Web Page  No 2292

26^th August 2016

Top Picture: Sherbet Fountain

Second Picture: Sherbet Dabs

Third Picture: Sherbet Lemons

Sherbet

One of our favourite sweets when we were little was sherbet or, kali  in the north of England or keli in Scoland This fizzy powder was usually eaten by dipping a lollipop or liquorice, in it or by just licking it on a finger. 

The word "sherbet" is from Turkish "şerbet", which is from the Persian which in turn comes from "sharbat", Arabic "sharba" which was a drink,. Another route for the name "sorbet", comes from the French "sorbet", from Italian "sorbetto" and in turn from Turkish "şerbet". Historically it was a cool effervescent or iced fruit soft drink. The meaning, spelling and pronunciation have fractured between different countries. It is usually spelled "sherbet", but a common pronunciation changes this to "sherbert".

Beginning with the 19th century sherbet powder (soda powder) became popular in Germany where the art was "Put a spoonful of the powder in a cup of water, mix it and drink it as soon as possible, during the time of sparkling.

Sherbet in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries is a fizzy powder, containing sugar and flavouring, and an edible acid and base. The acid may be tartaric, citric or malic acid, and the base may be sodium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, or a mixture of these and/or other similar carbonates.  To this is added a large amount of sugar to mask the unappetising flavour of the reactive powders, icing sugar, and fruit or cream soda flavouring.

The acid-carbonate reaction occurs upon presence of moisture (juice/saliva). Sherbet used to be stirred into various beverages to make effervescing drinks, in a similar way to  making lemonade from lemonade powder, before tinned carbonated drinks became popular. Sherbet is now used to mean this powder sold as a sweet.  Sherbet can be sold by itself or used as a decorative agent on other sweets for example:-.

The Sherbet Lemon

The sherbet lemon is a popular sweet in the UK, and is included in many sweet shops. It is the main flavour of boiled sweets with powdered sherbet centres - such as sherbet fruits, where sherbet limes, strawberries, blackcurrants, raspberries and orange are popular flavours. The sherbet lemon has a citrus taste and is sour and also tangy. The sherbet in the middle explodes, making the sweet suddenly more sour.

Sherbet Fountain

Barratt's "Sherbet Fountain" consists of sherbet and a stick made from liquorice, sold since 1925. In 2009 a plastic tube with twist-off lid replaced the traditional paper packaging with the liquorice stick poking through the end, much to the fury of the traditionalist.  In the traditional paper packaging, the top of the stick was intended to be bitten off to form a straw and the sherbet sucked through it, where it fizzes and dissolves on the tongue. The "new" format only includes a solid liquorice stick, so the sherbet must be licked off that, or eaten directly. This method of consumption was also considered acceptable with the original packaging. This is now advertised on the packet as "Sherbet with a liquorice dip" A very different experience from the original paper-wrapped sweet.

Fruit flavoured with lollipop

Sherbet dips or Sherbet Dabs are also popular, such as the Dip Dab by Barratt. They consist of a small packet of sherbet, with a lollipop sealed into the bag. Once the lollipop has been licked, it can be dipped into the sherbet and then sucked clean, alternatively it can simply be used to shovel the sherbet into the mouth.

Another popular type of sherbet dip is the Double Dip by Swizzels Matlow, where the packet is divided into three sections; one contains an edible stick which can be licked and then dipped into the other sections, each of which contains a different flavour of sherbet (for example strawberry, orange, cola).

Sherbet straws[

Plastic straws filled purely with fruit-flavoured sherbet. The most common lengths are 10 cm and 50 cm. The price of these straws range from 5p to £2.00 in the UK depending on size, make and flavour. Normally found in newsagents.

Flying saucers[

We all remember the small dimpled discs made from rice paper, typically filled with white unflavoured sherbet. The first flying saucers were produced in the 1960s.

Other uses]

Sherbet is incorporated into other sweets. For example, it is used to give gum based sweets an interesting surface texture and zing (notably cola bottles, fruit strips).

