The Six O'Clock News from the BBC with Sue Lawley and Nicholas Wichelt.
Good evening, the headlines at six o'clock.
The cost of a mortgage is to go up by about £11 a week on average.
The Building Societies Association has recommended a rise of between 1 and 1.25% next month.
Police have a lead in the hunt for the man who stole the army payroll and killed the
three men carrying it.
Two witnesses saw a soldier dressed like this.
We report on the old people who are struggling to keep warm in some of the worst weather
for 20 years.
Mrs Thatcher has been telling the Germans why we'll celebrate the day the Nazis surrendered.
It was a rebirth of freedom for everyone, she said.
In Madras, victory for England, India avoided an innings defeat, but we went 2-1 up in the
test series.
And Wilfred Bramble, best known as Albert Steptoe, has died at the age of 72.
The week which began with the government coming to the aid of a tumbling pound has ended with
house buyers facing higher monthly bills for their mortgages.
The Building Societies will probably put up their interest rates next month by between
1 and 1.25%.
That was the recommendation of their association.
The Halifax and the Nationwide have already announced their increase of 1.25%.
The others are likely to follow.
The rise was almost inevitable after the government ordered an increase of 1.5% in bank interest
rates on Monday.
They did it to help the pound which has certainly steadied over the past few days and closed
tonight at $1.12.1.
And there was another piece of cheering news for the government today.
The inflation rate for 1984 had come in only a shade above target at 4.6%.
And the stock exchange, which has been practically ignoring the problems of the pound, broke
through the magical 1,000 mark as the Financial Times Index closed at a record 1,004.4.
A report first on the mortgage rate from John Friar.
Building Society managers went into this morning's meeting without a common view.
Some said a rise was inevitable and should be done now.
Others felt there was no need to rush.
But their chairman said there was no alternative.
I believe we have a strong obligation to our investors, 30 million of them, many of them
of course, to depend on the income that they get from their building society investment.
It is only reasonable that they have a fair return and we think that this adjusts the
position appropriately.
The borrower, yes, has to pay.
But we've kept that down as much as possible and I think it's a reasonable and responsible
approach that has been made.
The societies are still fairly flush with funds.
And that was one reason why Abbey National mounted a spirited lobby against an increase
today.
There's sharp competition between societies these days and Abbey National has been accused
by its rivals of just touting for business.
Because if other rates go up, so will theirs.
We had the second highest inflow ever in December, over a billion pounds for the industry as
a whole.
January has started reasonably well.
There's been no signs of the inflow dropping off in the last few days.
So that is why we were saying that it was unnecessary, an unnecessary rushed decision
to make those changes today.
If mortgages do go up by one and a quarter percent, the monthly repayment on a 10,000
pound mortgage will increase by £5.80.
For a 20,000 pound loan, it'll be £11.60 and on £30,000 the repayment will rise by
£17.40.
The cost of loans varies slightly between societies and each will be meeting next week
to decide where to pitch its new rate.
Today's move reverses the cut in mortgage rates last November, which for many borrowers
is only just taking effect.
The building societies placed the blame firmly on the run on the pound, which has in turn
pushed up interest rates generally.
But it will do nothing to help the government in its battle to keep prices down.
The government announced today that the annual inflation rate dropped to 4.6% last month.
But that's set to rise as today's mortgage increase will add another 0.4% to the index.
Detectives hunting the gunman who killed two soldiers and a retired army major in a wages
snatch have a new lead.
Two witnesses saw a man dressed as a soldier hurrying away from the scene of yesterday's
triple murder at Pennycook near Edinburgh.
This report from Mike Smart.
The man seen hurrying along the secluded country lane where the bodies of the three murdered
men were found very soon afterwards was dressed as Corporal David Campbell was at this afternoon's
press conference in the uniform of a Scottish lowland regiment.
One witness, a hill walker who also discovered the Pale Roll Party's abandoned Land Rover,
saw the uniformed man walking about 100 yards from where the vehicle had been left in a
ditch.
Another witness saw him running a further 100 yards along the road, but he didn't seem
to be armed or carrying anything.
Now the police are hoping to interview all 600 men at Corporal Campbell's barracks and
check the ammunition store.
They've already established that no soldier was absent without leave yesterday.
