Web Page No 814

Top Picture: Home Sweet Home in the early 1960’s. Remember those coffee tables???






Bottom Picture: A Corporation dust cart






THE DUSTBIN MEN AND THE WINTER.


When we were kids the old refuse or bin wagons would visit every single week. This was well before the days of wheelie bins and different collections on alternate weeks. The dustbin men would lift the metal bins by their handles, made heavy with the daily ashes from the grates of all the coal fires, onto their leather clad shoulders, carry them from inside the back garden down to the lorry and then empty them into the wagon through a hatch which had a sliding top. I also remember that we had a separate bin outside the back door for pigswill, I do not remember who collected it or when it stopped. Those were the days when the dustman would take anything providing it could be broken up and put into the lorry, mind you it would probably cost you a couple of bob orso!

On snowy or icy days the householders would scatter the ashes onto the paths, drives and pavements to give a good foothold, After a period of snow which had turned to ice on the pavements, council workmen would then come along and break up the ice with shovels and throw it into lorries to be taken away and dumped into the sea, normally on the shores of Portsmouth Harbour.

Us kids would often make snowmen with lumps of coal for eyes and mouth and create giant snowballs by rolling an ordinary size snowball downhill or across the lawn in the snow until it got bigger and bigger. Once the snowball was big enough the tricky part of hollowing it out and making an igloo began. Snowball fights were common, especially in the mornings while waiting for school to start, and when the overnight fall was still fresh. Sledging took place and lying face down on the sledge and steering with your feet was known as going belly-flappers. With all the dirt of industry, smoky chimneys, steam locomotives etc. the snow did not stay pure and white for very long, it soon turned a soggy grey colour. But one of the best things was to make ice slides along the pavement or in the school playground. These were far from popular with the teaching staff and they would instruct the caretaker to go out before school and after playtime to sprinkle, ashes, salt or sand around so as to ruin the slides we had so painstakingly made.

These are all memories from the 1950’s and early 1960’s so moving on something else that we do not see very often these days is a street cleaner. When we were kids there always seemed to be a guy with a two wheeled bin trolley and a selection of brooms and shovels keeping the gutters clean and free from litter and leaves and the pavements clear of papers and dog mess. In fact all these cleaners seemed to have a regular route for which they were responsible. Today all we see is a large, left handed driven mechanical vehicle that sprays a minimal amount of water around and slowly moves down our streets with fast rotating round brushes on the front and a vacuum tube behind. These might be modern but they do not sweep under parked cars or other obstacles like the old road sweeper used to and so today we tend to get only partly swept streets. Another thing that seems to have disappeared from the road scene completely is the vacuum tanker lorry with the long snorkel attached that was used to suck the muck up out of drains. Long gone but I suppose that is why we see so many blocked drains in the autumn now!

All these things are now things of the past as are police cars, ambulances and fire engines with bells not sirens and bull horns, fire engines with extension ladders with large wheels attached not Fire and Rescue Support Units, rag and bone men ringing their bells (we actually still get one of these come round occasionally), police boxes and the weekly visit by the Corona man and the Pink Paraffin or Esso Blue man. Policemen on point duty, silence in Public Library’s, rattling sash windows, shrimps for tea on Sunday and home made ginger beer.

Ah !!!!!!!!!!!!!I really must be getting old !!!!!!


Take Care and keep in touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.com


You Write:

Bob Writes:-

Great blog and I learnt something new. I knew that the reclaimed land for IBM was made by expanding the chalk pit, but always assumed it was carried there in fleets of chalk lorries. I never realised that they carried it by a conveyor across the houses and Allaway Ave, and the A 27. Must have been some conveyor, of course I was away in the RAF at that time, if I did come home to Purbrook I probably didn't go down that end of Portsmouth. After the war, when Dad returned from India, we lived for a time in Paulsgrove, and I played in and around the chalk pit, and down on Farlington Marshes, and yes I can remember the old u-boat moored outside John Pounds


News and Views:

Pernell Roberts dies.

Pernell Roberts was the last of the original stars from Bonanza. It was one of the most successful television series ever, it originally ran from 1959 to 1973 in the US, opened in the UK on ITV in 1960.

