Web Page  No 2136

1^st March 2015

First of all we had a great get together at The George last Friday. There were 17 of us there covering about six school years. Unfortunately Peter Sexton could not make it because his wife was ill but the general consensus was that we do it again in late summer. Pictures to follow soon I hope.

Peter

Now for this weeks page

Top Picture: At the London Palladium with Joan Regan, Dick Emery Audrey Jeans and Frankie Vaughan

Middle Picture: One of Audrey’s recordings

Lower Picture: With Frankie Vaughan

 Bottom Picture: With Jimmy Edwards in Old King Cole.

Just realised I am now 69 I really am getting old!!!

RIP

Sad to say that Nelson Trowbridge died at the back end of last month.

Audrey Jeans

Audrey Jeans was the Portsmouth girl who made good but tragically had her life cut short before she reached the really big time.

She was Portsmouth born and bred as were her parents before her. She was the daughter of a Portsmouth Dockyard Worker who was born 1929 as Audrey Jennings at Riga Terrace in Landport.

Audrey made her mark as a young comediennes wearing smart clothes and evening dresses when at the time the hit comedians were in the style of Hylda Baker. Audrey was an attractive, beautifully dressed woman who could dance, sing, act, deliver one-liners and get laughs. But she was destined to never reach her full potential.

She showed talent from a child and she began her career aged just sixteen, as part of the chorus in a revue. The revue was Piccadilly Hayride with Sid Fields and with encouragement from him she worked at comedy. She moved on and was picked to tour Australia with Arthur Askey but on her return to England the offers of work did not come. She realised that she had to live but as no work came her way she forsook the theatrical life and began work behind the counter of a friend's shop in Portsmouth.

The theatrical agent Keith Devon remembered her and persuaded her to go back into the entertainment business and, with his guidance, she became a good middle of the bill act and developed a talent for being a feed for the comics of the day. With this newly deb, playing her Variety developed act she started appearing all over the UK and then branched out into international entertainment.

She was a stalwart in the Summer Season circuit and was always in demand for Pantomime. One such was Cinderella in Birmingham in 1961 where she starred with Lonnie Donegan. She appeared alongside Joan Regan, Dick Emery and Frankie Vaughan in the London Palladium. She also appeared with Jimmy Edwards in Oxford in the Pantomime Old King Cole where Jimmy Edwards played the title role. It was a very cold winter with coal shortages and burst pipes but as the Oxford Mail put it:- But there was plenty of Christmas cheer. Comedian Jimmy Edwards, with his trademark handlebar moustache, was in schoolmasterly mode as the star of the New Theatre pantomime as Merry King Cole with Audrey Jeans as Queen Coke. In 1973 she was with Jimmy Tarbuck at the Wimbledon Theatre in Jack and the Beanstalk and in the following year she was in the same panto but with Ken Goodwin and Frank Ifield in the Theatre Royal Nottingham.

Summer Season was always a mainstay of entertainers and Audrey was part of this travelling troupe. In 1971 she appeared at the Princess Theatre, Torquay with Bruce Forsyth and Keith Harris. She also appeared with Sid James in The Mating Game at the Winter Gardens Blackpool in 1975. A varied and promising career.

Audrey was married twice and, tragically, was killed by a hit-and-run driver while on her second honeymoon. She was hit by a car while crossing a road in Paris. She and her second husband were returning to their accommodation after dinner. Audrey was killed. Her husband was seriously injured, but recovered. The year was 1979.

Contemporary reports say that she had a wonderful sense of humour, was intelligent, warm, vivacious, generous and practical.

Her TV appearances included The Witches Brew, Jokers Wild, The Good Old Days, Comedy Band Box, Thank Your Lucky Stars and even the Six-Five Special.

Audrey was obviously destined for great things in the future but it was not to be. However I have recently read an article by one of her granddaughters who never met her Grandmother but is obviously very proud of her achievements and is very grateful that Audrey is still remembered thirty five years after her death.

Peter

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On this day 1st March 1960-1965

On 01/03/1960 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.

On 01/05/1961 the number one single was Wooden Heart - 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 05/03/1962 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 05/03/1963 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 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 01/03/1964 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 Coronation Street (Granada) 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 was British troops keep peace in Cyprus.

