Victoria Caroline Beckham is an English fashion designer and singer. In the late 1990s, Beckham rose to fame with the all-female pop group Spice Girls, was dubbed Posh Spice by the July 1996 issue of the British music magazine Top of the Pops. After the Spice Girls split, she was signed to Virgin Records and Telstar Records and had four UK Top 10 singles, her first release, "Out of Your Mind", reached number 2 in the UK Singles Chart. Beckham has participated in five official documentaries and reality shows about her, including Victoria's Secrets, Being Victoria Beckham, The Real Beckhams, Victoria Beckham - A Mile In Their Shoes and Victoria Beckham: Coming to America, she has since made a cameo appearance in an episode of Ugly Betty, been a guest judge on Project Runway, Germany's Next Topmodel, American Idol. In the past decade, Beckham has become an internationally recognised style icon and fashion designer. Following high-profile collaborations with other brands, she launched an eponymous label in 2008, a lower-priced label in 2011.
The Victoria Beckham label was named designer brand of the year in the UK in 2011. Writing in the Daily Telegraph in 2011, Belinda White noted that the transition from WAG to fashion designer had been more successful than most had predicted, saying: "She has gathered a significant celebrity following and won over the scathing fashion pack who now clamour for a ticket to her bi-annual show at New York Fashion Week." She is married to David Beckham, they have four children. As of May 2019, the couple's joint wealth is estimated at £355 million. Beckham was born at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, United Kingdom, raised in Goffs Oak, Hertfordshire, she is the eldest of three children of Jacqueline Doreen, a former insurance clerk and hairdresser, Anthony William Adams, who worked as an electronics engineer. They founded an electronics wholesale business which allowed a comfortable upbringing for Victoria, her sister and her brother, Christian Adams. Beckham's great-great-great-grandfather was German artist and revolutionary Carl Heinrich Pfänder and great-great granduncle was Minnesota politician William Pfaender.
After watching the musical film Fame in 1980, she decided to pursue a musical career. Jacqueline and Anthony Adams enrolled her at Jason Theatre School. In 1991, Beckham entered Laine Theatre Arts in Epsom and studied dance and modelling. Beckham attended St. Mary's High School in Cheshunt, where she was embarrassed by her family's wealth and begged her father not to drop her off outside the school in their Rolls Royce, she became a member of a band called Persuasion. Beckham auditioned for a March 1994 advertisement in The Stage which required girls who were "street smart, extrovert and able to sing and dance". In 1994, Beckham joined the all-female group, the Spice Girls. In the recordings before her marriage, she is credited with her maiden name as Victoria Adams; the group's first single was called "Wannabe", she worked alongside Geri Halliwell, Emma Bunton, Melanie Brown and Melanie Chisholm. It went to number one in the United Kingdom and United States, another 35 countries, it was followed by eight further number one singles from their albums Spice and Forever.
Each member of the group received a nickname from the media and Beckham was named "Posh Spice". The group is the best-selling female group of all time, selling over 80 million records worldwide. After the release of their third album, which charted at number two in the UK but was far less successful than their previous two albums, the Spice Girls stopped recording, concentrating on their solo careers in regards to their foreseeable future. On 14 August 2000, Beckham released her first solo single, "Out of Your Mind" in collaboration with Dane Bowers and Truesteppers; the week of release coincided with the release of "Groovejet" by Spiller featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor, resulting in a chart battle dubbed'Posh vs. Posher' by the tabloids. Before the single's release, on 8 July 2000, Beckham made her public solo debut at London's Hyde Park at a concert to raise money for the Prince's Trust charity, she sang "Out of Your Mind" to a 100,000-strong audience. Beckham signed a recording contract with her group label Virgin Records.
Her next single as a solo artist, "Not Such An Innocent Girl", was released on 17 September 2001. Again, she faced competition in another hugely hyped chart battle, this time with Kylie Minogue's single "Can't Get You Out of My Head". Despite a huge promotional campaign, Beckham was outsold eight to one, her single debuted at number 6. Beckham's eponymous debut album, released on 1 October 2001, reached Number 10 in the UK album chart; the album cost a reputed £5 million to produce and it sold a modest 50,000 copies. The second and final single to be released from the album was "A Mind of Its Own" on 11 February 2002; the single sold 56,500 copies. Rumours soon spread; these were refuted at the time. Beckham commented "You know what newspapers are like, they just like to put all the negative stuff in, but as far as I'm concerned and the record company is concerned it is all great." A third single, was promoted but never materialised. The single version was a remix featuring Robbie Craig, was performed on TV on Friday Night's All Wright.
