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Wednesday 26 December 2018



Web Page No 2540

29th  December 2018

Happy New Year Everyone.

Petula ClarkCBE

1st Picture. Young Petula Clark




 2nd Picture. Downtown Cover
 3rd Picture. Petula at 83





4th Picture. Petula and Family

This is someone that many of us feel that we grew up with, from a child actress she always seems to have been around. She was born Sally Olwen Clark, in Epsom on 15th  November 1932 and her career spans seven decades. Both of her parents were nurses there at Long Grove Hospital. Her mother was of Welsh ancestry and her father was English. Young Sally's stage name of Petula was invented by her father, Leslie Clark; he joked it was a combination of the names of two former girlfriends, Pet and Ulla.
During the  War she lived with her sister at the home of their grandparents in Pontlottyn South Wales, in a small stone house with no electricity, no running water and a toilet at the bottom of the garden. Her grandparents spoke little English and she learned to speak Welsh. Her grandfather was a coal miner and her first ever live audience was at the Colliers' Arms in Abercanaid, near Merthyr Tydfil.
As a child she sang in the chapel choir and showed a talent for mimicry, impersonating Vera LynnCarmen Miranda and Sophie Tucker for her family and friends.[Her father took her to see Flora Robson in a 1938 production of Mary Stuart; here she I made up her mind to be an actress. However, her first public performances were as a singer, performing with an orchestra in the entrance hall of Bentall's Department Store in Kingston upon Thames for a tin of toffee and a gold wristwatch, in 1939.
Her professional career began as an entertainer on the Radio through the War. During the 1950s she started recording in French and having international success in both French and English, with such songs as "The Little Shoemaker", "Baby Lover", "With All My Heart" and "Prends Mon Cœur". During the 1960s, she became known globally for her popular hits, including "Downtown", "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love", "Colour My World", "This Is My Song" and "Don't Sleep in the Subway. She has sold more than 68 million records. From a chance beginning at 9, she would appear on radio, film, print, television and recordings by the time she turned 17.
In October 1942, at 9 years old she made her radio debut while attending a BBC broadcast with her father. She was there trying to send a message to an uncle stationed overseas, but the broadcast was delayed by an air raid. During the bombing, the producer requested that someone perform to settle the jittery theatre audience, and she volunteered to an enthusiastic response. She then repeated her performance for the broadcast audience, launching a series of some 500 appearances in programmes designed to entertain the troops. In addition to radio work, she frequently toured with fellow child performer Julie Andrews and they performed for George VIWinston Churchill and Bernard Montgomery.
While performing at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1944, she was discovered by film director Maurice Elvey, who cast her, at age 12, in his weepy war drama Medal for the General. In quick succession, she performed in  London TownHere Come the HuggettsVote for Huggett and The Huggetts Abroad, films based on the radio series. Although some of the films she made in the UK during the 1940s and 1950s were B-films] she worked with Anthony Newley and  Alec Guinness  In 1945.
In 1946, she launched her television career with an appearance on a variety show, Cabaret Cartoons, which led to her being signed to host her own afternoon series, ‘Petula Clark’Pet's Parlour followed in 1949.
In 1947, Clark met Joe "Mr Piano" Henderson at the Maurice Publishing Company. The two collaborated musically and were linked romantically over the coming decade. In 1949 Henderson introduced her to Alan A. Freeman who, together with her father Leslie, formed Polygon Records for which she recorded her earliest hits. She had recorded her first release, "Put Your Shoes On, Lucy", for EMI. Because neither EMI nor Decca, for whom she also had recorded, were keen to sign her father teamed with Alan Freeman to form the Polygon record label This project was financed with Petula’s earnings. She scored a number of major hits during the 1950s, including "The Little Shoemaker" (1954), "Majorca" (1955), "With All My Heart" (1956). "The Little Shoemaker" was an international hit, reaching No. 1 in Australia, the first of many No. 1 records in her career. Although she released singles in the US as early as 1951 it was 13 years before the American record-buying public discovered her.
Near the end of 1955, Polygon Records was sold to Nixa Records, then part of Pye Records. This turn of events signed her to Pye for the remainder of the 1950s, through the 1960s and early into the 1970s.
In 1957, she was invited to appear at the Paris Olympia where, despite a bad cold, she was received with acclaim. The following day she was invited to the office of Vogue Records to discuss a contract. It was there that she met her longtime publicist, collaborator and future husband, Claude Wolff. In 1960, she embarked on a concert tour of France and Belgium with Sacha Distel, who remained a close friend until his death. She recorded in GermanFrenchItalian and Spanish and established herself as a multi-lingual performer.
During her new career in France, she continued to achieve hit records in the UK into the early 1960s. Her 1961 recording of "Sailor" became her first No.1 hit in the UK, while such follow-up recordings as "Romeo" and "My Friend the Sea" landed her in the British Top Ten later that year. "Romeo" sold over one million copies globally, and was her first gold disc. In France, "Ya Ya Twist" the only successful recording of a twist song by a woman became a smash hit in 1962,
In 1964, she wrote the soundtrack for the French crime film A Couteaux Tirés and made a cameo appearance as herself. Additional film scores included Animato (1969), La bande à Bebel (1966), and Pétain (1989).]
