1 emerged by the end of the year. It would address short-distance transportation needs, with a minimum range of on a fully charged battery. This reflected official figures showing that the average daily car journey was only , while the average moped or pedal cycle journey was just . The users were envisaged as being housewives, urban commuters, and young people, who might otherwise use cycles or mopeds to travel. The electric vehicle would be safer, more weather-proof, and would offer space to carry items. It would be easy to drive and park and for the driver to enter or exit, and it would require minimum maintenance. The vehicle would be engineered for simplicity using injection-moulded plastic components and a polypropylene body. It would also be much cheaper than a car, costing £500 () at the most.


title: Sinclair C5

text: One area of development that Sinclair purposely avoided was battery technology. Electric vehicles powered by lead–acid batteries had once actually outnumbered internal combustion engine vehicles; in 1912 nearly 34,000 electric cars were registered in the U.S. However, the efficiency of internal combustion engines greatly improved while battery technology advanced much more slowly, leading to petrol and diesel-driven vehicles dominating the market. By 1978, out of 17.6 million registered vehicles on Britain's roads, only 45,000 were electric vehicles in day-to-day use and of those, 90% were milkfloats. Sinclair chose to rely on existing lead–acid battery technology, avoiding the great expense of developing a more efficient type. His rationale was that if the electric vehicle market took off, battery manufacturers would step up to develop better batteries. Wood Rogers recalls:


title: Sinclair C5

text: The development programme moved to the University of Exeter in 1982, where the C1 chassis was fitted with fibreglass shells and tested in a wind tunnel. It was recognised at an early stage that the vehicle would have to be aerodynamic; although it was only ever intended to be small and relatively slow, reducing wind resistance was seen as essential for the vehicle's efficiency. By March 1982, the basic design of the C1 had been established. Sinclair then turned to an established motor design company, Ogle Design of Letchworth, to provide professional styling assistance and production engineering. However, Ogle's approach was not to Sinclair's liking; they tackled the project as one of car design and focused more (and expensively) on the aerodynamics rather than the cycle technology around which the C1 was based. The weight of the vehicle increased to over , far more than Sinclair's desired specification. By March 1983, Sinclair and Wood Rogers had decided to stop the C1 programme. Wood Rogers comments that Ogle were convinced that the C1 would be a flop, telling Sinclair that it would not be fast enough, that its drivers would get wet when it rained and that the battery was not good enough.


title: Sinclair C5

text: To meet the steadily escalating development costs of the vehicle, Sinclair decided to raise capital by selling some of his own shares in Sinclair Research to fund a separate company that would focus on electric vehicles. A £12 million deal was reached in March 1983, of which £8.3 million was used to fund the establishment of the new Sinclair Vehicles company. Sinclair recruited Barrie Wills, a veteran former employee of the DeLorean Motor Company, to lead Sinclair Vehicles as its managing director. Although Wills initially expressed scepticism about the viability of an electric vehicle – his twenty-five years in the motor industry had convinced him that an electric car was never going to happen – Sinclair managed to convince him that the project would work. In 1984, Sinclair Vehicles' new head office was established in Coventry in the West Midlands, an area with a long-established link with the motor industry.


title: Sinclair C5

text: The project's prospects were boosted by changes in the British government's approach to electric vehicles. In March 1980, it had abolished Vehicle Excise Duty for electric vehicles and by the start of 1983, the Department of Transport was working on legislation that would introduce a new category of vehicle – the "electrically assisted pedal cycle". This had a number of significant advantages from Sinclair's point of view. Such a vehicle would be exempt from insurance and vehicle tax, and the user would not need a driving licence or a helmet, all of which were required for mopeds. The legislation, which was passed in August 1983, was prompted by a lobbying campaign by manufacturers such as Raleigh who wanted to sell electric bicycles.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Sinclair realised that his electric vehicle design could easily be adapted to meet the new legislation. As the "electrically assisted pedal cycle" category was so new, there were no existing vehicles on the market that would meet the standards prescribed by the new legislation. However, it imposed a number of restrictions that limited the performance of any vehicle that would qualify under the new standards. The maximum legal speed of the vehicle would be limited to only ; it could not weigh any more than , including the battery; and its motor could not be rated at any more than 250 watts.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Despite these limitations, the vehicle was seen as only the first step in a series of increasingly ambitious electrical cars. Sinclair intended it to prove the viability of electric personal transport; the hope was that, just as Sinclair had found with home computers like the hugely successful ZX81 and ZX Spectrum, an affordable electric vehicle could unleash pent-up demand for a market that did not previously exist. However, Sinclair performed no market research to ascertain whether there was actually a market for his electric vehicle; as the director of the Primary Contact advertising agency commented in January 1985, the project continued all the way to the prototype stage "purely on the convictions of Sir Clive".


