Web Page No 2620

28th September 2019

Football pools

1^st Picture: Littlewoods Coupon

 2^nd Picture: Littlewoods Checking Office

 3^rd Picture: Pottery worker Edwin Dodd, his wife & their four-year-old son celebrated a £1,000 Pools win in 1934 

4^th Picture: Len Martin who read the football results from the first edition of Grandstand in 1958 until his death in 1995

None of our family took part in the Football Pools and so I know very little about them. As far as I can make out they were cheap to enter, with the potential to win a very large sum of money. Entries were traditionally submitted through the post or via collector agents. The traditional and most popular game was the Treble Chance which was when players picked 10, 11 or 12 football matches from the fixtures to finish as a draw, in which each team scores at least one goal. The Player with the most accurate predictions won the top prize, or a share of it if more than one player with the same predictions.

Littlewoods, Vernons and Zetters were the largest pools companies. Littlewoods was the first company to provide pools, selling them outside Manchester United’s Old Trafford ground in 1923. In 1986, a syndicate of players became the first winners of a prize over £1 million.

Several companies ran pools coupons, the largest being Littlewoods and Vernons (both based in Liverpool), as well as Zetters (of London), (Leicester) and these companies have, in the past, organised similar games, the most famous of which was known as Treble Chance. Where the players were given a list of matches set to take place over the coming week and attempted to pick a line of eight of them, whose results would be worth the most points by the scoring scheme; traditionally by crossing specific boxes on a printed coupon. A proportion of the players' combined entry fees was distributed as prizes among those whose entries were worth the highest scores.

The pools business declined after the introduction of the National Lottery in 1994. In 2007, the Littlewoods, Vernons and Zetters companies came together to form The New Football Pools.

The BBC television programme Grandstand used to broadcast the winning match numbers as part of its "Final Score" segment in the late afternoon. Only three people have so far announced the classified football results on the programme since its inception in 1958: Len Martin until his death in 1995 and since then, Tim Gudgin; Mark E. Smith, singer from the band The Fall, read out the football results as his band's track Theme from Sparta F.C. was the programme's theme music. Pools news was also given out on the BBC radio programme Sports Report until May 2007.

Some notable UK football pools winners:^[3]

Year	Winner	Amount	Notes
1957	Nellie McGrail, Stockport	£205,235
1961	Keith Nicholson, Castleford	£152,319
1972	Cyril Grimes, Liss, Hampshire	£512,683	first win over £500,000
1979	Irene Powell, Port Talbot	£882,000	first win over £750,000
1986	a syndicate of hospital workers from Devizes	£1,017,890	first million-pound win
1987	Barry Dinsdale, Kingston upon Hull	£1,910,972
1991	Rodi Woodcock	£2,072,220	first double-millionaire
1993	Judy Smith, Isle of Portland	£2,077,683.60	highest UK win at that time
1994	a syndicate from Worsley	£2,924,622	the inaugural weekend of the National Lottery
2010	14 players shared £3 million and one Zetters player scooped £1 million
2010	Michael Elliott, Brechin	£3,001,511
2011	four winners won £3 million split four ways, each receiving £750,000

Competition from the National Lottery led to a rapid fall-off in players, from a peak of 10 million in 1994 to 700,000 in 2007. Vernons closed its pools operation in February 1998. In 2000, Littlewoods Pools was sold for £161 million.

Over the years The Football Pools have donated over £1.1 billion to sporting-related causes.

The pools feature prominently in the British films Easy Money (1948) and Home and Away (1956) starring Jack Warner.

But I still would not know how to start filling in the form!!!!

Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

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On this day 28th September 1960-65:

On 28/09/1960 the number one single was Tell Laura I Love Her - Ricky Valance and the number one album was Down Drury Lane to Memory Lane - A Hundred and One Strings. The top rated TV show was The Army Game (Granada) 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 28/09/1961 the number one single was Johnny Remember Me - John Leyton and the number one album was The Shadows - Shadows. 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 Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 28/09/1962 the number one single was She's Not You - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. 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 28/09/1963 the number one single was She Loves 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 Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 28/09/1964 the number one single was I'm Into Something Good - Herman's Hermits 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 28/09/1965 the number one single was Tears - Ken Dodd 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 LPs cost 12/6d.

Web Page No 2618

21st September 2019

Quatermass

1st Picture. Professor Bernard Quatermass

 2nd Picture. Quatermass and the Pit

 3rd Picture. Quatermass Poster

4th Picture. Quatermass toy

Who remembers hiding behind the sofa to watch The Quatermass Experiment broadcast by BBC Television during the summer of 1953 not the re-staged version by BBC Four in 2005. Set in the near future against the background of a British space programme, it told the story of the first manned flight into space, supervised by Professor Bernard Quatermass of the British Experimental Rocket Group.