On 01/06/1965 the number one single was Long Live Love - Sandie Shaw 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  No 2134

21^st February 2015

Hope to see some of you tomorrow at The George at noon.

Top Picture: Typical David Greig Shop

Middle Picture: Macfisheries Logo

Lower Picture: Macfisheries Van

Bottom Picture: Lord Leverhulme

Seems Fishy to Me!

Over the years the High Street has lost a lot of big and small named retailers, especially in the food line. Here are a couple:

David Greig was the supermarket (initially grocery shop) chain founded by the Greig family of Hornsey, north London. With its headquarters at Atlantic Road, Brixton (and later at Waterloo Road, London) and grocery shops across southern England, it was a rival to the Sainsbury's chain, John and Mary Sainsbury having opened their first grocery shop in Holborn one year earlier. A deep personal rivalry developed between the two families, because of acrimonious feelings about the Greigs' alleged betrayal of a verbal agreement regarding the purchasing of sites for development.

The first David Greig shop was opened at 54-58 Atlantic Road, Brixton in 1870, initially Brixton Market also started in Atlantic Road in the 1870s and was so successful that it spread to Brixton Road before being relocated to Brixton Station Road plus several purpose built covered arcades and finally also Electric Avenue, to reduce congestion and allow further growth.

By the late 1960s, there were more than 220 Greig shops across the south of the country, all trading under the David Greig brand. However, the company was sold to Fitch Lovell (Key Markets) in 1972 after crippling death duties were incurred when several of the men in the family died in quick succession, with inheritance tax obligatory on their entirely private holdings. Key Markets

was later bought by Gateway, which was then rebranded as Somerfield and was in turn bought by the Co-operative Group.

David Greig himself was a notable philanthropist, leaving trusts for the benefit of Hornsey and the community. These have contributed to the Greig City Academy in Hornsey. The first David Greig shop, at 54-58 Atlantic Road, Brixton, is no longer a supermarket, but the frontage, containing a "DG" cypher, remains relatively original, and although the full name has been removed from the facade it is still visible in the mosaic floor outside the recessed shop entrance. The old David Greig building in Canterbury (now Superdrug) won an award for its post-war architecture. There is an inscription on the wall, in memory of DAVID GREIG, founder and DAVID ROSS GREIG. When Superdrug refurbished the store in the 1990s and the marble replaced, a stonemason was employed to re-create the inscription. It can still be seen today.

There is another facility in Alcester (Warwickshire) in memory of his wife Hannah Susan. The current sports, arts and community facilities are called The

Greig and are managed by the Hannah Susan Greig Memorial Company Limited. There is a family tableaux located in Magpie Hall Lane cemetery, Bromley, Kent where most of the Greig’s are buried.

I expect that many of you remember the David Greig shop at the top of Cosham High Street.

oOo

Another store in the same vein was Mac Fisheries which originally was a retail chain of fishmongers founded by William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme with his brother.

In his thirties, Lord Leverhulme had taken a boat trip and fallen in love with the Western Isles of Scotland. In May 1918 at the age of 66, he bought the Isle of Lewis for £167,000. Convinced that he could resurrect the fishing industry, he set about investing in all aspects of the supporting industries and supply/distribution chain. The plan was to build an ice-making plant in Stornoway, then refrigerated cargo ships to take fish to a depot at Fleetwood, where he would build herring-curing facilities, a canning factory and a plant installed to make fish cakes, fish paste, glue, animal feed and fertiliser. But first he had to create a market for the fish so he started buying up independent fishmongers throughout Britain, rebranding them Mac Fisheries.

But in 1919, servicemen demobilised from World War I who were promised land, started occupying plots on the Isle of Lewis. Lord Leverhulme protested and took legal action against the people he considered squatters, but the Scottish Office took the side of the ex-servicemen, leaving Leverhulme's plan in tatters. The Viscount announced that he would leave Lewis in 1923, offering to gift the Isle to the locals. But suspicion ran so high, that he was forced to sell again to long-term absentee landlords.

In late 1919, he had purchased the South Harris estate from the Earl of Dunmore for the sum of £36,000. Taking in the Western Isles fishing village of Obbe, he planned to turn it into a consolidated major fishing centre, with product distributed through the Mac Fisheries shops. In 1920, Obbe was rebranded Leverburgh, and 300 men started work on a new pier and seashore infrastructure for processing the product from 50 trawlers. An accommodation block, curing sheds, smoke houses, a refrigeration building, store sheds, houses for the managers and a twenty car garage were all built on the dockside.