title: Sinclair C5

text: With Sinclair's new specifications in hand, Ogle worked on a three-wheeled design dubbed the C5, which bore similarities with the earlier three-wheeled Bond Bug – another Ogle design. The vehicle's handlebar steering was the brainchild of Wood Rogers, who decided at the outset that a steering wheel would not be practicable as it would make it impossible for a driver to get in and out easily – a serious safety disadvantage. He comments that "putting the bars at the driver's sides made it easy to steer and felt very natural". A prototype was presented to 63 families in the A, B, C1 and C2 demographic groups in suburban and town environments to determine that the controls were correctly positioned; this was the only external research carried out on the C5. In the autumn of 1983, Wills brought in Lotus Cars to finish the vehicle's detailing, build prototypes and test rigs, carry out testing and take forward the programme to production. The development of the C5 took place over 19 months in conditions of great secrecy, with testing carried out at the Motor Industry Research Association's proving ground in Leicestershire.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Further aerodynamic refinements were carried out in Exeter with the development of new body shells which produced further reductions in the vehicle's drag. However, it was felt that something was lacking in the design and a 23-year-old industrial designer, Gus Desbarats, was brought in to refine the shell's appearance. He had won a Sinclair-sponsored electric vehicle design competition at the Royal College of Art and was hired on his graduation to set up an in-house car design studio at Sinclair's Metalab in Cambridge, of which he became the first employee. It was not only Desabrais' first project but, as he later said, "day one of my working life", when he turned up at Sinclair's premises. He was taken aback when he saw the C5 for the first time, as he had been expecting a "proper" electric car. He said later that he thought "the concept looked futuristic but was short on practicality. There were no instruments, nowhere to put anything and no security features." Desbarats told Sinclair that the design would have to be redone from scratch, "asking what we were doing about visibility, rear view mirrors, range indications ...". It was far too late for this, however; all the key design decisions had already been made. Desbarats told Sinclair that he would need four months to revisit the design and was given eight weeks instead. He created the styling that was used for the final production model of the C5, with wheel trims and a small luggage compartment being added subsequently. Desbarats was also responsible for the creation of the High-Vis Mast accessory, as he felt uncomfortable being so close to the ground with other drivers potentially not being able to see him. He later described his contribution as "convert[ing] an ugly pointless device into a prettier, safer, and more usable pointless device".


title: Sinclair C5

text: The chassis of the C5 consists of two identical metal pressings which are joined at top and bottom with a closing plate at the rear. It lacks a separate suspension system, instead relying on the chassis structure having enough torsional flex. Its motor was produced in Italy by Polymotor, a subsidiary of the Dutch company Philips. Although it was later said that the C5 was powered by a washing machine motor, the motor was in fact developed from a design produced to drive a truck cooling fan. Lotus provided the gearbox and a rear axle based on a design for car steering columns. The C5's electronics were produced by MethLab, a Sinclair spin-off. The wheels were assembled from tyres made in Taiwan and wheels from Italy. Oldham Batteries provided a lead–acid battery developed for Sinclair that could manage more than the 300 charge-discharge cycles that had originally been specified.


