Web Page 1168

 27^th July 2013

Top Picture: A Coop milk float

Middle Picture: A old Gauntlett and Walker milk bottle

Bottom Picture: Walk along float

Milko!

The photograph above of the milk float really brought back some memories that I thought that I had completely forgotten. Some weekends and at holiday times when I was at school I went out on the morning round with our local milkman, Roy. Our house was near to the beginning of his round so when he got to us I picked up a paper bag with my sandwiches in it and off we went. Roy paid me just a few shillings every time I went out on the round with him, a sum which, I am sure came out of his own pocket, plus there was as much milk or Sunkist Orange Juice as I could drink.

The Dairy was that well-known one from ‘over the hill’, Gauntlett and Walkers. The round stretched from Drayton right along the north side of the Havant Road until Old Rectory Road and it was here that marked the halfway mark along the round. Also it was here where we parked up and took a break and ate our sandwiches. I remember Roy saying ‘always hold your sandwich by the crust but don’t eat the crust because your hands will be filthy from the dirty milk bottles’; this was something that I had never thought about.

These were the days before skimmed or semi skimmed milk or soya milk we only carried three grades of milk, sterilized with a metal crown caps, normal full cream dairy milk and the gold top Channel Island milk which seemed to have its cream layer at least a third of way down the bottle.

Apart from milk and Sunkist Orange Drink we also carried eggs, butter, cheese and cream. It was unheard of for us to carry a variety of fruit juices, potatoes, cereals and the other such items that a milkman of today has to carry. 

After our break in Old Rectory Road it was up Rectory Avenue and off along Waterworks Road and the surrounding roads back to Drayton, It was along these roads that I had my first driving experience because after a while Roy let me drive the float and I felt really proud driving along these roads listening to the tick, tick tick, tick tick tick of the electric motor as it sped up. Move over Stirling Moss, I thought, I am on my way.

Coming from ‘over the hill’ all the milk floats were of the three wheeled kind with a cab which provided seating for two but no doors so the milkman could exit the cab from either side to make deliveries easier, but it was damned cold in the winter as the float not only had no doors it had no heating either! However the poor old milkmen from the Unigate (or was it Express) dairy situated at the end of The Droke off of Cosham High Street had the four-wheeled electrically powered trolleys that they had to walk in front of, very hard on the feet!

This employment filled in the spare time whilst I was at school. I never had a paper round and soon I found that friends of mine were working at various jobs, florists delivery boy, Woolworths girls and the like. This dairy job, in my early teens, gave me that little bit of independence that a young teenager desperately needed, later, as discussed before I went on to work at Smiths Garage and then RA Fraser’s electrical and record shop anything to make some money to be independent. 

Such was life in the early 1960’s when a shilling in your picket went a very long was.

How things have changed I think our house is the only one in our road which still has milk delivered, mind you it is now only three times a week and not daily, and the silent electric float has been replaced by a throbbing flat bed diesel.

Just two other things about milk deliveries?. Do you remember going out on a fine morning to bring the milk in and finding the tops all pecked out by the Blue Tits or going out on a freezing morning to find the milk frozen and the foil tops standing proud of the top of the bottle on columns of frozen, expanded milk?

Believe it or not as I am writing this in the morning the milkman has just delivered so I must go out and get it in! Stay in touch,

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com 

Pj.keat@ntlworld.co.uk

You Write:

News and Views

On the is day 27^th July 1960-1965

On 20/07/1960 the number one single was Please Don't Tease - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Plastic carrier bags introduced.

On 20/07/1961 the number one single was You Don't Know - Helen Shapiro 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 One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Berlin Wall erected.

On 20/07/1962 the number one single was I Remember You - Frank Ifield 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

On 20/07/1963 the number one single was Sweets For My Sweet - Searchers and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coro nation 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 20/07/1964 the number one single was Do Wah Diddy Diddy - Manfred Mann and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Conservative Party Political Broadcast (all channels) 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 Portabl e TVs launched.

On 20/07/1965 the number one single was Help - The Beatles and the number one album was Liverpool. 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 £not very interesting and 11.69 were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Riviera Police (AR)".

Web Page 1166

 20^th July 2013

Top Picture: Lenny the Lion and Terry Hall

Bottom Picture: Crackerjack!

Lenny the Lion

Lenny the Lion was the brainchild of Terence (Terry) Hall, a ventriloquist who was born in Oldham on 20th November 1926, where his parents ran a working men's club. He was a self-taught ventriloquist who attended St Patrick's School in the town and De La Salle College, Salford, and bought his first dummy, called Bert Williams, for £2 10s (£2.50). After winning a talent contest at the age of 15, he joined the Carroll Levis Discoveries stage show.