She was the subject of This Is Your Life in February 1964, and twice more, in April 1975 and March 1996, becoming the only person to receive the television tribute three times.
By 1964, her British recording career was foundering. Tony Hatch, who had been assisting her at Vogue Records in France and Pye Records in the UK, flew to her home in Paris with new material but she liked none of it.  Desperate, he played a few chords of an incomplete song and on hearing the melody she said she wanted to record the tune as her next single and "Downtown" was born.
"Downtown" was the first of 15 consecutive Top 40 hits she had in the US.The American recording industry awarded her a  for "Best Rock & Roll Recording of 1964" for "Downtown" and for "Best Contemporary (R&R) Vocal Performance of 1965 – Female" for "I Know a Place." In 2004, her recording of "Downtown" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Her recording successes led to frequent appearances on American programmes hosted by Ed Sullivan and Dean Martin. In 1968, NBC-TV invited her to host her own special and in doing so she made television history. While singing a duet of her anti-war song "On the Path of Glory," with guest Harry Belafonte, she took hold of his arm, to the dismay of a representative from the show's sponsor, who feared that the moment would incur racial backlash from Southern viewers.  When he insisted that they substitute a different take, with the singers standing well away from each other, she refused, destroyed all other takes of the song, and delivered the finished original programme to NBC with the touch intact. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the original telecast, she appeared at the Paley Center for Media in Manhattan on 22nd  September 2008, to discuss the broadcast and its impact, following a showing of the programme.
She revived her film career in the late 1960s, in two big musicals, Finian's Rainbow (1968), opposite Fred Astaire.  The following year she was cast with Peter O'Toole in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), a musical adaptation of the classic story.
Throughout the late 1960s, she toured the States and during this period, she continued her interest in encouraging new talent. Richard Carpenter credited her with bringing him and Karen to Alpert's attention when they performed at a premiere party for Goodbye, Mr. Chips.
During the early 1970s, she had chart singles on both sides of the Atlantic and she continued touring performing in clubs in the US and Europe.
In the mid-1970s, Clark scaled back her career in order to devote more time to her family.
On 31st  December 1976, she performed "Downtown" on BBC1's A Jubilee of Music, celebrating British popular music for the impending Silver Jubilee. Through the 1970s, she made numerous appearances on variety, comedy and game show television programmes and in 1980 she made her last film appearance, in Never Never Land. 
As she moved away from film and television, she returned to the stage but it was not until 1981, at the urging of her children, that she returned to legitimate theatre, starring as Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music in London's West End. In 1983, she took on the title role in  Shaw's Candida. Later stage work includes Someone Like You in 1989 and 1990, for which she composed the score, Blood Brothers, in which she made her Broadway debut in 1993 followed by the American tour and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard, appearing in both the West End and American touring productions from 1995 to 2000. In 2004, she repeated her performance of Norma Desmond in a production at the Opera House in Cor kwith more than 2,500 performances, she has played the role more often than any other actress.
In 1998, she was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and in 2012, she was installed as a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France by the French Minister of Culture.
In November 2006, she was the subject of a BBC Four documentary titled Petula Clark: Blue Lady and appeared with Michael Ball and Tony Hatch in a concert at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane  In 2007, she took part in the BBC Wales programme Coming Home, about her Welsh family history. She was presented with the 2007 Film & TV Music Award for Best Use of a Song in a Television Programme for "Downtown" in the ABC series Lost. 
In 2010, she became president of the Hastings Musical Festival; toured Australia, New Zealand and Quebec and appeared on French television.
In November 2011, at age 78, Clark performed at the Casino de Paris, a Parisian music hall. Clark entertained for more than 90 minutes and introduced five new songs, one of which she had recently written with friend Charles Aznavour. A French album of all new material was to be released on 7 February 2012 on the Sony label, Clark's first in that language since the late 1970s. On 11 December 2011, the Saw Doctors released their version of "Downtown," featuring her. In February 2012, she completed her first New York City show since 1975.  After the end of her season, which had to be extended due to the demand for tickets, she returned to Paris to promote her new album, before flying to Australia for a tour.
On 20 June 2015, she appeared with the Midtown Men at the Beacon Theatre in New York City, performing "Downtown"and Petula makes a cameo appearance in the 2017, London Heathrow Airport Christmas television commercial, accompanied by her song, "I couldn't live without your love"
In October 1957, she was invited to appear at the Paris Olympia for the Europe N°1 live radio show Musicorama. The next day she was invited to the office of Vogue Records' chairman Léon Cabat to discuss recording in French and working in France. It was there that she met her future husband the publicist Claude Wolff, to whom she was attracted immediately; and, when she was told that he would work with her if she recorded in French, she agreed. They have two daughters and a son. Since 2012, Clark has lived for most of the year in Geneva, she also has a holiday chalet in the French Alps, where she likes to ski, and she has a pied-à-terre in  Chelsea.