With a second stage of development planned that would have seen the inner sea loch converted into a harbour to accommodate 200+ trawlers, fitted with a sea lock. After making his last visit to Leverburgh in September 1924, he took a trip to Africa, where he developed pneumonia. After his death in Hampstead, his executors and the Board of Lever Brothers had no interest in the Leverburgh project, and sold off the village and production facilities for and the estate.

The company did not expand much until the Second World War, when meat which had to be mainly imported was rationed, resulting in a boom of trade. To keep fishermen safe, the Government introduced a protected zoning scheme of trawlers, resulting in their landing fish in different ports each week. Mac Fisheries became adept at communicating to their stores when fresh fish would reach them, resulting in signs in shop windows stating when the next fresh fish delivery was due.

The dual consequences of the end of food rationing in 1954 and the introduction of American-developed frozen products such as Unilever's own Birds Eye fish fingers, meant a decline in wet-fish sales, and a decline for Mac Fisheries. The management turned the chain towards multi-line retailing, introducing fresh vegetables, dairy products and some canned produce.

The chain had to move to larger scale shops in the late 1950s to accommodate these new products, the new multi-line stores proved successful in reviving the chain′s fortune It was now that Mac Fisheries sought a merged with Express Dairies, who wished to dispose of their chain Premier Supermarkets. Express needed the cash to develop long-life milk, for which the funds from the sale of Premier would allow them to launch.

However, again estate problems brought issues for Mac Fisheries but financial issues slowed down the roll out of new stores, resulting in only 80 Food Centres opened by the end of 1964. Secondly, customers had to get used to a new colour scheme, based on orange over the traditional blue and white. Thirdly the decision was made to keep some of the smaller fish-only stores open as Mac Fisheries, at a time when consumers were wanting supermarkets.

By 1973, Mac Fisheries Group was turning over £50million, but making very little money. Secondly, the development of out of town retail parks required new investment something which Unilever was by now reluctant to do.

The result was a cost-cutting period in 1975, resulting in loss-making store closures and staff reductions. In April 1979, the Food Centres were sold to International Stores, while the residual wet fish shops were simply closed down within the following three months.

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Peter

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On this day 21st February 1960-1965

On 21/02/1960 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.

On 21/02/1961 the number one single was Sailor - Petula Clark. 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 £13.25. The big news story of the day was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada).

On 21/02/1962 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 21/02/1963 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 21/02/1964 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 21/02/1965 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 2132

14th February 2015

Happy Valentines Day!!!!

Top Picture: An original recording of ‘Calling all Workers’

Middle Picture: George Elrick from Housewives Choice.

Lower Picture: The crew of HMS Troutbridge

Bottom Picture: The original cast of Dick Barton Special Agent

Radio Themes

Last week I looked at TV themes, this week it’s the turn of the radio. Let’s start with ‘Calling all Workers’ by Eric Coates, the theme tune to ‘Music While You Work’. ‘Music While You Work’ was a daytime radio programme of continuous live popular music broadcast in the UK twice daily on workdays from June 1940 until September 1967 initially in the Forces / General Forces Programme and after the war in the BBC Light Programme and in the mornings, on the Home Service. By playing non-stop popular / light music at an even tempo it aimed to help factory workers become more productive. For a period, a third edition was broadcast in the late evening for night-shift workers. The programme originally consisted of live music (light orchestras, dance bands, brass and military bands and small instrumental ensembles). In order to make studios more available during the day, it was decided in 1963 that the shows would be pre-recorded (often in the evening or on Sundays). The programme began and ended with ‘Calling All Workers’ by Eric Coates.

‘Housewives' Choice’ was a  radio record request programme broadcast every morning from 1946 to 1967 on the Light Programme. It played a wide range of popular music designed to appeal to housewives at home during the day. Like many other radio shows in the era it achieved massive audiences as there was no competition. The distinctive theme music was ‘In Party Mood’ by Jack Strachey. The programme had a different presenter, often referred to at the time as a compere, every week. Among those who returned most often was George Elrick, who sang his own lyrics over the theme music, beginning with "Dooodle-dum-de- doodle- dum" and ending with "I'll be with you all again tomorrow morning".  The programme finished when the Light Programme was replaced by Radio 1 and  Radio 2 in 1967. Its short-lived successor, "Family Choice", went out on both Radios 1 and 2, but had itself been discontinued by 1970. In 1982 a radio series called "When Housewives Had The Choice?" with Russell Davies, Maureen Lipman and Julie Covington, looked back over the Housewives' Choice years, and a spin-off album of the most frequently requested tunes was released. This 1980s radio show also produced a full set of lyrics to the original housewives choice theme tune sung by Julie Covington.

