The horrors of 1922 included atrocities, assassinations and the rise of Mussolini

Sixty years ago the Daily Express ran a regular feature entitled ‘Just Fancy That!’ Each short segment highlighted some strange coincidence or weird incident that would hook readers’ interests. Human oddities, unlucky mischances, freaks of nature and improbable statistics were dealt out every day. It made for easy reading, but sometimes gave pause for thought.

Nick Rennison has adapted the ‘Just Fancy That!’ formula to make a handy book for the bedside table in the visitors’ bedroom. In crisp and evocative snatches, he gives monthly summaries of global events, domestic episodes, newspaper sensations, sporting triumphs and cultural acclaim during 1922. He writes in the friendly tone, tinged with the sense of mild wonder that was perfected in ‘Just Fancy That!’ columns.

It was a year of momentous global events. The Ottoman empire perished after nearly five centuries. Mehmed VI, the last sultan, was smuggled out of his palace in a British army ambulance and went into exile at San Remo with three of his choicest wives. Turkish troops committed unspeakable atrocities in Smyrna before setting the city ablaze in a flagitious crime against humanity. The Irish Free State and the Soviet Union came into being. Mussolini took power in Italy, which he declared to be a fascist state.

IRA gunmen shot dead Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson on his doorstep, and an obese aristocratic madman did the same to Finland’s minister of the interior. After five days in office, the Polish president was shot at an art exhibition by a right-winger. Walther Rathenau, the German industrialist and foreign minister, was killed in a pistol and grenade attack conducted by thugs who were later honoured by the Nazis. The Irish republican Erskine Childers was executed by a fusillade of bullets, at Beggar’s Bush barracks in Dublin, after first shaking hands with each member of the firing squad.