The police say the sightings are an important lead.
As we haven't traced this individual yet, he obviously has considerable importance as
he's in an area at or around a material time.
It's self-evident, we very much like to know who he was and what he was doing there.
Would you describe him at the moment then as your most important lead?
He is one of our most important leads as of now.
Although most of the police inquiries are now centred around the two sightings of the
man in uniform, senior officers are keen that potential witnesses don't necessarily assume
that he was a serving soldier.
The south west of England and parts of Wales have been experiencing the worst winter weather
people there have known for a number of years.
Cornwall was effectively cut off for a time this morning and tonight only main roads are
passable.
The west country took the worst of the overnight weather.
According to the weatherman, the blizzards forecast for central and southern areas of
the country were blown off course by strong winds.
Tonight much of southwest Britain is under deep snow.
Some villages are cut off and police say in some places conditions are getting worse.
They've told motorists not to travel unless they have to.
Chris Lowe reports.
Cornwall suffered its worst snowfall for 15 years and the county's road links with the
rest of Britain were cut.
Police advised drivers to keep off the roads and motorists heading for Cornwall across
the Tamar Bridge were warned to go no further.
Many isolated villages were cut off under eight inches of snow.
Farmers brought their livestock down from the High Moors and the city of Plymouth was
brought to a standstill with hundreds of workers being sent home early, many of them on foot.
There's been heavy snow in Wales too and the police have been advising drivers without
four-wheel drive vehicles to keep off the mountain roads.
Most of the main routes have been just passable but many minor roads have been completely blocked
as high winds whipped up the snow leaving some drivers completely stranded.
It's the same story in the west of England where six inches of snow have fallen in the
last 24 hours.
One county Wiltshire has used up its entire winter allocation of salt and some gritting
crews are sleeping in their cabs so that snow clearance can go on round the clock.
In Gloucestershire police found a man in a wheelchair heading up the hard shoulder of
the M5.
He said he'd broken down and was looking for an emergency phone.
For the weathermen the last 24 hours have been rather embarrassing.
Earlier this week they unveiled their new radar system designed to make short-range
forecasting even more accurate.
Last night however it came unstuck because we were told that London and the south east
would fall victim to the worst blizzard for years.
In the event scarcely a flake of snow has fallen because at the last minute the bad
weather changed course and it's now on its way to the Mediterranean.
Well with the weathermen predicting sub-zero night-time temperatures for several more days
yet there's increasing concern for Britain's old people.
Welfare organisations have today urged everyone to keep a close watch on elderly neighbours
especially for signs that they might be at risk from the cold and as Andrew Harvey reports
the problem is already putting increasing pressure on many local authorities.
The big freeze demands long hours and extra vigilance from nurses and social workers.
Hello there, how are you this morning?
Oh, all right thanks.
We should be in the middle.
Even their patients in a desperate attempt to keep warm present a pathetic picture.
What will you have for lunch today?
I don't know.
Ethel Lepage is in her nineties living alone in a West London basement.
With just a single fire in her living room the gas oven in the kitchen is kept burning
all day to add a little extra warmth.
But it's only the three visits a day from nurses like Linda Berkery that prevent Mrs
Lepage becoming just another hypothermia statistic.
The effects of extreme cold are reckoned to have killed 35,000 people last year.
Many health workers now have emergency hypothermia packs ready to rush to severe cases containing
everything from hot water bottles and extra food to a gas stove and warm bedding.
But as the present freeze goes on local authorities have an impossible task trying to identify
all those at risk.
This three-bedroomed house is owned by Hilda Littlejohn yet for weeks she's been living
in a single room downstairs.
She spends much of the time in bed sheltering from the freezing temperatures.
It's very bad because I've got a job.
I mean it takes me hours to get warm with I put all these things on and I've got a job
to hold anything in my hands and the things just go on the floor.
You know I mean I get no circulation in my hands.
My hands all go white and dead.
Even in bed that happens.
The important thing is really to choose a room, it's usually the living room that they're
going to sleep in as well as live in and really make sure that room is warm up to 70 if at
all possible.
And once they're in the room to stay in that room as far as possible, live in it and the
other thing too is to make sure they have at least one hot meal a day, plenty of hot
drinks and a good tip is to actually fill a flask at night before you go to bed with
hot tea or coffee whatever you like.