When the spaceship that carried the first successful crew returns to Earth, two of the three astronauts are missing, and the third – Victor Carroon – is behaving strangely. It becomes apparent that an alien presence entered the ship during its flight, and Quatermass and his associates must prevent the alien from destroying the world.

Originally comprising six half-hour episodes, it was the first science-fiction production to be written especially for an adult television audience in Britain. Previous written-for-television efforts such as Stranger from Space (1951–52) were aimed at children. The serial was the first of four Quatermass productions to be screened on British television between 1953 and 1979, and was transmitted live from the BBC's original television studios at Alexandra Palace in London, one of the final productions before BBC television drama moved to west London.

The serial was written by BBC television drama writer Nigel Kneale, who had been an actor and an award-winning fiction writer before joining the BBC. He had an interest in science, particularly the idea of 'science going bad' which led to The Quatermass Experiment. The project originated when a gap formed in the BBC's schedules for a six-week serial to run on Saturday nights during the summer of 1953, and the idea was to fill it with "a mystifying, rather than horrific" storyline.

Rudolph Cartier, one of the BBC's best-regarded directors, directed the serial. Kneale claimed to have picked his leading character's unusual last name at random from a London telephone directory. He chose the character's first name, Bernard, in honour of astronomer Bernard Lovell in fact Kneale had not finished scripting the final two episodes before the first episode was transmitted. The production had an overall budget of just under £4000.The theme music used was "Mars, Bringer of War" from The Planets.

Each episode was rehearsed from Monday to Friday at the Student Movement House on Gower Street in London, with camera rehearsals taking place all day on Saturday before transmission. The episodes were then transmitted live—with a few pre-filmed 35mm film inserts shot before and during the rehearsal period at the BBC's original television studios at Alexandra Palace, it was one of the last major dramas to be broadcast from here.

The Quatermass Experiment was transmitted weekly on Saturday night from 18^th  July to 22^nd  August 1953. Episode one was scheduled from 8.15 to 8.45 p.m.; episode two 8.25–8.55 p.m.; episodes three and four 8.45–9.15 p.m.; and the final two episodes from 9.00 to 9.30 p.m. Due to the live performances, each episode overran its slot slightly, from two minutes (episode four) to six (episode six). The long overrun of the final episode was caused by a temporary break in transmission to replace a failing microphone.

The BBC intended that each episode be telerecorded onto 35mm film, a relatively new process and sale of the serial had been provisionally agreed with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Only poor-quality copies of the first two episodes were recorded before the idea was abandoned, although the first of these was later shown in Canada. It is very unlikely that material from the third to sixth episodes will ever be recovered to the BBC's archives. The two existing episodes are the oldest surviving examples and some of the earliest existing examples of British television drama at all.

In 1963, one of the existing episodes was selected as a representative of early British programming for the Festival of World Television at the National Film Theatre in London.

Along with his laboratory assistants, Professor Bernard Quatermass anxiously awaits the return to Earth of his new rocket ship and its crew, who have become the first humans to travel into space. The rocket is at first thought to be lost, having dramatically overshot its planned orbit, but eventually it is detected by radar and returns to Earth, crash-landing in Wimbledon.

When Quatermass and his team reach the crash area and succeed in opening the rocket, they discover that only one of the three crewmen, Victor Carroon, remains inside. Quatermass and his chief assistant Paterson investigate the interior of the rocket, and are baffled by what they find: the space suits of the others are present, and the instruments on board indicate that the door was never opened in flight, but there is no sign of the other two crewmen.

Carroon, gravely ill, is cared for by the Rocket Group's doctor, Briscoe who has been having a secret affair with Carroon's wife, Judith. It is not just Quatermass who is interested in what happened to Carroon and his crewmates; journalists such as James Fullalove (and Scotland Yard's Inspector Lomax are also keen to hear his story. Carroon is abducted by a group of foreign agents whose government wants the information they believe he has obtained about travelling in space. It is clear that there is something critically wrong: he appears to have absorbed the consciousness of the other two crew members, and is slowly mutating into a plant-like alien organism.

As the police chase the rapidly transforming Carroon across London, Quatermass analyses samples of the mutated creature in a laboratory, and realises that it has the ability to end all life on Earth if it spores. A television crew working on an architectural programme locates the monster in Westminster Abbey, and Quatermass and troops of the British Army rush in to destroy it in the hour before it brings about doomsday. Quatermass convinces the consciousness of the three crewmen buried deep inside the creature to turn against it and destroy it; this appeal to the last remains of their humanity succeeds in defeating the organism.

Following the success of The Quatermass Experiment, Nigel Kneale became one of the best-regarded screenwriters in the history of British television.

