Web Page No 2604

3^rd August 2019

Rockall

1st Picture. Location of Rockall

 2nd Picture. Rockall Island

 3^rd Picture. The living pod attached to the island

 4^th Picture. Nick Hancock and his living pod.

  

I thought that the tiny island of Rockall had always been part of the British Isles but it seems that almost 70 years ago in 1955 Britain claimed the tiny uninhabited island of Rockall. It is situated 300 miles (483km) west of Scotland and was claimed as part of the British Isles to stop the Soviets spying on missile tests. The UK formally claimed this uninhabited outcrop, which is just 70ft (21m) high, on 18^th  September at 1016 GMT.

Two Royal Marines and a civilian naturalist, led by Royal Navy officer Lieutenant Commander Desmond Scott RN, raised a Union flag on the island and cemented a plaque into the rock to claim it for Britain.

The islet was within reach of the guided missile range in the Hebrides and the British government feared foreign spies could use it as an observation post.

It is understood that the Queen personally authorised the annexation of Rockall just four days earlier. Her orders stated as follows: "On arrival at Rockall you will effect a landing and hoist the Union flag on whatever spot appears most suitable or practicable and you will then take possession of the island on our behalf."

The survey ship HMS Vidal reached the rock on 15^th September and she was equipped with a helicopter for ferrying the men to the island, but high winds prevented them from landing for three days so she had to lay off for a while.

Lieutenant Commander Scott told the BBC that the whole operation had gone without a hitch, but said the large helicopter had made the pilot's job difficult. "The landing space on the flight deck is only 33 ft [10m] square and the rotor blades of the helicopter sweep an arc of 49 ft [15m] so he has to be very, very careful," he said. "Despite all this there were no snags. The one landing he made he bounced and stuck - much to our relief."

The first person to set foot on Rockall since the British Navy landed in 1862 was Royal Marine Sergeant Brian Peel, an experienced rock climber. Sergeant Peel climbed down to the waterline to collect seaweed and other specimens for naturalist James Fischer. The marine said the descent had been quite straightforward, but admitted he had misjudged the heavy Atlantic swell. "I did not get up the rock in time and a wave went right over the top of me," he said. "I had to grab a handful of seaweed, ram it in my mouth and get up the rock as fast as possible."

Technically Ireland does not recognise this claim, although it has never sought to claim sovereignty for itself.

The earliest recorded landing on Rockall was in 1810, by an officer called Basil Hall from the ship HMS Endymion and its exact position was first charted by Royal Navy surveyor Captain ATE Vidal in 1831.

In 1972 the Isle of Rockall Act was passed, which made the rock officially part of Inverness-shire, Scotland. But the rights to any resources discovered on the ocean floor surrounding the island is disputed between Britain, Ireland, Denmark and Iceland.

The origin and meaning of the islet's name "Rockall" is uncertain; the Old Norse name for the islet, Ròcal, may contain the element fjall, meaning "mountain". It has also been suggested that the name is from the Norse rok, meaning "foaming sea", and kollr, meaning "bald head"—a word which appears in other place names in Scandinavian-speaking areas. Another idea is that it derives from the Gaelic Sgeir Rocail, meaning "skerry of roaring" or "sea rock of roaring".

Dutch mapmakers showed an island called "Rookol" northwest of Ireland on their Map of 1594 and the first literary reference to the island, where it is called "Rokol", is in  A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland published in 1703.

In June 2014 a Scots adventurer broke the record for occupying this remote Atlantic rock .Nick Hancock survived on the rock for 43 days, beating the previous record held by three Greenpeace campaigners who lived there for 42 days. .He celebrated achieving the solo record by popping a small bottle of champagne . The previous year, he was forced to abandon an attempt to break after his survival pod leaked after three days

Finally, Rockall is probably most famous for being an area in the BBC Radio Four's shipping forecast.

Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

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On this day 3^rd August 1960 -1965

On 03/07/1960 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.