title: Sinclair C5

text: The bodywork was made from two injection-moulded polypropylene shells supplied by three manufacturers; J.J. Harvey of Manchester made the moulds, Linpac provided the shells, and ICI supplied the raw material. According to Rodney Dale, the upper shell mould was "one of the largest – if not the largest – injection mouldings of its type in the UK: possibly even in the world". The manufacturing process reflected Sinclair's ambition for the C5 production line. A single mould set was capable of producing up to 4,000 parts every week. The two parts of the shell were joined together by wrapping a tape around the joint, aligning them on a jig, pressing them together and passing an electric current through the tape to heat and melt it. The same process was used to make the front and rear bumper assemblies of the Austin Maestro and only took about 70 seconds to complete. Although Sinclair had considered producing the C5 at the DeLorean plant at Dunmurry in Northern Ireland, which had one of Europe's most advanced automated plastic-body manufacturing facilities, this did not happen, as the DeLorean Motor Company failed in a controversial bankruptcy that resulted in the plant's closure.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Instead, the work of assembling the C5 was given to The Hoover Company in the spring of 1983. The Welsh Development Agency (WDA) approached Hoover to ask them if they would be interested becoming the principal subcontractor for Sinclair, "who are working on an electric car, and as a by-product of the research have designed an electrically assisted bicycle. They are looking for a subcontractor to whom they can entrust the assembly." The proposal suited all sides. The WDA was keen to support the Hoover washing machine factory at Merthyr Tydfil, situated in the economically depressed South Wales Valleys. Hoover was enticed by Sinclair's projections of sales of 200,000 units a year, increasing to 500,000. Sinclair saw Hoover's plant and expertise as a good match for their fabrication techniques. A contract was signed within a few months.


title: Sinclair C5

text: The C5 was produced in great secrecy in a separate part of the Hoover factory with its own duplicate facilities. At first the work was carried out by a small team of people in a sealed room, but as production ramped up Hoover installed two production lines in building MP7, connected to the main factory by a tunnel. A rolling testing stand was located at the end of the production line to test each completed C5 for faults. A mechanical arm simulated the weight of a person weighing and the vehicle's brakes were tested under load. At the end of the process the C5s which had passed testing were rolled into cardboard boxes and loaded straight onto distribution lorries in stacks. Around £100,000 was spent to set up the factory.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Distribution centres were set up in Hayes in Middlesex, Preston in Lancashire and Oxford to handle the C5s. Hoover arranged for 19 of its service offices around the UK – responsible for maintaining customers' vacuum cleaners and washing machines – to also maintain C5s and provide spare parts. The C5's major consumable item, the battery, was to be supported by 300 branches of Comet and Woolworths.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Hoover trained its engineers to produce C5s and tested its manufacturing processes by assembling, dismantling and re-assembling 100 C5s. Full production began in November 1984 and by early January 1985 over 2,500 C5s had been manufactured. Each production line could produce 50 vehicles an hour, and Hoover were capable of producing up to 8,000 C5s per week.


title: Sinclair C5

text: The news of Sinclair's C5 project came as a surprise when it became public and attracted considerable interest, as well as scepticism. "The Economist" reported in June 1983 that carmakers were "startled" but cautious about Sinclair's prospects; as one competitor put it, "If it were anyone but Sinclair, we'd say he was bonkers". "The Economist" asked, "Can a man who has made a fortune out of calculators and computers, and could double it on flatscreen televisions, be that crazy?" and wondered whether he was "making a ghastly mistake", a prediction that industry insiders thought was likely.


title: Sinclair C5

text: The C5 was launched on 10 January 1985 at Alexandra Palace in North London. The event was staged in Sinclair's usual glitzy style, with women handing out press packs and a variety of promotional giveaways: magazines, hats, pullovers, T-shirts, key rings, sun visors, badges, mugs, bags, and even a C5 video game. The vehicle was given a dramatic unveiling; six C5s driven by women dressed in grey and yellow burst out of six cardboard boxes, drove around the arena, and lined up side by side. Sinclair announced the launch of a £3 million, three-month-long advertising print and television advertising campaign. The C5 would be available initially by mail order at a cost of £399 and would subsequently be sold via high-street stores.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Sinclair issued a glossy sales brochure characterising the vehicle as a part of an ongoing exercise in "cutting giants down to size, turning impersonal tyrants into personal servants". The brochure highlighted Sinclair's achievements in producing affordable pocket calculators, home computers, and pocket televisions and declared, "with the C5, Sinclair Vehicles puts personal, private transport back where it belongs – in the hands of the individual." The photographs accompanying the text showed housewives and teenagers driving the C5 to shops, railway stations, and sports fields – in the words of technology writers Ian Adamson and Richard Kennedy, "a blue-sky suburbia exclusively populated by electric trikes and their drivers".