So you've got a hot drink in the night as well as first thing in the morning and not
to have a lot of very thick clothing on but lots and lots of layers of thin clothing that's
closely woven so that you get lots of layers of air in between the clothing.
Now a good neighbour approach is being urged by old people's organisations.
As the cold weather goes on they say only increased vigilance will save thousands of
the elderly from illness or even death.
Andrew Harvey reporting.
The Prime Minister has said the West is on the verge of a great step forward in its relations
with the Soviet Union.
After talks in bond with the West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl she said the American-Soviet agreement
to resume talks on nuclear arms control gave new hope.
She also said she hoped Germans and Russians would attend British national celebrations
of the VE Day anniversary to mark not the defeat of Germany but 40 years of peace and
freedom.
From Bonn here's our diplomatic editor John Simpson.
In the winter landscape which greeted Mrs Thatcher's helicopter as it came down in the
grounds of the Presidential Palace the snow lay deep and crisp and more or less even.
Because in Germany's standards are maintained the red carpet was laid out for her snow or
no snow and huskies might have suited the conditions better than the police dogs which
patrolled the grounds.
This never looked like being a controversial meeting.
Europe's two foremost conservatives see eye to eye on almost everything and any points
of disagreement were fielded by the team of ministers they brought with them.
Patrick Jenkin for instance was button-holed about the British pollution that's causing
a smog hazard here.
The two foreign ministers meanwhile chatted about East-West relations the most important
subject on the leaders agenda too.
But as they settled down with their backs to the snowscape the question most people
wanted answered was how the two countries planned to celebrate the 40th anniversary
of VE Day in May.
Chancellor Kohl's government has been changing its mind almost as much as Mrs Thatcher's
about it all but he said it would be a day of remembering the terrible things done in
Germany's name and the fact that it was a day of liberation for Germans, liberation
from Nazism.
Like West Germany we'll have our own separate celebration in Britain but the details still
seem uncertain.
So naturally we would wish to have we would expect to see our ambassador from Germany
and of course we would wish also expect to see the ambassador of the Soviet Union.
I'm in some difficulty about this because please the former celebration has not entirely
been decided and I'm almost talking about invitations before anyone can receive them
or before consultations have taken place in full.
Among the third of West Germany's population which still remembers the war there are mixed
feelings about marking the anniversary.
For the organization that represents prisoners of war VE Day holds very bad memories indeed
and it's not because they're Nazi sympathizers far from it but May the 8th 1945 was the day
Werner Kiesling the organization's president was taken prisoner by the Russians together
with hundreds of thousands of other members.
Kiesling was held under dreadful conditions for five years.
He says now he understands that Britain wants to celebrate but for him it'll be a day for
remembering.
Two years after the Allied forces liberated Europe the commemorative events being planned
by the different nations are generally low-key.
The emphasis will be on celebrating peace rather than glorying in the Allied victory.
The exception will be Russia where there are plans for six days of special events and a
massive rally at the Kremlin.
The Communist Central Committee says the occasion should be used to unmask the militaristic
plans of the United States and its NATO allies.
For Mrs. Thatcher the knowledge that West Germany was offended as being excluded from
last year's D-Day celebrations is thought to explain her initial reluctance to agree
to a national commemoration of VE Day in Britain.
But now the official view has changed and plans are being considered for a special service
at Westminster Abbey.
In the West German city of Cologne which was almost destroyed in the war there are plans
for a similar service.
And at Belsen the site of one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps there will
be a memorial gathering attended by Chancellor Cole.
He says it will be a day of confrontation with his country's history.
Ten years ago the French cancelled the annual tribute at the tomb of the unknown soldier
but their attempts to abolish the VE Day celebrations were defeated by public opinion and the ceremony
was reinstated.
Their theme this year will be reconciliation.
President Reagan is still considering the form of America's celebrations.
Like Mrs. Thatcher he's wary of offending German feelings.
Many of the celebrations will be left to individual groups and communities.
In Norway the people of Stavanger have invited back 700 allied servicemen who liberated the
town 40 years ago.
The Royal British Legion is organising monthly pilgrimages for war widows to visit their
husband's graves.