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Peter




On this day 29th December 1960-1965.

On 29/12/1960 the number one single was I Love You - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was Tottenham Hotspur. The top rated TV show was The Arthur Haynes Show (ATV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68. End of National Service in Britain The big news story of the day was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada)
On 29/12/1961 the number one single was Moon River - Danny Williams and the number one album was Another Black & White Minstrell Show - George Mitchell Minstrels. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Geologist explains Continental Drift.
On 29/12/1962 the number one single was Return to Sender - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Black & White Minstrel Show - George Mitchell Minstrels. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Tax reduced to 25% on TVs and radios.
On 29/12/1963 the number one single was I Want to Hold Your hand - The Beatles and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 29/12/1964 the number one single was I Feel Fine - The Beatles and the number one album was Beatles For Sale - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Donald Campbell sets water speed record.
On 29/12/1965 the number one single was Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out - The Beatles and the number one album was Rubber Soul - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.





Christmas tree outside Christ Church in Gosport




Monday 24 December 2018

Image result for happy christmas images

Pam and I hope you all have a very Happy and Peaceful Christmas 

I am looking forward to posting even more blogs in 2019

Yours

Peter

Wednesday 19 December 2018


Web Page No 2538

22nd December 2018

Christmas Films
1st Picture. It’s a Wonderful Life
  


2nd Picture. The Grinch who stole Christmas
 3rd Picture. A Christmas Carol








4th Picture. The Muppets Christmas Carol


Happy Christmas Everyone

Now for the Annual Christmas Quiz


Name the Film. The dates are the release dates of the original films. The answers are in the You Write Section.