Pernell Roberts played Adam Cartwright, the eldest son of a rancher, Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene). Ben had been married and widowed three times, which explained why he had produced three such different sons. But Roberts grew dissatisfied with the series. and quit in 1965, but failed to build on the success of Bonanza before effectively re-emerging as the star of the MASH spin-off Trapper John MD (1979-86).



On this day 27th February 1960-1965 (Heavens I’ll be 64 tomorrow!)

On 27/02/1960 the number one single was Why - Anthony Newley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was not listed and the box office smash was Some Like It Hot. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was BBC asks for second TV channel.

27/02/1961 the number one single was Sailor - Petula Clark and the number one album was Tottenham Hotspur. The top rated TV show was The Army Game (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £not very interesting and 13.25 were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada).

On 27/02/1962 the number one single was Rock-a-Hula Baby/Can't Help Falling In Love - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - Elvis Presley. 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 Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 27/02/1963 the number one single was The Wayward Wind - Frank Ifield and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 27/02/1964 the number one single was Anyone Who Had a Heart -Cilla Black and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 27/02/1965 the number one single was I'll Never Find Another You - Seekers 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 The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page No 812

Top Picture: I never remember seeing a Hillman convertible like this one. Must have been built in the mid 1960’s I saw it in Glasgow last year.








Bottom Picture: The Classics





I came across this article in the March 1964 edition of the Hampshire Magazine. It deals with a Gosport R&B group I have mentioned before ‘The Classics’ and it talks of a gig at the Green Man in Whitchurch but it could well apply to any local group appearing in any local church or school hall. The article was written by Trvor Fishlock and really bears being read again 45 years later.

The Classics come to Whitchurch.

They were standing around the jukebox when we got into the Green Man at Winchester; four young men with very long hair whose fingers twitched excitedly as the machine coarsely spat six strident pennyworth of Rhythm-and-blues from its chrome encrusted iron lung.

They held a furrowed bow conference when I suggested drinks. Three of them decided on light ales; one accepted a cigarette. The Classics drink very little and only one smokes. The previously constructed image of a wild tearaway bunch of fast living young beat-men began to crumble.

The Classics are, dedicated being the word, to carrying the message of the Hippyhippyskake, with plaintive Texan and Oklahoman overtones, into the far corners of darkest Hampshire. To this end they lead an almost monkish existence, tolerate hundreds of miles of wearisome travelling every week, get to bed very late, rise very early and spend hours dreaming of the last square meal and the next.

Tonight, bound for Whitchurch church hall we clambered into The Classics 1959 green Morris van. The groups 23 year old leader, black bearded Tony Ransley, was behind the wheel; Paul Spooner, a side-burned milkman, sat beside him. Crouched in the rear wedged in the clefts between guitars, drums and amplifiers, were thin faced Tony O’Flaherty, an apprentice electrical fitter in Portsmouth Dockyard and lanky Ian Grant, a fitters apprentice, Peter, Paul and Ian are all 19. Like Tony who is at present looking for a job, they all live in Gosport.

This evening The Classics would finish at 11 o’clock and be in bed by 1.00am. For Peter, Paul and Ian that would mean five hours sleep before rising for work. Paul said “we get pretty short of sleep and regular meals. We get home from work, wash, change and then buzz off in the van, it is four or five nights on the trot, honestly we do not have time for things like girl friends. When we are not doing a show we rehearse at home. Without the amplifiers that is fairly quiet and we don’t get boots thrown at us. It’s hard work but we wouldn’t change things. We are good pals and keep each other in good order. While we are still paying for our equipment we don’t make a penny on our shows. We do it for fun; we enjoy making a big beaty noise and watching the kids get with it. We put everything into our playing and we are told that our standard of Rhythm-and-Blues is very high”.

Ian adds” Like most groups we don’t read music, we get our stuff from the radio, tape record it, then make our own arrangements playing by ear. We write our own stuff as well, it’s not bad and we are always trying to make it better. We also get some old records and rearrange some pre-war numbers.”