Inspired by a visit to Blackpool Zoo while performing in a 1954 summer season, Terry Hall created the dummy using old fox fur, papier-mâché and a golf ball for a nose. At first, Lenny had lion-like teeth and a growling voice, but the character frightened children and the singer Anne Shelton, who was also on the bill, suggested the teeth come out and the voice be made gentler. As a result, the puppet - one of the first with moving arms, as well as a lisping, falsetto voice, wide eyes and a habit of lifting a paw to his head and sighing "Aw! Don't embawass me" - kept Terry Hall in front of television viewers for over a quarter of a century.

In putting Lenny the Lion in front of family audiences on stage and television, Terry Hall was one of the first ventriloquists to enthral them with a stooge in the guise of an animal not a human based puppet, blazing a trail for entertainers such as Keith Harris and Orville and Roger DeCourcey and Nookie Bear.

Traditionally, ventriloquists had been boy puppets, such as Arthur Worsley with Charlie Brown and Peter Brough with Archie Andrews, the notable exception being Saveen and Daisy May! Terry Hall took advantage of the expanding medium of television in the 1950s to tweak the format a bit.

His television debut, with Lenny the Lion, came alongside Eric Sykes in the one-off BBC comedy-variety show Dress Rehearsal (1956), with Eric Sykes as the harassed director and Terry Hall as the ventriloquist contributing to the mayhem, while supposedly preparing for transmission of a live television programme.

Later he found screen success in his own right with the BBC's The Lenny the Lion Show (1957-60), the animal-puppet craze soon gained momentum, notably with Muriel Young on ITV, being joined by Pussy Cat Willum and Ollie Beak in the children's series Small Time, Tuesday Rendezvous and The Five O'Clock Club.

The act had really arrived when they were invited to guest-star on the legendary Ed Sullivan Show in the United States (1958) and returned home to take Lenny to two more popular programmes, Lenny's Den (1959-61) and Pops and Lenny (1962-63).

The Beatles made one of their earliest television appearances in a May 1963 episode of Pops and Lenny, singing their first No 1 single, "From Me To You", and "Please Please Me", as well as joining Terry Hall and Lenny for a song titled "After You've Gone". At the time, the future pop star David Bowie's father was working on the show and he launched the Lenny the Lion Fan Club.

Lenny advertised Trebor mints for three years and Terry Hall released a single, "Lenny's Bath Time", in 1963.

The act remained popular in summer seasons and pantomimes on stage and as guest stars in television variety programmes including Big Night Out (1965), David Nixon's Comedy Bandbox (1966) and The Blackpool Show (1966). Terry Hall and Lenny continued to work in variety through the 1970s, appearing on television in programmes such as Crackerjack  Later, they enjoyed fame together with a new audience in the ITV children's educational series Reading with Lenny (1977-80), for which Terry Hall wrote a number of accompanying storybooks featuring Kevin the Kitten.

In spite of the fact that Terry Hall was a staunch Oldham Athletic fan, during the 1957/58 English football season, he took Lenny to The Den which was then the home of Milwall Football Club and allowed Lenny to pose with his "Fellow Lions" for publicity shots, much to the delight of the crowd.

Terry Hall was married twice. He had two daughters from his first marriage. He married a second time in 1980, to dance teacher Denise Francis. He suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease in later life, he died Coventry, 4th April 2007 and so, of course did his alter ego Lenny the Lion a puppet which made his name a household word and at home Terry had a special cupboard where he kept Lenny, this was called the ‘Lions Den!’ 

Stay in touch,

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com 

Pj.keat@ntlworld.co.uk

You Write:

News and Views

On the is day 20^th July 1960-1965

On 20/07/1960 the number one single was Please Don't Tease - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Beer goes up 1d a pint to 1s7d.

On 20/07/1961 the number one single was You Don't Know - Helen Shapiro and the number one album was Black & White Minstrel Show - George Mitchell Minstrels. The top rated TV show was Harpers West One (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £20.25 and Ipswich were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the week was East Germans close E-W German border.

On 20/07/1962 the number one single was I Remember You - Frank Ifield 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 20/07/1963 the number one single was Sweets For My Sweet - Searchers and the number one album was Please Please Me - 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 20/07/1964 the number one single was Do Wah Diddy Diddy - Manfred Mann 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

On 20/07/1965 the number one single was Help - The Beatles and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Riviera Police (AR) 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.