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On 03/07/1961 the number one single was Runaway - Del Shannon and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was 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 Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 03/07/1962 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. The big news story of the weekwas 94 die in Bombay air crash.

On 03/07/1963 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 03/07/1965 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.

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Web Page No 2602

27th July 2019

It’s a Hit, It’s Number 1

1st Picture. New Musical Express

2nd Picture. The Melody Maker

3^rd Picture. The Record Mirror

4^th Picture. Thank Your Lucky Stars

It’s a Hit, It’s Number 1 but where did it start? Where did the figures come from? The more you look into it the more complicated it becomes!

Before the compilation of sales of records, the music market measured a song's popularity by sales of sheet music. The idea of a chart based on sales originated in the United States, where the music-trade paper Billboard compiled the first chart incorporating sales figures on 20^th  July 1940. Record charts in the UK began in 1952, when Percy Dickins of the New Musical Express (NME) gathered together a pool of 52 stores willing to report sales figures. 

For the first British chart Percy Dickins telephoned approximately 20 shops, asking for a list of the 10 best-selling songs in their shop. These results were then aggregated into a Top 12 chart and were published in the NME on 14^th November 1952, with Al Martino's "Here in My Heart" being awarded the number-one position.

The chart became a successful feature of the New Musical Express and it was soon expanded into a Top 20 format on 1^st October 1954. At this time rival publications began compiling their own charts. The Record Mirror compiled its own Top 10 chart for 22^nd January 1955; it was based on postal returns from record stores (which were financed by the Record Mirror).

The NME chart at the time was based on a telephone poll. Both charts expanded in size, with Mirror's becoming a Top 20 in October 1955 and NME's becoming a Top 30 in April 1956.  Another rival publication, The Melody Maker, began compiling its own chart; it telephoned 19 stores to produce a Top 20 for 7^th  April 1956. It was also the first chart to include Northern Ireland in its sample.

The Record Mirror began running a Top 5 album chart in July 1956 which from November 1958 onwards was run by the NME. But in, March 1960, Record Retailer began compiling an EP  chart and also had a Top 50 singles chart. 

Although the NME had the largest circulation of charts in the 1960s and was widely followed in March 1962 The Record Mirror stopped compiling its own chart and published The Record Retailer's chart instead. 

Record Retailer began independent auditing in January 1963, and has been used by the UK Singles Chart as the source for number-ones since the week ending 12^th March 1960. The choice of The Record Retailer as the source has often been criticised; however, the chart was unique in listing close to 50 positions for the whole decade.  Additionally, the Retailer was set up by independent record shops and had no funding or affiliation with record companies. However, it had a significantly smaller sample size than some rival charts.

Before February 1969 (when the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) chart was established), there was no official chart or universally accepted source. Readers followed the charts in various periodicals and, during this time, the BBC used aggregated results of charts from the NME, Melody Maker, Disc and The Record Mirror to compile the Pick of the Pops chart.  However, until 1969 the Record Retailer chart was only seen by people working in the industry.

The most widely circulated chart, the one we all knew was the NME one and this was the chart used by Radio Luxembourg's legendary Sunday night Top 20 show, as well as by ABC TV's Thank Your Lucky Stars, which had an audience of up to 6 million on ITV.

And there was I thinking for years that there was only one Hit Parade, how wrong can you be?

Just a few thoughts to be going on with

Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

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On this day 27^th July 1960 -1965

On 27/07/1960 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 27/07/1961 the number one single was Temptation - Everly Brothers and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. 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 27/07/1962 the number one single was I Can't Stop Loving You - Ray Charles 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 27/07/1963 the number one single was Confessin' - Frank Ifield 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 27/07/1965 the number one single was Mr Tambourine Man - Byrds 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 2600

20th July 2019

TEN THINGS THE MODERN TEENAGER WILL NOT OF HEARD OF.