Slang

Sherbet has been used in parts of both the UK and Australia as slang for an alcoholic drink, especially beer. This use is noted in a slang dictionary as early as 1890, and still appears in list of slang terms written today (especially lists of Australian slang). "We're heading to the pub for a few sherbets." And "Sherbet dab" is used as rhyming slang for a "taxi cab".

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On this day 26^th August 1960-1965

On 26/08/1960 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.

On 26/08/1961 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.

On 26/08/1962 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 26/08/1963 the number one single was Bad to Me - Billy J Kramer 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 26/08/1964 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 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 26/08/1965 the number one single was Help - The Beatles and the number one album was Help - 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. The big news story of the day was Yemen War to be ended.

Web Page  No 2290

19^th August 2016

New Drayton Book now available. £3.00 + £1.25 p&p

Next Meeting 6th October at noon in The George

Top Picture: The Juke Box Jury Days

Second Picture: With Ami Macdonald

Third Picture: Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman

David Jacobs

It was quite a shock to the establishment when David Jacobs was picked by the BBC to host the new radio programme ‘Pick of the Pops’.  The last thing that was expected was a suave, sophisticated, well-dressed man with a cut glass accent, but it seemed to work. And work it did until he took over ‘Juke Box Jury’ on the TV and Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman took over his radio show after his five year tenure.  

David Lewis Jacobs was born in May 1926 to a Jewish family, the youngest of three son of Jeanette and David Jacobs senior,^[in Streatham Hill, London,and educated at Belmont College and Strand School. In his early years the family was affluent, but his father, a Covent Garden fruit importer, was bankrupted in 1939 after suffering ill-health for a decade, and the family soon lost their home. This forced his youngest son to leave school at 14, and David took up various short-term jobs, before he served in the Royal Navy from 1944 to 1947 and whist in the service performed on the popular BBC General Forces Programme Navy Mixture in 1944.  He became an announcer with the British Forces Broadcasting Service and was chief announcer on Radio SEAC in Ceylon (1945–47) and later became assistant station director.

He became a BBC staff announcer in the early 1950s and his voice was heard in the titles for many of the 53 episodes of Journey Into Space, he also played 22 parts in the series. Another area of broadcasting was Radio Luxembourg. Between 1957 and 1966, he presented A Song for Europe and provided the UK commentary at Eurovision Song Contests.

In 1949 he married Patricia Bradlaw, with whom he had three daughters and a son, but their marriage collapsed in 1969, and the couple divorced in 1972. Their daughter is actress Emma Jacobs. His life was marked by several tragic events. Jeremy, his 19-year-old son, was killed in Israel during 1972 in a car accident while engaged in charity work. In 1975, he survived a car accident in Spain in which his second wife, Caroline, whom he had married earlier that year, and Caroline Marsh, wife of politician Richard Marsh, were killed. David’s wife was pregnant with their unborn child. In 1979 he married Lindsay Stuart-Hutcheson.

Most of us remember him Jacobs presenting  Juke Box Jury  between 1959 and 1967. Now who was in the audience in the Guildhall when it was broadcast from there twice? I was! First was 2nd December 1961 The week panel included: Jill Browne Harry Fowler Pete Murray June Thorburn and in the chair, David Jacobs and second 31st October 1964 and the Jury consisted of a very pregnant Marianne Faithful, Petula Clark, Stubby Kaye and Gene Pitney.  

1962 this programme attracted 12 million viewers weekly on Saturday nights. He was also one of the four original presenters of Top of the Pops when it began in 1964, but remained a presenter of the programme for only its first two years. "I became too square for the pop scene," he once commented.

In 1963 he published an autobiography, 'Jacobs' Ladder'.

Most of his career after the late 1960s was at Radio 2  and consisted of easy listening music and interviews with guests. From December 1967 until July 1984, he chaired the Radio 4 topical debate, Any Questions? 

