Thursday 29 December 2022
Web Page 3030
5th January 2023
First Picture:
Peter Scott
Second Picture:
Crackerjack
Third Picture:
Max Jaffa
Forth Picture:
Chipperfields Circus
BBC CHRISTMAS TV 1959
Christmas Eve Thursday 24th December 1959
BBCTV
1.00pm Beunydd (In Welsh : Daily news, and a talk on Welsh religious matters)
1.15pm Closedown
2.30pm Watch with Mother : Rag, Tag, and Bobtail
2.45pm Man from 1997 a comic fantasy
3.30pm Faraway Look Kangaroos and Koalas Peter Scott looks back, with his wife, on his first Faraway Look tour which took him to Australia,New Zealand, New Guinea, and Fiji
4.30pm The Apple Tree with the Golden Apples
Hungarian film. The story told by Johnny Morris
4.55pm Children's Newsreel
5.10pm Eamonn Andrews in Christmas Crackerjack
featuring Lenny the Lion with Terry Hall, Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson and Ronnie Corbett .
Raymond Rollett
6.05pm News, The Weather
6.25pm Christmas Fare
A look ahead at Christmas programmes with Michael Aspel
6.30pm Carols from Canterbury
Sung in the Crypt and the Choir of the cathedral
7.05pm Film : The Trail to Christmas (1957) starring James Stewart
7.30pm Julie Andrews and John Fraser in "The Gentle Flame"
8.15pm Amahl and the Night Visitors
9.00pm News Summary
9.05pm Film : Sister Kenny (1946) starring Rosalind Russell
10.55pm Mass of the Nativity from the Roman Catholic Bergkirche, Eisenstadt, Austria
12.00 Closedown
Christmas Day Friday 25th December 1959
8.30am Christmas Greeting A programme of carols by The George Mitchell Glee Club and Dennis Wilson Quartet
9.00am The Queen (sound only)
9.03am Dartington Christmas Festival introduced by Huw Wheldon
9.30am Gwyl Y Geni (Festival of the Nativity)
10.00am Closedown
11.00am Morning Service from St George's Parish Church, Stockport
11.45am Peace on Earth Christmas programme from the International Pestalozzi Children's Villages in Switzerland and in Sussex children from all over Europe gather round the Christmas tree as one family.
12.15pm Meet Mr Kringle film comedy
1.00pm News Summary
1.15pm Music with Max Max Jaffa's with The Trio, Alicia Markova and the Linden Singers
1.35pm Days Before Christmas National Film Board of Canada
2.00pm Boots and Saddles : Dispatch Rider
2.25pm While Angels Watch A documentary film about Queen Alexandra's Nursing Service
3.00pm Chipperfield's Circus 4.00pm Billy Cotton's Christmas Party
4.45pm A Kiss for Cinderella starring Jeannie Carson
6.15pm News Summary
6.20pm Christmas Night with the Stars featuring Jimmy Logan Show ,Charlie Drake, Whack-O!
7.35pm Harry Belafonte in Songs of Many Land
8.20pm Film : High Noon (1952) starring Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly,
9.45pm News Summary
9.50pm Bleak House Charles Dickens adapted for television
10.20pm Make Way for Music Alyn Ainsworth and the BBC Northern Dance Orchestra 10.50pm Epilogue for Christmas Day The Rev. Frederic Greeves Principal of Didsbury College, Bristol followed by
Weather
Closedown
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HAPPY NEW YEAR
Peter
gsseditor@gmail.com
Thursday 22 December 2022
Web Page No 3028
22nd December 2022
Christmas in the 1950’s
First Picture: Christmas Tree Lights
Second Picture: Tree decorations
Third Picture: Glass tree decorations
Forth Picture: St. Nick Christmas Lights
In the 1950’s and 60’s the approaching Christmas season saw my folks buying all kinds of different foodstuffs and fancy goods to place on the sideboard for the festive period. Various items that were never seen in our home at other time of the year. Firstly, there would be a net bag selection of various types of nuts. Walnuts, Hazel nuts (why we bought these as we had a whole row of hazel nut trees in our back garden), plus Brazil nuts, this naturally started a search through the various cupboards and drawers around the house for the nut crackers which had not been seen since the previous Christmas.
Another item only purchased at this time was Turkish Delight (not the Fry’s version but the real thing dusted with icing sugar). The only person that liked it was my grandmother, who lived with us. The hexagonal box would be placed with its wooden fork on the side board and there it sat for several weeks until my grandmother finally finished it off sometime in mid-January.
Another item bought around this time were tangerines, I liked them and would frequently attack the bowl of them set out on the sideboard.
Talking about fruit, this was the only time in the year that we ever saw Crystalised Fruit in our house.
Oblong boxes of dates would also appear. They were horrible, sticky things that came with their own long handled eaters. Again, I cannot remember anyone liking these particular fruits but it was the done thing to have them available. As was a tray of Sharpes toffee complete with its little hammer to break up the block with. We now come to alcohol. This was something the was rarely kept in our house. Some bottles of stout were bought in for my grandmother and a bottle of Advocaat so my father could make snowballs for my mother. Babycham and Pony were bought in for guests and so was sherry and Port so that Port and Lemon could be offered and of course lemonade for me.