1st Picture. Speaking Clock

2nd Picture. Six Penny Piece

3^rd Picture. Test Card J

4^th Picture. Florida Orange Juice

I this modern world we take lots of things for granted but what we know about can sometimes baffle the modern teenager

For example, everyone’s heard of the speaking clock. Haven’t they? Ask the nearest teenager. You may be surprised. And here are a few more to try out while you’re at it . . .

1 I’VE NEVER HEARD OF THE SPEAKING CLOCK

First introduced in France in 1933, it’s a number you call to get the correct time. “At the third stroke, the time will be 7.10 and 30 seconds.” Beep, beep, beep. Admittedly, your average teenager will respond that you can get the time on your phone/laptop/TV at any time, so why would you need to call anyone to ask, but where’s the fun in that?

2 I’VE NEVER HEARD OF A SIXPENCE

OK, it went out of circulation in 1980, but it was a lovely little coin which served us well from the mid-15th century. The writing was on the wall for it after decimalisation in 1971, though it hung around for a while worth two and a half new pence (while still called a sixpence). They were really good for hiding in a Christmas pudding (unless you swallowed it) and a nice gift from the Tooth Fairy (until inflation put up the price of teeth).

3 I’VE NEVER HEARD OF THE TEST CARD

Well, why would you? Back in the days when you could count the number of TV channels on one hand, and no programmes were being shown, this is what appeared on your screen. Test Card F is the best-known as it was the first to be transmitted in colour in the UK in 1967 and the first to feature a person, eight-year-old Carole Hersee playing noughts and crosses with Bubbles the Clown. The image was surrounded by test signals required to ensure a correct picture. Apparently.

4 I’VE NEVER HEARD OF RAG AND BONE MEN

What, even Steptoe and Son? Come on — that was a TV series which was so popular, Harold Wilson was concerned Labour voters would stay in to watch rather than go out to vote for his party in the election. In the 19th century, rag and bone men did exactly what it says on the tin, scavenging unwanted rags and even bones and other waste. They evolved into a kind of buy-and-sell merchant but gradually all but died out. You still find some today, although they tend to drive vans rather than take to the streets with a horse and cart, as the Steptoes did.

5 I’VE NEVER HEARD OF BLACK AND WHITE TV

It’s like colour TV, without the colour. But seriously, if you’re of a certain age, the first TV set you will have laid eyes on would have been of the black and white variety. And if you’d never seen (or thought of) TV in colour, it wasn’t a problem — apart from watching the snooker on Pot Black.

6 I’VE NEVER HEARD OF A RECORD COLLECTION

To be honest, some of ’em haven’t even heard of a CD. Long gone are the days we talked about singles and LPs, which means no one will now know the joy of hearing the late John Peel putting a record on at 45 rather than 33 and only noticing after it had been playing for a couple of minutes.

7 I’VE NEVER HEARD OF PULLING THE CHOKE OUT

People say today’s cars are too complicated “Ooh, it’s all computers under the bonnet” but in the days when every car came in dull colours you had to have the know how just to start one. Pulling the choke out let more petrol flow into the engine, and you’d gradually push it back in as the engine warmed up.

8 I’VE NEVER HEARD OF FRUIT JUICE AS A STARTER

We talk about “Rip-off Britain” nowadays but, come on, the posh thing was to serve up a small glass of “Florida orange juice” as a starter in a restaurant, and charge over a quid for it. No wonder my parents would roll their eyes whenever I ordered the fruit juice, as they tucked into prawn cocktails that would nowadays set you back a small fortune and be called “Prawn Marie-Rose”.

9 I’VE NEVER HEARD OF HAVING YOUR HOLIDAY SNAPS DEVELOPED

How did we do it? How did we load the film into the camera, choose the right shutter speed and exposure, then take out the spool stick it in an envelope and send it off or take it down to Boots?

10 I’VE NEVER HEARD OF VIDEO RECORDERS

Not for them the baffling process of pre-programming your VCR to tape your shows during your fortnight in the sun, knowing you’ll run out of tape halfway through Auf Weidersehen, Pet. And don’t even mention Betamax.