Every pop group need reliable transport. But that costs money. As the van chattered on through the mist Tony said “ We have been going 18 months and this old bus has taken us nearly 100,000 miles. It costs us a fiver a week for petrol when our diary is full. There is a lot of money to fork out for a group like this. Apart from the van there is more than £2000’s worth of gear – some of it still on the never-never. Look at what we have got, four amplifiers £925, Pete’s two guitars £170 and £140; Ian’s guitars £215 and £170 and my drum kits £350 and £250. Paul is the cheapest member his harmonicas, 16 of them are 11s 9d each. Some of our gear is pretty well paid for now and the monthly instalments are now down to £35.

The Classic’s instruments are on three year agreements and they work three nights out of five each show earning them between £15 and £25.

The band stayed together until 1966 when they split up, Ian Duck going to the Soul Agents and then Hookfoot and Peter O’Flaherty and Tony Ramseley, joining together with others from Portsmouth to form Simon Dupree and the Big Sound.

I remember seeing the Classics perform many times in the early 1960’s in the Oddfellows Hall, the Drayton institute, the Thorngate hall in Gosport and at many College Dances. Does anyone one else remember them?

Take Care and keep in touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.com


You Write:

Sue Writes:

The only person I ever knew, who had pay TV, was the family I lived with, when I first started teaching in Oxted Surrey. The TV took 6d and lasted an hour I believe. It was hard for them to watch a film, as the money had to be put in on a regular basis, you could not put in more than one coin at a time. I did not watch with them but I heard the complaints when the money ran out at the exciting part and they missed it.

News and Views:

Cher auctioned off a home she built in the Four Seasons' Hualalai resort in Hawaii at the end of January for $8.7 million. The 8,800-square-foot home, built last year but never lived in, has 6 bedrooms and a pool with spa overlooking the resort's golf course.

On this day 20th February 1960-1965

On 20/02/1960 the number one single was Why - Anthony Newley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was not listed and the box office smash was Some Like It Hot. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was EMI's last coarse-groove 78 rpm record was issued

On 20/02/1961 the number one single was Are you Lonesome Tonight? - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 20/02/1962 the number one single was The Young Ones - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - Elvis Presley. 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 Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Unknown Sean Connery cast as 007 in Dr No

On 20/02/1963 the number one single was Diamonds - Jet Harris & Tony Meehan and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. 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 Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Liz Taylor films Cleopatra


On 20/02/1964 the number one single was Diane - Bachelors and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Steptoe & Son (BBC) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Malcolm X visits Cassius Clay's training camp

On 20/02/1965 the number one single was Tired of Waiting For You - The Kinks and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

WEB PAGE NO 810

FIRST PICTURE: ELLIE GREENWICH.


SECOND PICTURE:
IT MIGHT BE A COUPLE OF DAYS EARLY BUT HERE IS A 1960’S VALENTINE CARD FROM ME TO YOU







ELLIE GREENWICH

I bet most of you will have never come across the name Ellie Greenwich! But I bet you know a lot of her music! Ellie Greenwich wrote some of the most memorable pop songs of all time. Songs such as ‘Be My Baby’, ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’ and ‘Leader of the Pack’ and in doing so she helped to define the emerging youth culture in the 1960s, the culture that was us!

At first hearing, her songs were little more than the catchy pop songs that we teenagers wanted to hear at the time but many of them have endured to become classics of their time. ‘And Then He Kissed Me’ describes the experience of a young woman being swept off her feet for the first time.(does that ring any bells out there?) ‘Leader of the Pack’, with its trademark revving motorcycle engine, tells of a sensible young girl who falls for a ne'er-do-well biker, until then neither of these subjects were regarded as being suitable for a pop song but once her songs were performed by the Ronnettes and Shangri-Las success soon followed.

Her song writing talent was recognised by Phil Spector who wanted emotional songs that could not easily be replicated. He found tunes such as ‘Be My Baby’, with its dramatic opening drumbeat, suited his Wall of Sound style of recording. He worked with her on many songs and he considered ‘River Deep Mountain High’, by Ike and Tina Turner, to be a masterpiece and called it "the rock 'n' roll symphony of all time".

Ellie Greenwich had a natural talent and she emerged as the creator of some of the generation's best-known hits after forming a partnership with Jeff Barry, whom she later married They set themselves up in what was then called the New York hit factory the Brill Building, along with Carole King, Gerry Coffin, Burt Bacharach and Neil Sedaka. She also formed a group called the Raindrops however her career as a performer did not match her writing talent.