More than 400 widows are already planning to take advantage of the government's offer
of financial help for those who can't afford the trip.
The plans to commemorate victory in Europe Day.
Later in the programme a report on the children of a remote island who go over the seas to
school.
Their parents are asking the government to build them classrooms of their own.
Now the time is 6.17.
Tonight's headlines.
A rise in the mortgage rate of 1 to 1.25% has been recommended by the building societies
association.
The rise is likely to take effect next month.
The pound has ended its uncertain week with a closing price in London tonight of $1.12.1.
The stock exchange has closed tonight at an all time high.
The FT index has passed 1000 for the first time closing at 1004.4.
Police in Penicook think the person who killed three military men and snatched an army payroll
may himself be a soldier.
Parts of the west of England and Wales are still badly affected by the severe weather.
A number of roads in Devon and Cornwall are blocked.
Abroad now and Florida's campaign to put a stop to drug smuggling has forced traffickers
to move into adjoining states.
Now federal and state officials say they're losing the fight to control the drug trade.
With consignments coming in by night on planes flying low to evade radar, it's turned into
something of a war.
A report from Brian Barron.
The Florida authorities have had tremendous success against cocaine smugglers.
Very pure quality.
But they're not winning the war against the drug kings despite thousands of arrests in
a three year operation.
For the smugglers are bypassing Florida and shipping in marijuana and cocaine by the ton
to other southern states.
From Texas to Georgia the authorities talk of being overwhelmed.
In New Orleans a group of governors demanded more federal help.
They have the responsibility and the authority to employ even the use of our army, navy and
air force in efforts to stop this trafficking across our borders.
Hey this is it, he's going in Ben.
There's a strip then.
Most of the smugglers flights from the Caribbean or South America are made at night at very
low level.
They often land on makeshift runways.
As this film shot by American customs agent shows, the smugglers are taking huge risks
and sometimes don't make it.
I told you we might see somebody die here.
He just crashed.
Did he crash?
He just crashed.
He's just crashed.
There's a firewall.
One smuggling tactic is trying to bribe local sheriffs.
Nine have been arrested in two years.
I was approached or some overtones were made to me that there would be a hundred thousand
dollars that I could have if I would have my men in certain areas where they wouldn't
be bothering anyone else.
That sheriff turned them down but that doesn't deter the smugglers.
This is Brian Barron for the 6 o'clock news in Washington.
Two British engineers who've been held in Nigeria since last May were acquitted of serious
charges in court today and then immediately re-arrested by Lagos police.
The two men, Kenneth Clark and Angus Patterson, both from Scotland, are employed by Bristow
helicopters.
The British High Commission is trying to re-establish the reasons for the re-arrest.
The foreign office has announced that the RAF airlift of emergency supplies for Ethiopia's
famine victims is to be extended for another two months until the end of March.
The government has also sent a message of condolence to Ethiopia after last weekend's
rail crash in which nearly 400 people died.
An explosion followed by a fire at a refinery near Cologne has injured 33 people, at least
seven of them seriously.
Flames and smoke rose 3,000 feet above the refinery.
The explosion happened when a pipe carrying liquid gas broke.
Experts say there was no danger from escaping fumes.
The co-boards say more miners than at any time since last November have given up their
strike this week.
The boards say 218 men returned today, making more than 2,800 this week alone.
The miners' unions say the figures are grossly exaggerated.
In Derbyshire, miners' wives and their supporters were joined by the MP for Chesterfield, Tony
Ben.
The board insisted that in terms of public support, the miners had already won their
case.
Some who supported the strike totally were being forced back to work through starvation.
Wilfred Bramble, who for 20 years played the part of Albert Steptoe in the TV series Steptoe
and Son, has died.
He was 72.
He'd been ill for several months and for the last two weeks he'd been treated for cancer
at the Westminster Hospital in London.
Wilfred Bramble went into the theatre at an early age, but he was best known as the scruffy
old rag and bone man Albert Steptoe, forever quarrelling with his son Harold, played by
the actor Harry Corbett, who died two years ago.
Together they became a national institution, forming one of the most popular partnerships
in British television.
Hey, I remember this.
Mussolini invades Albania.
King's dog fleas.
There's nothing, mate, we've got King's size fleas here.