Changing the genre let us look at comedy and one of the most popular radio programmes of all time,  The Navy Lark, in fact the three stars Leslie Phillips, Stephen Murray and Jon Pertwee would clear their diaries when a new recording schedule was announced. It was the proving ground for many actors who went on to appear on our TV sets for years Ronnie Barker, Tenniel Evans, Heather Chasen, Dennis Price, Michael Bates and Judy Cornwall. The show's theme tune was 'Trade Wind Hornpipe' written and performed by Tommy Reilly. The Navy Lark's musical interludes between scenes enhanced the show's nautical 'feel' all of which were taken from Tommy Reilly's Barry Music collection. The programme which ran from 1958 to 1977, was strong on creating characters; many of whom acquired enduring catchphrases, most notably from Sub Lieutenant Phillips: "Corrrrr", "Ooh, nasty...", "Oh lumme!", and "Left hand down a bit". "Ev'rybody down!" was a phrase of CPO Pertwee's, necessitated by a string of incomprehensible navigation orders by Sub Lt. Phillips, and followed by a sound effect of the ship crashing. Also, wheneve rCPO  Pertwee had some menial job to be done, Able Seaman Johnson, Ronnie Barker, was always first in line to do it, inevitably against his will: "You're rotten, you are!". Other recurring verbal features were the invented words "humgrummits" and "floggle-toggle" which served to cover all manner of unspecified objects ranging from foodstuffs to naval equipment.

One of the best known theme tunes belonged to Dick Barton Special Agent. The theme being ‘Devils Galop’ by Charles Williams . The programme  was hugely popular  on the BBC Light Programme between 7^th  October 1946 to 30^th  March 1951 it aired at 6.45 (later 6.15) each weekday evening. There were a total of 711 episodes with peak audience of 15 million, in fact the last episode was marked by a leading article in The Times.The serial followed the adventures of ex-Commando Captain Richard Barton MC (Noel Johnson, later Duncan Carse and Gordon Davies) who, with his mates Jock Anderson (Alex McCrindle) and Snowy White (John Mann) solved all sorts of crimes, escaped from dangerous situations and saved the nation from disaster time and again. Beginning in 1948, the Hammer film company made three Dick Barton films and long after the radio series had been replaced by The Archers, Southern Television made a television version in 1979.

Finally a look at an early magazine programme In Town Tonight which was broadcast on Saturday evening from 1933 to 1960 and was an early example of the chat show. Its theme music was the ‘Knightsbridge March’ by Eric Coates and introductory sequence had a voice crying "Stop! Once more we stop the mighty roar of London's traffic to see who is In Town Tonight ..." and at the end of the programme the voice would say "Carry on, London". The 1000th episode included appearances by Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, Jane Russell, and Doris Day: this was a few weeks before it ended. Towards the end of its run the programme was simultaneously broadcast on BBC Television.

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Peter

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On this day 14^th February 1960-1965

On 14/02/1960 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.

On 14/02/1961 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 week was 18 US figure skaters killed in air crash.

On 14/02/1962 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 14/02/1963 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 week was Liz Taylor films Cleopatra.

On 14/02/1964 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 14/02/1965 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. The big news story of the week was Canada's Maple Leaf flag raised for first time

Web Page  No 2130

Don’t forget the lunchtime get together at The George at noon on the 20^th February. Both June Blitz and Pete Sexton have confirmed that they will attend. 

7th February 2015

 Top Picture: Dr. Finlay’s Case Book

Middle Picture: Steptoe and Son

 Lower Picture: The Lone Ranger and Tonto

Bottom Picture: Blue Peter

Themes

Isn’t it strange how just a few bars of music can magically transport you back to television and radio programmes of your youth? These memories can be divided into two sections television and radio so I will deal with these themes on two separate pages. Page one Television.