She was born in New York in 1940 to a Catholic mother and Jewish father, both being of Russian origin and grew up in Brooklyn into a music-loving family. The young Ellie was a prolific collector of 45’s and she took lessons on the accordion. At high school she formed a singing group, the Jivettes, and at 17, calling herself Ellie Gaye she recorded and released her first single, ‘Silly Isn't It’/ ‘Cha-Cha Charming’. But it was as a songwriter that she began to flourish and ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’, was her first hit as a composer. This was followed up with a string of hits including ‘He's Got the Power’ and ‘(Today I Met) the Boy I'm gonna marry’.

She was still relatively unknown when in 1962 she arranged to meet one of the Brill Building composers. When he kept her waiting in an office she started to tinkle on the piano and sing. The producer Jerry Leiber was passing and poked his head in, thinking it was Carole King, and spotted her potential immediately.

Other of her compositions are ‘My Baby’, ‘Baby I Love You’ ‘Not Too Young To Get Married’ and ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home’ ‘Chapel of Love,’ ‘Out in the Streets’ and ‘Do Wah Diddy Diddy’ for Manfred Mann a song which which reached No 1 on both sides of the Atlantic.

She and Barry divorced but they continued to write together and the following year they discovered a young Jewish singer-songwriter called Neil Diamond. As the years passed Ellie started an alternative career writing jingles for TV and radio, which I am sure was a great loss to the pop music industry, and she never had a major hit again.

Ellie Greenwich, pop singer, songwriter, was born on October 23rd 1940 and died of a heart attack in August aged just 68.

And she was a name that we had never heard of!!!!!

Yours

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.com

You Write:
Had this sent to me:-
Ringo Starr has requested that all his fans honour him on his 70th birthday, July 7, by making the "peace sign" V-gesture at Noon that day, wherever they are. So don’t forget !!!!
News and Views:

The U.S. Social Security commission enlisted the aid of Chubby Checker to promote a new "twist" in the prescription assistance law that makes millions more senior citizens eligible.


On this day 13th February 1960-1965
On 13/02/1960 the number one single was Why - Anthony Newley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was not listed and the box office smash was Some Like It Hot. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was French test first atomic bomb in Sahara desert.

On 13/02/1961 the number one single was Are you Lonesome Tonight? - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 13/02/1962 the number one single was The Young Ones - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - Elvis Presley. 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 Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 13/02/1963 the number one single was Diamonds - Jet Harris & Tony Meehan and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. 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 Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Liz Taylor films Cleopatra.

On 13/02/1964 the number one single was Needles & Pins - Searchers and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Steptoe & Son (BBC) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 13/02/1965 the number one single was You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' - Righteous Brothers and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

FIRST PICTURE: The Harbour Lights pub today





SECOND PICTURE: Motorway interchange where the A3 branches off from the A27









CHANGES




I think one the biggest changes to this whole area of Farlington, Cosham, Portchester and Paulsgrove over the year's must have been the building of the M27 which effectively cuts right through Farlington Marshes, alongside Portscreek, cutting off Hilsea Lido from its sea water intake, flying over the Paulsgrove housing estate and Portchester.

When the motorway/A27/A3 was built there was a tremendous outcry from the nature lobby re the destruction of the wet land environment at Langston and the effect that this would have on wildlife. However after 40 plus years things seemed to have settled down, the wildlife has returned, cattle are now grazing again on the meadowlands and one of the major problems is as a pedestrian where do I get access to the Marshes?

Another objector to the plan was St. John’s College who have their playing fields nearby as do the Council Recreation Services but after consultation and the building of a new approach road and car park this was all sorted out.
At the Paulsgrove end of the construction an enormous, noisy conveyor belt running from the slopes of Portsdown Hill, over the roads and houses of Paulsgrove being suspended over Allaway Ave, the railway line and Southampton Road was built. This conveyor belt finished at where the IBM main offices are now and carried the chalk that was dug out of the side of Portsdown hill which formed the motorway cutting above Portchester.