Following the announcement of Beckham's second pregnancy, the single was shelved. Beckham was dropped by Virgin Records along with fellow Spice Girls Emma Bunton and Melanie
The London deep-level shelters are eight deep-level air-raid shelters that were built under London Underground stations during World War II. Each shelter consists of a pair of parallel tunnels 16 feet 6 inches in diameter and 1,200 feet long; each tunnel is subdivided into two decks, each shelter was designed to hold up to 8,000 people. It was planned that after the war the shelters would be used as part of new express tube lines paralleling parts of the existing Northern and Central lines. Existing tube lines had 11-foot-8.25-inch diameter running tunnels and about 21 feet at stations. However, they would have been suitable as running tunnels for main-line size trains. Ten shelters were planned, holding 100,000 people — 10,000 in each shelter; however the final capacity was around 8,000 people in each shelter, only eight were completed: at Chancery Lane station on the Central line and Belsize Park, Camden Town, Goodge Street, Clapham North, Clapham Common, Clapham South on the Northern line.
The other two were to be at St. Paul's station on the Central line, not built due to concern about the stability of the buildings above, Oval station on the Northern line due to difficult ground conditions encountered as the work started; the working shaft for the shelter at Oval now functions as a ventilation shaft for the station. The shelters were started in 1940 during the Blitz in response to public demand to shelter in the London Underground stations. However, they were not completed until 1942 after the Blitz was over, so they were all used by the government, but as bombing intensified five of them were opened to the public in 1944: Stockwell, Clapham North, Camden Town, Belsize Park and Clapham South; the Goodge Street shelter was used by General Eisenhower, the Chancery Lane shelter was used as a communications centre. After the war, the Goodge Street shelter continued to be used by the army until a fire on the night of 21 May 1956, after which the government decided the shelters were not suitable for use by large numbers of the public or military.
The Chancery Lane shelter was converted into Kingsway telephone exchange, as well as being expanded to serve as a Cold War government shelter. In 1948 the Clapham South shelter was used to house 200 of the first immigrants from the West Indies who had arrived on the MV Empire Windrush for 4 weeks until they found their own accommodation. In 1951, it became the Festival Hotel providing cheap stay for visitors to the Festival of Britain, but was closed after the aforementioned fire in the Goodge Street shelter; the shelter was used for archival storage for some years, but is now a Grade II listed building with pre-booked tours arranged by the London Transport Museum. The Clapham North shelter was purchased in 2014 by the Zero Carbon Food company, who use the shelter as a hydroponic farm. All the other shelters were sold by the government to Transport for London in the 1990s and several are still leased out for archival storage; the Goodge Street shelter appeared in studio mock-up form in the 1968 BBC Doctor Who story The Web of Fear.
The surface entrance to the Goodge Street shelter appears as itself in the 1988 feature film Hidden City and directed by Stephen Poliakoff, although interiors were shot at Clapham South. The Camden Town shelter was used to represent parts of Oval tube station in the 1976 two-part story The Lights of London in the BBC television series Survivors; the director of the second episode was Pennant Roberts, who subsequently directed the 1977 Doctor Who story The Sun Makers, in which the same shelter was used for scenes set in tunnels under Pluto. Roberts subsequently worked on the BBC series Blake's 7, in which the shelter was used for the interior of the titular artificial planet in the 1980 story Ultraworld, although the episode itself was directed by Vere Lorrimer; the shelter was used to represent parts of a secret underground facility in the vicinity of Down Street tube station in the 2005 feature film Creep. Reference is a made to a fictional deep-level air-raid shelter at Holland Park tube station in Ben Aaronovitch’s novel Whispers Under Ground, third in the Rivers of London series The Kingsway Telephone Exchange features prominently in the early part of the apocalyptic horror novel Domain by British author James Herbert.
Air raid shelter Blast shelter Civil defence centres in London Military citadels under London Subterranean London References SourcesEmmerson, A. and Beard, T. London's Secret Tubes, Capital Transport Publishing, ISBN 1-85414-283-6 The deep level shelters by Subterranea Britannica Photos from the Clapham South Deep Level Shelter Windrush settlers arrive in Britain, 1948 More pictures of the shelters Description of the design and construction by the consulting engineers: Ministry of Home Security: Deep Tunnel Air Raid Shelters: London 1942
Farrell Lines Incorporated was named in 1948 after James A. Farrell, Jr. and John J. Farrell, sons of James Augustine Farrell, president of US Steel; the company was known as American South African Lines. It was a passenger line and cargo line in regular service from New York City to South Africa stopping at Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Lourenço Marques in Mozambique; the ships carried about 180 passengers. In heraldic terms, the house flag is field per saltire blue, overlaid by a white saltire. 1925 New York to West Africa, South Africa 1935 New York to East Africa 1965 U. S. East Coast to Australia and New Zealand 1975 U. S. West Coast to Australia and New Zealand The ships funnel 1925 - 1946 Buff 1946 - 2000 Buff with black top and depiction of houseflag FRLU Note: Marks ending in U are for container owners; the heritage and shipping prowess of Farrell Lines can be traced back to the early 1900s when James A. Farrell Sr. the late president of the United States Steel Corporation, established his own steamship company.