Quatermass was played by the experienced Reginald Tate, who died two years later, while preparing to take the role of the Professor again in Quatermass II.

Appearing in a small role as a drunk was Wilfrid Brambell, (Albert Steptoe) who later appeared as a tramp in Quatermass II.

The Quatermass Experiment achieved favourable viewing figures in 1953, opening with an estimated audience of 3.4 million for the first episode, increasing to 5 million for the sixth and final episode, and averaging 3.9 million for the entire serial

Viewers' responses were generally positive. Letters praising the production were sent to the Radio Times, while the writer and producer were also applauded by readers of TV News magazine, which nominated them for one of the publication's "TV Bouquet" awards.

The Quatermass Experiment frightened the life out of a vast new generation of television viewers whose sets had been acquired in order to watch the Coronation… Quatermass was one of the first series on British television to make life seem potentially terrifying."

Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

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News and Views:

On this day 21st September 1960-65:

On 21/09/1960 the number one single was Apache - The Shadows and the number one album was Down Drury Lane to Memory Lane - A Hundred and One Strings. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) 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 21/09/1961 the number one single was Reach for the Stars / Climb Ev'ry Mountain - Shirley Bassey and 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. The big news story of the day was Take Your Pick (AR)".

On 21/09/1962 the number one single was She's Not You - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. 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 21/09/1963 the number one single was She Loves 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 Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 21/09/1964 the number one single was You Really Got Me - Kinks 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 21/09/1965 the number one single was Make It Easy On Yourself - Walker Brothers 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.

Web Page No 2616

14th September 2019

Weights and Measures

We have to thank Maureen for this contribution

1st Picture. A traditional bacon slicer

 2nd Picture. A typical corner shop

 3rd Picture. Charlotte Street Market

4th Picture. Weighing up loose sugar

Waitrose is starting a trial aimed at reducing packaging by removing plastic from flowers and plants and offering more loose fruit and vegetables.

Customers will be able to use their own containers to buy and refill produce such as pasta, rice and cereals.

The supermarket chain, part of John Lewis & Partners, also says it will be the first to offer "pick and mix" frozen fruit.

It says it wants to find out how people might shop in the future.

A wonderful statement from Waitrose! but didn't we shop like that in the past?

When rationing was still alive in Britain our family shopped in a small grocers in Southsea, even after they moved to Drayton in 1940.  I think it was called Butlers and the manager was Mr Pook , who lived 'over the hill'. Mr Pook would collect our little red cash book with the weekly shopping list on his way to work and then deliver the groceries to us on his way home in the evening. But I loved to visit the shop, just a tiny corner shop connected to the house next door, the smell still lingers now; smoked bacon and the terrifying bacon slicer - as thick or as thin as you required.  All groceries were sold loose and to watch Mrs Butler and Mrs Francis making a blue sugar bag and weighing in the sugar, dried fruits, pulses, flour etc or carving off a chunk of butter and moulding it into a fancy pat with the butter paddles was magic.  Biscuits came in large tall rectangular tins with glass lids and Mrs Butler would allow my brother and I to lift the lid and choose one biscuit each as a treat. I always fancied working...no... owning my own corner shop with the shelves neatly stacked.

We would also visit Charlotte Street by bus to get the fresh vegetables and fruit. Mother had her regular stalls to visit, salads from Mrs Deacon, mushrooms from 'the mushroom man and all the other vegetables from Ship's  in Meadow Street.  You took your own bag and the potatoes went in first then swede, carrots and parsnips followed by apples, pears and bananas and any delicate stuff perched on the top, no bags except the one you brought with you, although tomatoes always went in a little brown bag and you bought what you could carry.

Then later in our teenage years, do you remember the shop towards the top of Cosham High Street [I believe it is now Barnado's]  formerly Greggs where you could watch skillful young ladies carving full slices of ham from a whole, bone in ham then it changed to a shop full of great big bins where you could buy just the amount that suited you of every cereal under the sun.  You could buy dried fruit, flours, grains, pulses, sweets, well everything.

So Mr Waitrose, remember, Life is a circle, what we experience now has been experienced in the past for time immemorial. Fashions come and go and come back again and the good ones stay forever.

Stay in touch

Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

You Write:

News and Views:

On this day 14th September 1960-65:

On 14/09/1960 the number one single was Apache - The Shadows and the number one album was Down Drury Lane to Memory Lane - A Hundred and One Strings. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) 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 14/09/1961 the number one single was Johnny Remember Me - John Leyton and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. 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 Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was First Mothercare shop opens in Surrey.

On 14/09/1962 the number one single was She's Not You - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Pot Luck - 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 Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 14/09/1963 the number one single was She Loves 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 Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 14/09/1964 the number one single was You Really Got Me - Kinks 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 14/09/1965 the number one single was (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Rolling Stones 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.