All of the seashore behind and to the left and right of the Harbour Lights Pub has been reclaimed. This used to be a lovely area to walk but now sadly has gone forever along with housing that was along that stretch of the Southampton Road. One of the residents was Commander Arthur Matthews who, with his elderly father, was very well known in the local Scouting movement. At the end of his garden, which backed onto the creek, was a large hut which was used by Sea Scouts and others and in fact I kept an ex- Government Whaler there for many years until the land reclamation and the building of the enormous Tesco Superstore.
A fair number of large factories that were along

the Southampton Rd have disappeared or have been redeveloped in another form. One of the largest was Johnson and Johnson, opposite the Harbour Lights, this was the baby products company. There is now a new office complex development on this site which is still waiting for someone to rent the office space. Another was C and A which had a factory further along next to Racecoarse Lane, in fact my uncle can still remember motorcycle races on the race course in the late 1920’s. One factory we all remember, if only for the smell, was the Smith's Crisps factory which was opposite the Transport Café, Bert’s and is now Mother Kelly's Fish Restaurant. I often wonder if, when the folks are digging their gardens in the houses that were built on the site, does a smell of cold fat drift up!!!!

A couple of Islands were also amongst our adventure outings. Trying to get onto Whale Island over the old scaffolding bridge or across the causeway a low tide was never an option as you were always seen but landing on the seaward side opposite Portchester Castle was always a possibility until you were thrown off by the MOD Police. Little did I know that in 40 years I would be driving over a new access bridge to go to work on the Island.

Horsea Island was also a challenge and was almost impossible to get onto. It was the school for Naval Fire-fighters, HMS Phoenix, and a diving school and torpedo testing station and was festooned with a vast array of radio aerials and impossible to get on to.

Whilst talking of things of the sea another challenge was to take a small dinghy and lose yourself in amongst the ships of the mothball fleet moored in Fareham Creek. This was always exciting, as you never knew if the Navy Patrol would spot your boat tied up to a mooring chain and realise you were aboard and come and throw you off. This happened only once and for the rest of the times we happily climbed all over these redundant Royal Navy ships.

Just one final thing about changes in the area, who remembers the beached submarine outside Harry Pounds yard in Portchester? I bet you all do!!!

Such memories
Yours

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.com

You Write:

Carl writes:-

I loved your thoughts on the washing line. We were a two line family at 71 Old Manor Way. Yeah, it was always the 7th cavalry wasn’t it & I fancied myself as The Lone Ranger. I think it looks like the Corporation Bus is at the junction of Milton Road & Highland Road just by the bus sheds & we are looking north in the photo. You’ve done a good job with the names I must say. There were loads I’d forgotten. Mind you quite a lot of the photos are understandably of you year & some the year younger than me. In the mixed photo the ‘ Fred ‘ was Fred Dyson, the ‘Carole’ in the front row was Carole Overton who used to teach with my wife on Hayling many years ago. In the same picture I can see Chris Goodyear (back row 3rd from right I think as I’m not looking at the photo. In the cricket photo, Pete Bridger is in the front row & I’m struggling to recall the name of the wicket keeper. I’m surprised I’m not in there as I also played for the school as I did hockey with Howard Bradshaw in goal, we also both played for Portsmouth Boys. Oh I could go on reminiscing all day. As always it’s a great job you are doing & I’m sure everybody appreciates it even if you don’t here it often said.

News and Views:

Composer and performer Burt Bacharach is recovering from back surgery December 31 in Los Angeles. The 81 year-old has rescheduled his concerts through March, as a result.

On this day 7th February 1960-1965

On 01/02/1960 the number one single was Why - Anthony Newley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was not listed and the box office smash was Some Like It Hot. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Riot at Test match in Port of Spain.

On 01/02/1961 the number one single was Are you Lonesome Tonight? - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Recorded Delivery introduced.

On 01/02/1962 the number one single was The Young Ones - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 01/02/1963 the number one single was Diamonds - Jet Harris & Tony Meehan and the number one album was Out of the Shadows - Shadows. The top rated TV show was The Prime Minister (All channels) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 01/02/1964 the number one single was Needles & Pins - Searchers and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 01/02/1965 the number one single was Go Now! - Moody Blues 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 The Sound of Music.
A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.