Example

Call for assistance (1965)          =     Help
Now try these!!!

1 Haphazard gathering (1942)
2 He has left university (1968)
3 This film was dedicated to the fifty (1963)
4 Bear was found there (2014)
5 Would you want her on your drive? (2015)
6 He ‘phoned home’ (1982)
7 Huge (1997)
8 The flying vehicle (1968)
9 Robbers of the sea (2003)
10 Meal at the jewellers (1961)
11 Hot carriages (2012)
12 They were ‘her girls’(1969)
13 Larry Adler played throughout (1953)
14 Farewell spud (1939)
15 A marvellous river (1960)
16 Locomotive offspring (1971)
17 Two American soldiers (1958)
18 Fairground attraction (1945)
19 Celestial battles (1977)
20 Annual ladies (200)
21 Valuable digit (1964)
22 Revolution on a chocolate bar (1962)
23 Solitary dwelling (1990)
24 Platform trainer (1939)
25 Will was smitten (1998)
26 Monarch (2006)
27 The cattleman strikes twelve (1969)
28 He would be at a baptism (1972)
29 Very chilly (2013)

You write:

The Answers

1 Random Harvest
2 The Graduate
3 The Great Escape
4. Paddington
5 The Lady in the Van
6 ET
7 Titanic
8 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
9 Pirates of the Caribbean
10 Breakfast at Tiffany’s
11 Chariots of Fire
12 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
13 Genevieve
14 Goodbye Mr. Chips
15 The Magnificent Seven
16 The Railway Children
17 GiGi
18  Carousel
19 Star Wars
20 Calendar Girls
21 Valuable digit Goldfinger
22 Mutiny on the Bounty
23 Home Alone
24 Stagecoach
25 Shakespeare in Love
26 The Queen
27 Midnight Cowboy
28 The Godfather
29  Frozen