title: Sinclair C5

text: The press was given an opportunity to try out the C5 but this proved to be, as Adamson and Kennedy put it, "an unqualified disaster". A large number of the demonstration machines did not work, as the assembled journalists soon discovered. "The Sunday Times" called the C5 a "Formula One bath-chair"; its reporter "had travelled five yards outdoors when everything went phut and this motorised, plastic, lozenge rolled to a halt with all the stationary decisiveness of a mule". "The Guardian"s reporter had a flat battery after only seven minutes, while "Your Computer" found that the C5 could not cope with the slopes at Alexandra Palace: "The 250 watt electric motor which drives one of the back wheels proved incapable of powering the C5 up even the gentlest slopes without using pedal power. The tricycle was soon making a plaintive "peep, peep" noise signalling that the engine had overheated." Even the former racing driver Stirling Moss ran into problems when he tried out the C5 on the roads around Alexandra Palace. The Canadian newspaper "The Globe and Mail" reported that while he had started out well, "a jaunty smile on [his] face as he braved some of the worst exhaust fumes in the world spluttering almost directly into his face from trucks he could almost drive underneath", he ran into problems when he reached a hill: "It was at this point that he realised the battery had gone dead. On a cold and foggy London day, the great man was visibly sweating."


title: Sinclair C5

text: The timing and location of the launch event – in the middle of winter, on the top of a snow- and ice-covered hill – later prompted criticism even from Sinclair executives, who admitted off the record that spring conditions might have been better for a vehicle with so little protection from the British climate. The "Financial Times" called it "the worst possible timing to launch what was proclaimed to be a serious, road-going vehicle". Sinclair's biographer Rodney Dale describes it as "a calculated (or miscalculated) risk", observing that production was already underway, details were beginning to leak out to the press and "the launch could hardly have been held up until the possibility of a bright spring day". He justified the choice of January as being necessitated by a need to release the C5 "as soon as possible lest the erroneous speculation should have done more harm than good". Rob Gray offers an alternative explanation, that the launch date had been brought forward because Sinclair's development funds were running low.


title: Sinclair C5

text: It soon became apparent that the C5 faced more serious problems with public perception than merely a botched launch event. Media reactions to the C5 were generally negative when the first reviews appeared over the following days. As the "Financial Times" observed, "the few hardy journalists who ventured out on the roads returned shivering and dubious about the C5's abilities in such harsh conditions."


title: Sinclair C5

text: A common concern was that it was simply too vulnerable in traffic. "Your Computer" commented that "a periscope would be handy if you intended driving the C5 on busy roads since your head is only at bonnet level." "The Guardian's" motoring correspondent wrote of her "grave misgivings about its use in congested traffic ... On a sharp turn it too easily lifts a rear wheel, is hazardously silent, and low down. It disappears below a car driver's sight-line when pulling up alongside. The prospect of these vehicles merging into heavy traffic, dwarfed by heavy lorries, buses, and cars, is worrying. Their low speed risks turning them into mobile chicanes for other traffic." Another "Guardian" writer wrote that he "would not want to drive [the] C5 in any traffic at all. My head was on a level with the top of a juggernaut's tyres, the exhaust fumes blasted into my face. Even with the minuscule front and rear lights on, I could not feel confident that a lorry driver so high above the ground would see me." Sinclair issued a publicity photograph showing the C5's industrial designer, Gus Desbarats, in a C5 alongside a cardboard cutout of an Austin Mini to illustrate that the C5 driver's seated position was actually higher than that of a Mini driver.