The Isthmian Steamship Company was created in 1910 as a subsidiary of U. S. Steel and was designed to mitigate the costs of shipping U. S. Steel's freight. James A. Farrell grew up the son of a ship's captain, the knowledge he acquired aided him in establishing a shipping legacy. Farrell's foray into the shipping industry was a great success, he saved U. S. Steel Corporation substantial sums of money and decided to delve further into this new enterprise. By 1928, Farrell was involved in several shipping ventures and operated three of the most influential companies in the industry: Argonaut Lines, Robin Lines, the American South African Lines. James A. Farrell Sr. had two sons to whom he imparted his shipping business savvy. Both sons and James Jr. went on to operate two of the three major shipping investments. James Jr. was president of ASAL while John was principal stockholder and president of Argonaut Lines. In 1940, John abolished Argonaut Lines and transferred its vessels to ASAL. Shortly thereafter, James Jr. served in World War II in Naval Intelligence, upon returning home, he teamed up with his brother to run ASAL.
The two were able to create a powerful management team and operated the main U. S. flag and passenger service between Africa and the United States. By 1948, ASAL was the only line operated by the Farrell family and the name was subsequently changed to Farrell Lines. Determined to leave their imprint on the family legacy, the Farrell brothers worked tirelessly to improve their brand and position the company for growth. In 1965, they acquired the Australia-U. S. East Coast service from United States Lines. At this time the brothers ceased offering passenger services, fixing their focus onto the movement of cargo. Following their 1965 acquisition, growth came along and in the early 1970s the company began the transition to containerized cargo handling. Farrell Lines purchased another string of companies in 1975, including the West-Coast Australia Service of the Pacific Far-East Line. By 1978 Farrell Lines had become the second largest U. S.-flag merchant fleet, 44 ships, with the acquisition of the entire American Export Lines fleet, including two container ships under construction or on order at Bath Iron Works, the Argonaut and Resolute.
When James Jr. and John died in 1978 and 1968 they had made Farrell Lines a top-tier U. S. flag company. They had upheld their father's legacy and handed the company down to other members of the Farrell family, but difficult financial times hit the company, Farrell Lines dropped all of its African and European routes and sold 38 of its 44 ships. By 1991, Farrell Lines continued to operate with only four ships and catered to the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf. Farrell Lines became a subsidiary of P&O Nedlloyd Container Line Ltd. in 2000, subsequently purchased by the A. P. Møller-Maersk Group in 2005. Following the purchase, Farrell Lines became a part of Maersk Line, the U. S. flag operating arm of the A. P. Møller-Maersk Group. Under Maersk Line, Farrell Lines has reemerged as a U. S. flag roll-on, roll-off carrier. Maersk Line, Limited revitalized the Farrell Lines brand in 2010 and increased the fleet to four ships. Farrell Lines operates in partnership with Höegh Autoliners and its U. S. affiliate Alliance Navigation, focusing their efforts on transits between the U.
S. East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico to the Middle Southwest Asia. Farrell Lines has been able to sustain its tradition of leadership by participating in the Maritime Security Program and the Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement. S. military forces to ensure the fleet is prepared in the event. Farrell Lines International owned by Farrell Lines Inc. was a Liberian Company with offices at the Farrell House, Liberia. It existed from the 1950s until the Liberian Civil War, which started in 1988; the Company operated four coastal vessels registered in Liberia. Three were designed by Sparkman & Stevens and built by the John H. Mathis Company, Camden, NJ, they were the M/V Kpo, M/V Farmington and the M/V Cestos built in the 1950s by John H. Mathis & Company, Shipbuilders; the M/V Cavalla was a converted U. S. Navy landing ship, they were delivered to Africa on their own bottoms which took thirty days. These ships were designed to have good seagoing qualities and maneuverability so that they could cross a dangerous bar on their regular run.
The Officers were licensed and the crew well trained to navigate the coastal waters and rivers of West Africa. T