Wednesday 12 December 2018


Web Page No 2536

15th December 2018

1st Picture. Alan Wicker

 2nd Picture. Alan Wicker with his partner when he received his CBE





3rd Picture. Wickers World

Alan Wicker

It seemed for a time that during the 1950s and 60s Alan Wicker was never off our screens in fact  Whicker's World  ran from 1958 to 1994.
Originally a segment on the BBC's Tonight programme in 1958, Whicker's World became a fully-fledged television series in its own right in the 1960s. The series was first shown by the BBC until 1968, and then by ITV from 1968 to 1983, by Yorkshire Television, in which Alan Whicker himself was a shareholder. The series returned to the BBC in 1984, and to ITV again in 1992.
He was noted for reporting stories of social interest from around the world. His interviewees included locals, politicians, celebrities, and even convicted criminals. He reported on military dictatorships, British expatriates, the feminist movement of the 1970s, the Tanka people of Hong Kong, the American Gay Rights movement, the building of Disneyworld in Florida and the plastic surgery industry.
Among his interviewees were Peter SellersJoan CollinsBritt EklandLiza Minnelli, and Christopher Lee, Haitian dictator François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner, novelist Harold Robbins, Lula Parker Betenson (the 94-year-old sister of the outlaw Butch Cassidy), the Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah (reputedly the richest man in the world at the time of filming), Luciano Pavarotti, several former Maharajas of India and various members of the British aristocracy.
Although episodes were self-contained, he would often film a series of episodes devoted to one particular location or subject, including five whole series devoted to the United States and three about Australia. Multi-episode series dedicated to the South PacificEurope, India, Hong Kong, Spain, and a voyage on the QE2 were also made. These were usually given series titles such as Whicker's New World (1969), Whicker In Europe (1970), Whicker's Walkabout: Seven Scenes Down Under (1970), Whicker Within A Woman's World (1972), Whicker Way Out West (1973), Whicker's South Seas (1973), Whicker's World Down Under (1976), Whicker's World: A Fast Boat to China(1984), Whicker's World: Living With Uncle Sam (1985), Whicker's World: Living with Waltzing Maltilda (1988), and Whicker's World: A Taste of Spain (1992). Two episodes were filmed on the Orient Express, the first on the Venice-Simplon Orient Express in 1982 and the second on the Eastern and Oriental Express in 1993.
In 1998, he made a six-part radio series, Around Whicker's World, for BBC Radio 2. In 2009, he returned to television with Alan Whicker's Journey of A Lifetime, a four-part series for the BBC in which he revisited some of the locations and people shown in Whicker's World decades earlier to see how their lives had progressed since his original interviews with them. Included in this was a third visit to American plastic surgeon Dr. Kurt Wagner and his wife Kathy, whom he had already made two programmes about in 1973 and 1980 and had considered them among his favourite interviewees.
Whicker's World was a huge ratings success in the UK, and one of the longest running series in the history of British television. The series was nominated for a variety of awards throughout its run including several BAFTA Awards. The 1977 episode "Palm Beach" garnered three BAFTA nominations for Best Documentary, Best Sound, and Best Editing, and Alan Whicker himself won the Richard Dimbleby Award at the 1977 BAFTA ceremony and had also won a BAFTA in 1964 for his presentation in the Factual category.
In 1971, the series won the Dumont International Journalism Award at the University of California for the 1969 episode "Papa Doc - The Black Sheep" (in which he interviewed Haitian dictator "Papa Doc" Duvalier). The episode "Harold Robbins - I'm The World's Best Writer" won the Best Interview Programme Award at the Hollywood Festival of World Television in 1972.
in June 1981.[12] Graham de Wilde also composed the theme tune for the 1980s BBC episodes of Whicker's World.[13]
The Whicker's World Foundation is an organization that was created by Alan Whicker to encourage the making of quality documentary programmes. Now overseen by his partner Valerie Kleeman, each year the foundation awards £80,000 to a new director with the most promising pitch for an authored film or television documentary which fulfils the criteria of the foundation and can be completed for screening with the amount given. Whicker's World Foundation offers over £100,000 of prize money each year, including funding and recognition awards for audio documentaries.
He was born on 2nd August 1921 and died 12th July 2013

You Write:


This from Griff

 The Missing Court Lane School Play.

At last it has turned up.     Who had this program stashed away Peter? ( I am afraid someone sent it to me ages ago Peter!!!)

 Aah! how the memories came flooding back This was for me and many others our 1st year at Court Lane Senior School in 1957. Bill Greer, English Master was the drama teacher at the time as I remember.

I couldn't remember the name of this play in which I played the "Royal Doctor". Interesting though when you look at the names of everyone listed in both plays. I can only picture most of them now as they all were at the time........lol.   Some of them of course I have met much later in life at reunions.

Mr Greer went on to produce a couple of more school plays at Court Lane as I recall and I know I was in one other play at Court Lane but cannot remember any of the detail now.

It was a good grounding in amateur dramatics at both Court Lane & Manor Court because I did go on to play in amateur theatre in my 20's at  Cowplain Drama Club Theatre performing 3 or 4 times in drama's such as  "An Inspector Calls" by J.B Priestly.  and  "The Ghost Train" by Arnold Ridley.

Regards to All & A Merry Christmas for 2018 ..... Melvyn   ( Griff ) Griffiths.




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Peter


On this day 15th December 1960-65

On 15/12/1960 the number one single was It's Now Or Never - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Tottenham Hotspur. The top rated TV show was The Army Game (Granada) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £not very interesting and 13.68 were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada).
On 15/12/1961 the number one single was Tower of Strength - Frankie Vaughan and the number one album was Another Black & White Minstrell Show - George Mitchell Minstrels. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 15/12/1962 the number one single was Return to Sender - Elvis Presley and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 15/12/1963 the number one single was I Want to Hold Your hand - The Beatles and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 15/12/1964 the number one single was I Feel Fine - The Beatles and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 15/12/1965 the number one single was Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out - The Beatles and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.