title: Sinclair C5

text: As teenagers were among the target audiences for the C5, some commentators also raised the prospect of (in Adamson and Kennedy's words) "packs of 14-year-olds terrorising the neighbourhood in their customised C5s". The secretary of the Cyclists Touring Club raised the prospect of "kids us[ing] them in a pretty wild way. They may run them over paths and pavements and knock people down." Sinclair dismissed such concerns – "I have qualms about seven-year-olds riding bicycles on the open road, but I have far fewer qualms about a 14-year-old driving one of these". Teenagers interviewed by "The Guardian" were doubtful about whether they would want a C5, commenting that while it was fun to drive they felt insecure in it and preferred their bicycles.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Sinclair's claims to have revolutionised the electric vehicle were dismissed by many reviewers; "Your Computer" called the C5 "more of a toy than the 'ideal solution for all types of local journey' which the brochure claims". "The Guardian's" motoring correspondent also characterised it as "a delightful toy" "The Daily Telegraph" described it as "a cleverly-designed 'fun' machine that can hardly be regarded as serious, everyday all-weather transport", while "The Engineer" viewed it as "a smashing big boy's toy, tough enough to take teenage thrashing and possibly a serious vehicle for fit adults to nip out in for the Sunday papers".


title: Sinclair C5

text: On the plus side, the C5's handling characteristics were praised by reviewers. "The Guardian" called it "very easy to master once you have become familiar with the under-thigh handlebar steering and the semi-recumbent driving position with feet on bicycle-type pedals." The "Daily Mirror" described the arrangement as "surprisingly easy" to master, although it cautioned that "on full speed and on full lock it's very easy to tip it onto two wheels." The "Daily Express" motoring correspondent wrote that he found the C5 "stable, comfortable and easy to handle".


title: Sinclair C5

text: The verdict from motoring organisations, road safety groups, and consumer watchdogs was decidedly negative and probably sealed the C5's fate. The British Safety Council (BSC) tested the C5 at Sinclair Vehicles' headquarters in Warwick and issued a highly critical report to its 32,000 members. Sinclair was furious and announced that he would sue the BSC and its chairman, James Tye, for defamation (although nothing came of it) after Tye told the press: "I am shattered that within a few days 14-year-old children will be allowed to drive on the road in this Doodle Bug without a licence ... without insurance and without any form of training." Several years later, Tye was happy to take responsibility for the C5's failure, describing himself as "the man entirely to blame for the failure of the Sinclair C5".


title: Sinclair C5

text: Despite the problems of the press launch day, a more positive response was expected from the 20,000 members of the public who attended the remaining two days of the launch event to try out the C5 on the Alexandra Palace test track. Sinclair reported the day after the event that its switchboard had been overwhelmed by enquirers, and it expected that all 2,700 units from the first production run would be sold by the following Monday. Setting a pattern that would be repeated throughout the C5's short commercial life, this prediction was wildly optimistic; fewer than 200 were sold during the Alexandra Palace event. However, sales picked up as mail order forms – which had been sent to all of Sinclair's computer customers – were returned with fresh orders. Within four weeks, 5,000 C5s had been sold.