It's out of luck, I'm pinched, I've felt, felt, felt.
And it smells too.
I can't smell anything.
Of course you can't, you smell worse than your house does.
Wilfred Bramble, who died today.
England have won the second test in Madras.
Their captain David Gowell called it a great victory which would do wonders for English
cricket.
And Glasgow Celtic has been punished for the violent behaviour of its supporters during
a game last December.
They received a small fine and escaped a ban.
With more details of the test and other sports news, here's Mark Austin.
So as expected, England won the fourth test against India in Madras to go 2-1 up in the
series with one match to play.
But India's batsmen salvaged some pride by avoiding an innings defeat and a record equaling
last wicket partnership ensured England had to bat again.
They knocked off the runs for the loss of Fowler to win by nine wickets.
Azaruddin had added only two to his overnight score of 103 when Pocock struck just the early
blow England needed.
Gower turned down the new ball opting for spin.
He was proved right when Ravi Shastri fell to Edmonds.
Of all the Indian batsmen, Shastri had looked the best equipped to spend all day at the
crease.
With him gone, India were in deep trouble but Saeed Kermani soon proved there was life
left in the Indians.
And Kapil Dev too was in no mood for surrender.
The pair put on 82 in just 74 minutes.
Cowans was recalled with the new ball and soon put an end to Kapil's brief but boisterous
innings.
Neil Foster also returned and soon trapped Shivarama, Foster's 11th wicket of the match.
He looks a fine replacement for Bob Willis.
Jadav went soon after lunch, one wicket left and an innings victory beckoning for England.
When the end came, courtesy of Edmonds, Kermani and Sharma had made England bat again, their
last wicket partnership equaling the record against England.
With stacks of time left, England needed just 33 to win but Fowler, who made 200 in the
first innings, this time made just two.
But that was the only fright for England, Robinson and Gatting finishing the job.
The winning runs were hit by Robinson.
An historic victory for England, they need only a draw in the last test to become the
first English side to win an overseas series since the tour to Australia in 1978 and 79.
David Gower was understandably delighted.
A number of gentlemen played very well indeed, I think you have to give immense credit to
people like Graham Fowler and Mike Gatting for their batting and Neil Foster especially
with the ball, his tally of wickets in this match was tremendous to see having just included
him in the side for this game.
I do then put it down to a team effort, we've worked very well together, we've kept working
throughout the test.
Once we were so many runs ahead, that put us in a very, very good position.
Well probably almost as pleased as David Gower, although for different reasons, are the players
and officials of Celtic Football Club.
Celtic have escaped a ban from European competitions following crowd trouble in their replayed
Cup Winners Cup tie against Rapid Vienna last month.
Instead they've been fined £17,000 and ordered to play their next European match behind closed
doors.
The game was replayed at Old Trafford Manchester after crowd trouble in the first match at
Celtic's ground.
The Glasgow side were facing defeat when one of their fans attacked the Austrian goalkeeper.
After the game was over, another fan ran across the pitch and kicked the Austrian goalscorer
in the groin.
Both supporters were eventually jailed for three months and the outlook for Celtic looked
grim indeed.
It had been expected that the club would face a ban from European competition for at least
two years.
There's great relief that they've escaped that, playing their next match behind closed
doors may cost them up to a quarter of a million pounds, but that's little compared with what,
in all honesty, they must have been expecting.
Professor David Hay gave his reaction.
I feel personally happy and relieved for the players because basically they had done nothing
wrong.
If anything they'd lost their chance of playing the quarterfinals of the Cup this year and
for them to have suffered any more I felt it would be unfair.
Anyone travelling in the West Country at the moment is likely to be having difficulties,
but for one group of school children there are problems every day.
They live on the tiny island of Bryar, one of the Silly Isles.
There is a school building on the island but it's closed and the Education Secretary Sir
Keith Joseph has just rejected an appeal from the Isles of Silly Council to reopen it.
He says there aren't enough children to justify it.
So as Peter Gould reports, the children have to make a daily boat journey to the neighbouring
island of Tresco.
On the Sillies the locals say it's the coldest winter in 20 years and no one feels it more
than the children of Bryar.
The island has a population of 60 but the nearest school is across the water on neighbouring
Tresco.