Just a few thoughts to be going on with

Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

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On this day 20/07/1960 – 1965

On 20/07/1960 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 20/07/1961 the number one single was Temptation - Everly Brothers and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. 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 20/07/1962 the number one single was I Can't Stop Loving You - Ray Charles 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 20/07/1963 the number one single was Confessin' - Frank Ifield 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 20/07/1965 the number one single was Mr Tambourine Man - Byrds 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 2596

16^th July 2019

1st Picture. Rentaset Advert

 2nd Picture. Boy watching Pay TV

3^rd Picture. Pay TV slot meter

4^th Picture. Cooper Ali World Champion Fight

Watching TV

At home we did not own our first television set it came and was fitted by Radio Rentals from their shop in Cosham High Street.

Radio Rentals was formed by Percy Perring-Thoms in 1930 in Boyces Street  in  Brighton with the intension of renting out radio sets giving him a turnover in the first year of £780. The company later moved into televisions and ultimately video recorders. The growth of a public TV service after the war encouraged more people to want TV sets but they were expensive, leaving an opportunity for companies like RR to offer them at a monthly rental price which was much more affordable In 1964 Radio Rentals merged with a similar company RentaSet which was founded by Joseph Robinson. Then in 1968 this new company was acquired by Thorn Electrical Industries and joined with Thorn's DER chain (founded 1938) as part of Thorn Television Rentals (TTR) though the two companies were run completely separately with different staff and vehicles etc. With the coming of colour services, initially on BBC2 only, a further opportunity for renting was created. On 15^th  November 1969, colour broadcasts on both BBC channels and the ITV network became available from the main transmitter sites around the UK. This led to a boom in rental of the sets.

In 1980 TTR and thus Radio Rentals became part of the merged Thorn EMI, and in 2000 it merged with Granada Limited to form Boxclever. The company still trades as Radio Rentals in Australia.

At its peak, Radio Rentals claimed it had more than 2 million customers, over 500 shops and employed 3,600 technicians, 2,700 skilled installers plus a large ancillary staff. They had sales and service locations across the UK, the Radio Rental logo being a common sight on many High Streets. They also offered a small range of white goods, mainly from Philips/Whirlpool.

The urge to rent instead of buy reduced as domestic electronics became cheaper and more reliable, with greater use of integrated circuits and better design methods. But in the end reliability saw the death knell of rented televisions

However, there was also another way of watching television and that was Pay TV

In the 1960s, a company called Pay Television Limited started broadcasting via cable in London and after a period of time, extended its operation to Sheffield.in fact the programme listing for Pay-TV was always published in the London Evening News. A feature film cost 7/6d, a documentary 3/6d and so on but the Election Results programme in 1966 was offered at no charge. When Pay-TV was extended to Sheffield, the service supplied by British  Relay

Most subscribers were sent a monthly magazine with listings each month but householder soon learnt that if they put their money in at the scheduled start time for a programme by the time the money had worked its way through the metre you missed the start. The highlight for many people was exclusive viewing rights of the Henry Cooper v Muhammad Ali for the world heavyweight boxing title. This prestigious fight cost was expensive, 21 shillings to watch, so many people invited their friends in to watch it and share the cost.

The whole pay tv system did not last much longer after this big event and was totally gone within a very few years.

One junior television watcher remembers that their grandparents rented a coin operated black and white telly in the 1970s from a North East company called Telebank and the mother of a schoolfriends had the job of emptying the coin boxes in the Hartlepool area. At lunchtime Grandad would put 10p in the slot and the set would come on just in time for Rainbow, or Animal Kwackers or whatever Tyne Tees were showing for little kids that day until the racing came on.

I, myself have heard of these TV’s but never saw one.

Peter

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On this day 06/07/1960 - 1965

On 06/07/1960 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.

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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 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 Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Mario Dubois born.

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. The big news story of the day was 94 die in Bombay air crash.

On 06/07/1963 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 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.

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