I am sure that no one can hear the March from the Little Suite without thinking of Dr. Finlay’s casebook and the folks in Arden House in Tannochbrae with Barbara Mullen muttering those immortal works ‘Oh! Dr. Finlay!’ to Bill Simpson whilst Andrew Cruickshank looked on.  

Whenever I hear the adagio from Spartacus I naturally think of Peter Gilmore and Anne Stalybridge in the Onedin Line with its real star the sailing ship the Charlotte Rhodes.

Dad’s Army is still as popular now as it was when we were teenagers but there’s an interesting story behind the theme tune. I was very lucky in having Bill Pertwee as a friend and this is the story he told concerning the song. It was never a wartime song, it was especially written for the series by Jimmy Perry. Perry and Croft really wanted Bud Flanagan to sing the song but when he was approached he firmly told them that he had retired and did not sing any more. During rehearsals David Croft discovered that Bill Pertwee was a friend of Bud Flanagan from the days when they appeared on the Music Halls together and he wondered if Bill could influence Bud at all. So Bill phoned Bud Flanagan and explained that he was involved in an embryonic new series which had great potential. He described the cast and the story lines and the predicament they were in with the theme tune and would he consider singing the song as a favour to him. As Bill told it the line went quiet and very quietly Bud Flanagan said that if they could get a band together and sent him the music, he would go into the studio and sing it through just once and that was all he was prepared to do. This happened he went to the studio at the appointed time, sung the song once and went home. So when you hear the theme music to Dad’s Army being sung you now know that this was the one and only time that Bud Flanagan actually sang that song and was his last ever recording.

The first few notes of the tune ‘Old Ned’ by Ron Grainer, immediately conjures up the father and son team in that scrap yard in Oil Drum Lane. Steptoe and son must have one of the most distinctive theme tunes.

Another distinctive theme tune written by the Australian Ron Grainer is that electronic music which heralds the start of the Dr Who  episodes. Ron Grainer recorded the music in the BBC experimental studio and the music was billed as being by Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Mind you when I hear the music I cannot help but bring the original (and to my mind the best) actor to play the part, William Hartnell.

The theme played by The Simon Park Orchestra and entitled Eye Level introduced the Dutch detective Van der Valk to the crime fans , and Barry Foster fans all over the country.

Probably one of the best known theme was known to followers of both classical scholars and television fan alike. The music, by Rossini, is the William Tell Overture, known to most as the theme to The Lone Ranger. The music still brings to mind The Lone Ranger riding across the prairie crying ‘Hi, ho Silver, away’.

In the early days of television the interlude appeared on the screen at regular intervals, there were several short films used, a kitten playing with a ball of wool, a water mill turning but I cannot hear the piece of music by Charles Williams, called the Young Ballerina, without visualising The Potters Wheel. 

I cannot conclude without mentioning a tune written by H Ashworth-Hope, a successful solicitor as well as a composer; although over the years it has been rearranged several times, it is still very distinctive. Come on by now, you must have guessed I am talking about Blue Peter and its theme tune. This signature tune has always been a hornpipe, originally using variations of the tune Barnacle Bill.] In 1979 it was updated by Mike Oldfield, and again in the 1990’s. From the 2008 series onwards it became a rendition of the similar Sailor's Hornpipe. However, from 14 October 2008, the tune became a blend of both tunes.

The following is a list of all the versions of the Blue Peter signature tune, "Barnacle Bill" that have been used on the show: Sidney Torch & The New Century Orchestra: 1958 to 1979, Mike Oldfield: 1979 to 1989, Simon Brint: 1989 to 1992, again Simon Brint: 1992 to 1994, The Yes/No People: 1994 to 1999, David Arnold and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra: 1999 to 2004, Nial Brown: 2004 to 2006, Dave Cooke: 2007 to 2007, Dave Cooke & Blue Peter Music Makers 2007 to 2008, Dobs Vye: 2008 to 2011, Banks & Wag: 2011 to the present time.

I must admit that I had no idea that there had been eleven different versions of this one tune.

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Peter

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On this day 7^th February 1960-1965

On 07/02/1960 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.

On 07/02/1961 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 07/02/1962 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 07/02/1963 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 09/02/1964 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.The big news story of the day was USSR tops medals at Winter Olympics.

On 07/02/1965 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