In 1984, he received the Sony Gold Award for his outstanding contribution to radio over the years (and was subsequently admitted to the Sony Hall of Fame). He also achieved the Richard Martin Award for exceptional service in the cause of animal welfare. In the same year, he was appointed Representative Deputy Lieutenant for the Royal Borough of Kingston, a position he held over the following 17 years. On his retirement from this position he became High Steward of Kingston.

Between January 1985 and December 1991, he presented a daily lunchtime programme on Radio 2 of what he characterised as "our kind of music", and subsequently presented a weekly programme following a similar format, for a time on Saturday evening and later on Fridays, although the show finished airing in early 1999. He also presented Radio 2's long-running Sunday programme Melodies for You from 1974 to 1984.

By now one of the station's oldest presenters, he hosted a Sunday late-night easy listening show from 1998 until 2013. 

During the first half of 2012, while he was recovering from two major operations, he continued to be heard each Sunday on BBC Radio 2, which broadcast repeats of The David Jacobs Collection orininally presented  in 1998. He returned to his regular Sunday night slot with The David Jacobs Collection on 8 July 2012.

On 22 July 2013 he announced that he was stepping down as presenter of his Radio 2 show, citing ill health. His last show was broadcast on 4 August 2013. He said, "I will not stop collecting but my sadness will be that I cannot share them with all my loyal listeners. But rest assured, I will be back from time to time."

 He had been involved since its inception in Kingston's Rose Theatre, of which he was life president. He was vice-patron of the charity Advance Centre for the Scotson Technique, and patron of the Disabled Photographers' Society.he was also a lifelong friend of Dame Vera Lynn and was Vice President of her charity, The Dame Vera Lynn Trust for Children with Cerebral Palsy. He was also involved in the Celebrities Guild, "a kind of Jewish Variety Club", and regularly spoke at "ordinary suburban synagogues"

David Jacobs died at home at the age of 87 on 2nd September 2013, surrounded by his family. He had been suffering from Parkinson's disease and had also been treated for liver cancer since at least 2011.

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On this day 19^th August 1960-1965

On this day 19^th August 1960-1965

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 11 new independent African states created.

On 19/08/1961 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 £13.25 and Ipswich were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 19/08/1962 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 19/08/1963 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 19/08/1964 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.

On 19/08/1965 the number one single was Help - 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. Watts race riots in US and Liverpool 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  No 2288

12^th August 2016

Top Picture: George Sanders

Second Picture: Shere Khan from the Jungle Book

George Sanders

There was a time in the 1960s that Hollywood craved anything essentially English and a cultured voice was much in demand and George Sanders was one of those who broke through into the American film industry

The irony was that George Henry Sanders was actually born in Saint Petersburg in Russia number 6 Petrovski Ostrov in 1906. His parents were Henry Peter Ernest Sanders (1868–1960) and Margarethe Jenny Bertha Sanders (1883–1967) née Kolbe, born in Saint Petersburg, of mostly German, but also Estonian and Scottish ancestry. A biography published in 1990 claimed that his father was the illegitimate son of a Russian noblewoman of the Czar’s court and a prince of the House of Oldenburg, married to a sister of the Czar. The actor Tom Conway (1904–1967) was George Sanders's elder brother. Their younger sister, Margaret Sanders, was born in 1912.

George Sanders was also a singer-songwriter, music composer, and author. His career as an actor spanned more than 40 years. His upper-class English accent and bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous characters. He is perhaps best known as Mr. Freeze in a two-parter episode of Batman(1966) and the voice of the malevolent man-hating tiger Shere Khan in Disney's The Jungle Book (1967), and as Simon Templar, "The Saint", in five films made in the 1930s and 1940s.

When he was 11 in 1917 because of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, the family moved to England. Like his brother, he attended Bedales School and Brighton College then went on to Manchester Technical College. After graduating he worked at an advertising agency, where the company secretary, the aspiring actress Greer Garson, suggested that he take up a career in acting.