Web Page 1164

 13^th July 2013

Top Picture: Queen Mary

Bottom Picture: Sputnick 1

The 1950’s

For most of us we were too young to remember the 1940’s but we do remember a lot from the 1950’s.

This was still post war Britain and certain foods were still on ration even during the period of the Festival of Britain. We lost a monarch (George V1) and gained a Queen (Elizabeth 11), we gained a Princess (Anne) and lost a Consort (Queen Mary). There were the terrible floods on the east coast of Britain, which resulted in much loss of life, and this was balanced out by Coronation fever as we moved in 1953. The Queen launched the Royal yacht Britannia, although this has been ordered by her father, he never set foot on it, in fact Queen Elizabeth was the only reigning monarch to use it. Little did she know that some six decades later she would be present when the Yacht was decommissioned.

It was very likely that your mother did not work outside the home, but instead concentrated on providing a safe and cosy environment for the family. Your father would have gone out to work to provide an income for your family. In 1957 the average wage was £10.00 per week whereas the average weekly fifty years lat a weekly basket of basic foods such as milk, bread, butter was £430. In 1957 the work time needed to pay for was three hours come 2007 that time was reduced to 40 minutes!

Festival of Britain marked the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and was a boost to the population after the privations of wartime. The festival generated demand for new fashions in furniture and furnishings. The exhibits introduced new styles of pottery, ceramics, fabrics and furniture made from revolutionary materials - fibreglass, plywood, Formica and plastics.

The major event, of course, was the Coronation but how many of you remember that to celebrate the event, everyone was allowed an extra pound of sugar and four ounces of margarine. Of course this was all topped off when the summit of Mount Everest was reached for the first time by Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing.

It was 1954 that really made the housewives cheer because this was the year that all rationing ended. No more scrimping scratching around for meals! Clothes rationing had ended way back in 1949 and by the early 1950’s women in particular wanted dresses and skirts made with a huge amount of fabric to make up for the meagre amounts they had endured during the war.

Moving towards the end of the decade and we find that the space Race had begun with the Soviet Union launching the first vehicle to orbit the Earth, the satellite Sputnik 1, on 4th October 1957. This was followed a month later by the launch of Sputnik 2. On board was the first living creature to travel from Earth into space, a dog named Laika.

The 1950s saw the introduction of fish fingers, electric fires, washing machine, ink and soft toilet paper. A typical home had a cooker, vacuum cleaner and a plug-in radio. Only 33 per cent of households had a washing machine. Most people were still doing their washing by hand. Only 15 per cent had a fridge and freezers and tumble dryers were scarcely heard of. Only 10 per cent of the population had a telephone and people still listened to gramophone records

For most families’ entertainment came from the radio (or ‘wireless’) or through listening to 78rpm records on a gramophone or radiogram. However, the Coronation gave a huge boost to the uptake of television. Cameras had never before been allowed inside Westminster Abbey for a Coronation, and the general public were thrilled to be able to watch the event live. Families crowded into the home of anyone lucky enough to have a television to watch the event. We actually went over the road to watch a neighbours rented black and white TV with one single channel, BBC.

As children we spent a lot of time playing with other children mainly outdoors we also enjoyed hobbies such as stamp collecting and train spotting. Families enjoyed playing board games such as Monopoly, Ludo, and Snakes and Ladders and there was a craze for yo-yos, 3D-spectacles, I-Spy books and hoola hoops.

For our mothers most food shopping was done every day and from local shops. Not every household owned a car or a refrigerator, so food shopping was part of our mum’s daily routine.

It would have been quite normal to visit separate shops for your bread, meat, vegetables, fish etc. It was quite common too, for tradesmen to deliver their goods direct to the housewife. Groceries and greengroceries were often delivered each week in a motorised van and milk was delivered every day. I can remember the look of surprise on my mothers face when she realised that Pink’s sold loose sherry and if you took a bottle with a cork along they would fill it up.

We, as kids, might not have realised it but the 1950’swerea hot bed of inventions. For example 1950 the credit card, 1951 super glue, power steering and the video tape recorder. 1953 saw the Black Box flight recorder and 1954 the first non-stick pan. Hoe the kids in 1955 must have cheered when Lego was invented and in 1958 when the Barbie Doll hit the headlines.  The hovercraft and Velcro made their appearances in 1956. 

My, my I must be getting old or is it just reaching a mature vintage?