So every morning at daybreak the eight primary pupils from Bryar set off to catch not the
school bus but the school boat.
And for these children oil skins and life jackets are as much a part of their lives
as satchels and school books.
In winter it's wet and often bitterly cold although the crossing between the two islands
takes only a few minutes and at Tresco the local version of a lollipop lady is waiting
to see them all safely ashore.
But many islanders feel that the journey is too tiring for the children, some of whom
like Katie Dan are as young as four and a half.
The campaign to reopen the school on Bryar is being led by the island's councillor.
I think for the very young children from say four to six years old then we're adding,
I don't know how long, well over an hour is travelling time on top of their school time
each day so they're away from school from home from about eight o'clock in the morning
and our children often it's twenty to five when they get home.
I think it's a long day for a four year old.
This is the old school on Bryar.
It was built by men of the island in their spare time and closed twelve years ago when
the number of pupils fell from six to just one but islanders were promised then that
it would reopen if numbers rose and now there are eight children.
The Isles of Silly Council is backing parents demands for that pledge to be honoured but
the education secretary Sir Keith Joseph has rejected their request and so the Bryar children
must continue their extraordinary journey.
He says they will do better if they stay at the larger school on Tresco and it will save
him money but the education authority has to pay out four thousand pounds a year for
the hire of the boat.
By the time the children arrive home it's getting dark and the cold journey has been
too much for young Katie Dan.
Oh dear are you freezing?
Let's take them off.
What it's cold?
Your hands?
Never mind.
And it's the younger children who are causing mothers most concern.
Not that we have anything against the school on Tresco or the journey there particularly
it's just that it lengthens the school day so much.
The children leave very early in the morning and don't return until nearly five o'clock
at night.
Sometimes in wet weather and sometimes it's choppy in the channel and whatever they sometimes
arrive on Tresco damp and they have to remain like that all day.
But the Department of Education has made up its mind.
Briar School will remain closed and Sir Keith will go on paying the ferryman.
Rabbi Cliff Cohen who was sacked from his synagogue for not taking his duties sufficiently
seriously has been rehearsing his comedy double act today.
He and his partner playing under the stage names of Muzzle and Toff begin a series of
late night shows in a small London theatre on Monday.
The rabbi has made no secret of wanting to be a success in show business.
Gavinezla watched him prepare for the big time.
It was all about the Messiah.
The Lord is a coming from his throne on high.
Now when you're Jewish.
When the curtain came down on Cliff Cohen's last performance as a rabbi in a London synagogue
he had shocked his congregation by telling jokes on serious occasions.
The Jewish tradition says that if all the Jews were to correctly observe the Sabbath
twice in a row says our tradition that would bring the Messiah.
Why twice?
I don't quite know.
I mean you know once would be such an improvement but there we are.
Tradition says twice.
When they sacked him he said if Impresario Lou Grade phoned he'd jump at any offers.
Mr. Grade didn't call but theatre manager Andrew Imson did.
He is a man that has a talent that is very special to himself.
I mean everybody likes a Jewish joke.
Today Cliff was rehearsing with his partner Jane Ward for their opening night on Monday
in a theatre that used to be a mortuary.
Two thirds of the seats for their musical comedy show have already been taken.
Now you can take it easy let it pass you by and when Messiah comes you'll be the one to
cry but if you think Messiah's worth the suffering for then eat and ears will know no one to
yonk upon.
You gotta put the filling on your almond head and when it comes to basil then you don't eat
bread.
The book is lying open with your name on the page in the Messianic Age.
Well-la, well-la, well-la everybody gonna be going to the mikvah everybody gonna be
singing hot tikvah everybody gonna have a wonderful time down here.
Oh glory hallelujah everybody gonna be a real believer.
Members of the Wadden Jumpin' they are keeper everybody gonna have a wonderful time down
here.
Oh yeah.
Rabbi Cliff Cohen and that was the six o'clock news on Friday the 18th of January the day
on which the Met Office explaining the absence of the blizzards they predicted across southern
Britain said we were right about there being a lot of snow it just wasn't in the right
area.
Let's hope it's not in your area tonight.
Have a good weekend.
Keep warm.
We'll see you next week.
If shet δεν söyl condemn or