He took her advice and made his British film debut in 1929. Seven years later, after a series of British films, he took his first role in an American production in Lloyd's of London (1936) as Lord Everett Stacy. His smooth upper-class English accent, his sleek manner and his suave, superior and somewhat threatening air made him in demand for American films for years to come. He gravitated to supporting roles in A-pictures, often with all-British casts, such as Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940 and in the same director's Foreign Correspondent, later that year, where he played one of his few heroic parts in a Europe threatened by Fascism.

His early leading roles were in B-pictures and adventure serials; in his first American job as a leading man was in "International Settlement," (1938) playing a sophisticated British man of danger; it did so well that it led to the title role in two popular wartime film series with similar characters, one of these series was based on The Falcon and the other on The Saint. He played a smooth American Nazi in Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) with Edward G. Robinson. Rage in Heaven (1941). In 1942 he handed the role of the Falcon to his brother Tom, in The Falcon's Brother.

For his role as the cold-blooded theatre critic Addison DeWitt in All About Eve (1950) he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Later he appeared with Peter Sellers  in the Pink Panther sequel A Shot in the Dark (1964). A Peter Seller always claimed that George had inspired his character Hercules Grytpype-Thynne in The Goon Show.

In another venture he went into television with the series The George Sanders Mystery Theater (1957) and he played an upper-crust English villain, G. Emory Partridge, in two episodes of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. 

Two ghostwritten crime novels were published under his name to cash in on his fame at the height of his wartime film series. The first was Crime on My Hands (1944) mentioning his Saint and Falcon films. This was followed by Stranger at Home in 1946. Both were actually written by female authors: the former was by Craig Rice, and the latter by Leigh Brackett.

1958 he recorded an album called The George Sanders Touch: Songs for the Lovely Lady featuring lush string arrangements of romantic ballads. After going to great lengths to get the role he appeared in the Broadway cast of South Pacific, but was overwhelmed with anxiety over the singing and quickly dropped out. He also signed on for the role of Sheridan Whiteside in the stage musical Sherry! (1967but he found the stage production demanding and quit after his wife Benita Hume discovered that she had terminal bone cancer.

During the production of The Jungle Book Sanders he refused to provide the singing voice for his character Shere Khan during the final recording of the song, "That's What Friends Are For"and a substitute singer had to be found.

In October 1940 he married Susan Larson. The couple divorced in 1949. From later that year until 1954 Sanders was married to Zsa Zsa Gabor until their divorce. In February 1959 he married Benita Hume, widow of Ronald Colman. She died in 1967, the same year his brother Tom Conway died of liver failure. They had become distant because of Tom’s drinking.  Also a further blow in the same year was when his sister, Margaret Sanders died. His last marriage, in 1970, was to Magda Gabor, the elder sister of his second wife. This marriage lasted only 32 days, after which he began drinking heavily.

He started to suffer from dementia, worsened by waning health, he also had a minor stroke. He could not bear the prospect of losing his health or needing help to carry out everyday tasks, and became deeply depressed. At about this time he found that he could no longer play his grand piano, so he dragged it outside and smashed it with an axe. His last girlfriend persuaded him to sell his beloved house in Majorca, which he later bitterly regretted and from then on he drifted.

On 23rd April 1972, he checked into a hotel in Castelldefels, a coastal town near Barcelona. He was found dead two days later, having gone into cardiac arrest after swallowing the contents of five bottles of barbiturates. He left behind three suicide notes. His body was returned to Britain and his ashes were scattered in the English Channel.

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On this day 12^th August 1960-1965

On 12/08/1960 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.

On 12/08/1961 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 £13.25 and Ipswich were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 12/08/1962 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. The big news story of the day was Mont Blanc tunnel completed

On 12/08/1963 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. The big news story of the week was the Great Train Robbery.

On 12/08/1964 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 Division 1 champions.

On 12/08/1965 the number one single was Help - The Beatles and the number one album was Help - The Beatles. 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.