Stay in touch,

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com 

Pj.keat@ntlworld.co.uk

You Write:

News and Views:

On the is day 13^th July 1960-1965

On 16/07/1960 the number one single was Good Timin' - Jimmy Jones and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 16/07/1961 the number one single was Runaway - Del Shannon and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) 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 16/07/1962 the number one single was Come Outside - Mike Sarne with Wendy Richard 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 Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 16/07/1963 the number one single was I Like It - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album was Please Please Me - 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 Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 16/07/1964 the number one single was House of the Rising Sun - Animals and the number one album was Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. The top rated TV show was Room at the Top (ITV) 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 16/07/1965 the number one single was I'm Alive - Hollies 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page 1162

Web Page 1162
6^th July 2013

Top Picture: Cap Bomb

Middle Picture: 1960’s make up case

Bottom picture features the Liddell Sisters aka The Honeys as featured last week.

Walter, Walter

When I was in the sixth year at Manor Court in 1962-63 we not only did not have an official classroom but we also had no official study area; in fact I can remember making room and sitting in an area where the hall chairs were stored trying to study in peace and quiet. I have a memory of a sixth Form Room and Prefects Room situated off the stage in the hall but by the time we became sixth years these rooms were made over as something else!

On the second floor of the original block of the school was the prep area between the two science labs. However below that on the first floor was an enclosed linking corridor, which ran from one side of the building to the other, it was ‘T’, shaped just the sort or area we needed? After some protracted negotiations with the Headmaster (dear old Reg!)  it was agreed that as there were only five or six of us in the sixth year we could have this area as our Common Room and Study area. The school generously provided lockers for our books etc and a few hard school chairs to sit on. Being sixth years and only studying maybe two or three subjects we ended up in this room for a lot of time during the week!

Both Melvyn Bridger and myself have the same memory that from somewhere a second hand grey three-piece suite, settee and two armchairs, was obtained along with a coffee table. Neither of us can remember where these items came from but I have a vague suspicion that Norman Folland had something to do with obtaining the furniture. So now we had a sixth form Common Room and all other years were banned from the area, (we could not do this with the teachers) but as all of us were Prefects and above we had a hold over the other years and they knew not to come into ‘Our’ area! This was a serious study area, well for most of the time!

As I said we spent a lot of time during our free periods in this room and there is one occurrence that both Melv and I remember extremely well.   

The school was brand new when we moved in the previous year and there was still some final building works being carried on around the school. Outside the window of this Common Room there was a certain amount of brick laying being undertaken. We never, ever saw the bricklayer and we believed that there was only the one who was undertaking this particular job. For several mornings running we heard this brickie start work, mix his mortar and set to building a wall. He was a cheerful soul and was always singing, but it was always the same Music Hall song every morning and afternoon, “Walter, Walter, Lead me to the altar, your more than the whole world to Me.” And that was where he would stop, but he sang it over and over again and again and come the Wednesday afternoon we had just about as much as we could take of this song! So after lunch we settled in the Common Room, opened the window and waited and sure enough we soon heard, “Walter, Walter,” now was our chance so straight away we chimed in with “Lead me to the altar, your more than the whole world to Me.” This had the desired effect we never heard that ‘Brickie’ sing again!

I often wonder what happened to that room, and the furniture, after we left, was it retained as a sixth form Common Room or was it turned into a store or something else, I would love to know. So if you in the sixth form in 1964 onwards can I ask if you remember this Common Room or were we the only year that used it?

Keep in touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

Pj.keat@ntlworld.com

You Write:

 News and Views:


Roger (Jackson) LaVern, keyboard plyer with the Tornadoes died on 15th June from prostrate cancer at home in London, he was 75.It was his work on the Clavioline that gave the group its distinctive sound in'Telstar', a numvber which reached No 1 her and in the USA in 1962, Roger also joined with the rest of the group in 1975 to re-record the number,

On this day 6^th July 1960-1965

On 06/06/1960 the number one single was Cathy's Clown - Everly Brothers and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Sunday Night at the London Palladium (ATV) and the box office smash was Psycho. 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 Bing Crosby presented with a platinum disc by Hollywood Chamber of Commerce for estimated sales of 200 million records.

On 06/07/1961 the number one single was Runaway - Del Shannon and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) 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 06/07/1962 the number one single was Come Outside - Mike Sarne with Wendy Richard 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 Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

06/06/1963 the number one single was From Me To You - The Beatles and the number one album was Please Please Me - 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 Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Martin Luther King denounces JFK's civil rights policies.

On 06/07/1964 the number one single was House of the Rising Sun - Animals and the number one album was Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. The top rated TV show was Room at the Top (ITV) 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 One champions.

 On 06/07/1965 the number one single was I'm Alive - Hollies 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.