title: Sinclair C5

text: The C5's users were an eclectic group. They included holiday camps who wanted C5s to rent to campers; the British Royal Family – Princes William and Harry each had one to drive around Kensington Palace before they were old enough to drive; Sir Elton John, who had two; the magician Paul Daniels, who bought a demonstration model he saw being driven around the BBC Television Centre car park; Sir Arthur C. Clarke, who had two shipped out to his home at Colombo in Sri Lanka; and the Mayor of Scarborough, Michael Pitts, who swapped his official Daimler for a C5. However, as "The Times" reported, some of the early buyers were disappointed by the vehicle's limitations, citing its slowness, its limited range and its inability to cope with steep hills, which led some people to return their C5s and ask for a refund.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Although the C5 reached retail stores at the start of March 1985, sales had tailed off. Sinclair resorted to hiring teams of teenagers to drive around London in C5s to promote the vehicle, at a cost to the company of £20 a day. Similar teams were established in Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds. The company denied that it was a marketing campaign; a spokesman told "The Times" that "we haven't done ... tests on inner city roads. That is what the team is doing. Marketing is not the prime function but will undoubtedly be a spin-off." Sinclair was reported to be surprised at the lack of demand and blamed the press for "a lack of foresight and pessimistic reporting". Matters did not improve; three decades later, the C5's failure was attributed in "Wallpaper" to there being no market, insofar as "global warming hadn't been invented then". The retail chain Comet acquired 1,600 C5s but nine months later most were still unsold.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Adding to Sinclair's problems, production of the C5 had to be halted for three weeks after numerous customers reported that the plastic moulding attached to the gearbox was impairing the performance of their vehicles. 100 Hoover workers were shifted from the C5 production line to work on replacing the faulty mouldings on returned vehicles. Barrie Wills admitted that Sinclair was also taking the opportunity to "adjust stocks" in the light of the C5's poor sales. When production resumed a month later it was at only 10% of the previous level, with 90 of the workers being transferred back to the washing machine production lines. Only 100 C5s were now being produced a week, down from the original 1,000. Over 3,000 unsold C5s were piled up in storage at the Hoover factory, with additional unsold stock in 500 retail outlets nationwide.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Sinclair tried to put a brave face on it, admitting that "sales have not been entirely up to expectations" but claiming to be "confident of a high level of demand for the vehicle". A spokesman told the media that "we expect a rapid rise in sales now that the weather is improving". Possible sales opportunities were explored in mainland Europe, Asia, and the United States, with Sinclair claiming that he had found "very big" levels of interest. Hoover were sufficiently persuaded to allow Sinclair to divert 10 of their employees to modify C5s for overseas export. The bid to sell the C5 abroad failed; the Dutch National Transport Service told Sinclair that the C5 was not suitable for Dutch roads without improvements to its braking system, the addition of more reflectors, and the inclusion of the High-Vis Mast as part of the basic package. Most of the other ten countries that Sinclair inquired of demanded similar changes.


title: Sinclair C5

text: The C5's reputation received a further battering when major consumer organisations published sceptical evaluations. The Automobile Association questioned many of Sinclair's claims in a report published at the start of May. It found that the range of the vehicle was typically only about rather than the promised by Sinclair, and reported that the C5's battery ran flat after only on a cold day. The C5's running speed was more usually around than the claimed , while its running costs compared unfavourably to that of a petrol-driven Honda PX50 moped. The stability, general roadworthiness, and especially the safety of the C5 were questioned, and the AA suggested that the High-Vis Mast should be included as part of the standard package. It concluded:


title: Sinclair C5

text: The Consumers' Association published a critical report on the C5 in the June issue of its magazine "Which?", concluding that the vehicle was of only limited use and represented poor value for money. All three of the C5s that it tested broke down with a "major gearbox fault" and their High-Vis Masts snapped. The longest run between battery charges was only , and a more realistic achievable range was . It also echoed the AA's concerns about the C5's safety and the omission of the High-Vis Mast from the standard package. The magazine also called the C5 "too easy to steal", hardly surprising considering that while a security lock could be used to prevent it being driven away, the C5 was light enough that a would-be thief could simply pick it up and carry it off.


title: Sinclair C5

text: As the summer of 1985 continued, sales of the C5 remained far below Sinclair's predictions; only 8,000 had been sold by July. In the middle of that month, the Advertising Standards Authority ordered Sinclair to amend or withdraw its advertisements for the C5 after finding that the company's claims about the safety and speed of the C5 either could not be proved or were not justified. Retailers attempted to deal with unsold stocks of C5s by drastically cutting the vehicle's price. Comet first reduced the price to £259.90 but by the end of the year was selling C5s with a complete set of accessories for only £139.99, 65% less than the initial price.


title: Sinclair C5

text: Production was terminated in August 1985, by which time 14,000 C5s had been assembled. Cashflow problems caused by the paucity of sales caused relations to break down between Sinclair Vehicles and Hoover. In June 1985, Hoover obtained a writ against Sinclair for unpaid debts of over £1.5 million, relating to work carried out over the previous eight months. It did not actually serve the writ but entered negotiations with Sinclair. In mid-August, it publicly announced that it was ceasing production of the C5. A Sinclair spokesman told the media that the halt in production was "due to a shortage of certain components which are unable to be re-ordered while a financial settlement is pending. Once this has been concluded production is envisaged to recommence."