My dad would go out and buy some luxury smoking aid , Du Maurier in its bright red flat box and mini cigars such as Manakin. These items would be put on the sideboard so they could be offered to visitors.
Then there were the homemade decorations!
You Write
Obituary Robert Barlow
Robert ( Bob ) Barlow passed away on Saturday 17th December aged 78 after suffering a general decline in his health over the last few weeks. The son of John & Mary Barlow who owned the well know Chemist and gift shop in Cosham High Street , Bakers of Cosham we lived over the shop throughout our school life. Bob went to Court Lane infants school and then primary school and then secondary school which became Manor Court. Bob became head boy while he was there and finished school in 1961. He then joined National Provincial Bank which became NatWest. He stayed there and took early retirement in his mid 50s. He also travelled a lot on his holidays.
I will post funeral arrangements when known.
Regards
Peter Barlow
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Peter
gsseditor@gmail.com
Wednesday 14 December 2022
Thursday 8 December 2022
Web Page 3024
8th December 2022
First Picture: Publicity Photo
Second Picture: Christmas Alphabet
Third Picture: Dickie and family
Forth Picture: Memorial plaque
Dickie Valentine
Richard Bryce (né Maxwell; 4 November 1929 – 6 May 1971 was known professionally as Dickie Valentine, and enjoyed great popularity in Britain during the 1950s. In addition to several other Top Ten hit singles, He had two chart-toppers on the UK Singles Chart with "Finger of Suspicion", featuring The Stargazers (1954) and the seasonal "Christmas Alphabet" (1955).
He was born Richard Maxwell in November 1929 (his birth father was Dickie Maxwell) in Marylebone. He was known as Richard Bryce after his mother married Bryce.
Dickie Valentine's first acting job was at age only three when he appeared in the British comedy film Jack's the Boy starring Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge
He developed a flexible vocal style and skills as an impersonator of famous singers. Actor-singer Bill O'Connor overheard him singing as a call boy at Her Majesty's Theatre in London and paid for his voice lessons.
He sang in clubs and learned stagecraft to help gain confidence and experience. While he was in his late teens, he was singing at the Panama Club one night when music publisher Sid Green saw him and brought him to the attention of bandleader Ted Heath.
On 14 February 1949, Dickie Valentine, an unknown, was signed by Ted Heath to join his band, Ted Heath and his Music, to sing alongside Lita Roza and Dennis Lotis. He was voted the Top UK Male Vocalist in 1952 while singing with the Ted Heath Orchestra, the most successful of all British big bands, and again after going solo in 1954.
In November 1954, he was invited to sing at the Royal Command Performance, and in February 1955 he was top billed at the London Palladium. He also cracked jokes and impersonated entertainers, including Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Mario Lanza and Billy Daniels. He recorded two number one hits, "Christmas Alphabet" and "The Finger of Suspicion (Points at You)". His first chart-topper came only two months after his marriage to Elizabeth Flynn at Caxton Hall, which caused scenes of hysteria and was widely expected to sound the death knell to his career. In fact, 1955 was by far his best chart year, with both the two number ones and three other's placed in the Top Ten. While his second number one saw him playing 'King Canute' to Bill Haley's incoming tide of rock and roll, "Christmas Alphabet" marked the first time in the UK that a song created for the Christmas market would hit number one. In April 1955, he again topped the bill at the London Palladium for two weeks, a month after winning the male vocalist category in the NME poll. He went on to win this title consecutively from 1953 to 1957.
In 1961, he had a television series Calling Dickie Valentine. In 1966 he partnered with Peter Sellers on the ATV sketch show The Dickie Valentine Show.
Although his fame began to wane during the 1960s, he remained a popular live performer until his death.
He was travelling back to his friends home where he was staying, after having played a concert at the Double Diamond Club in Caerphilly, he was killed outright in a car crash on a single lane bridge at Glangrwyney, near Crickhowell, on 6 May 1971, at the age of 41, together with pianist Sidney Boatman and drummer Dave Pearson, both aged 42.
The coroner's inquest revealed the car in which the three were travelling to have been driven in excess of 90 mph at the time of impact, and that Dickie Valentine, who was driving his wife Wendy's Hillman Avenger, with which he was unfamiliar (he was awaiting delivery of his new customised car), had lost control of the vehicle while attempting to take a (clearly marked) dangerous bend. Even though he had travelled on that stretch of road many times and was familiar with its hazards, it was thought that his attention might have been distracted by conversation with his friends, in addition to fatigue (the crash having happened at 4:20am). There was also heavy fog in the area. The coroner returned a verdict of 'death by misadventure'. Valentine is interred at Slough Crematorium.
A commemorative plaque was unveiled on the new bridge on August 7, 2021 by his son Richard Valentine and other family members and friends of the three musicians.
Dickie Valentine married Elizabeth Flynn, a Scottish professional ice skater, in 1954. They had two children together, Richard (later a television director) and Kim, but divorced in 1967. He married the actress Wendy Wayne in 1968. Prior to the car accident, Wayne and Valentine were scheduled to undertake a twenty-week summer season at the Water Splash in Jersey
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Peter
gsseditor@gmail.com
Thursday 1 December 2022
Web Page 3022
30th November 2022
Molly Weir
First Picture: Publicity Photo
Third Picture: 1955 photo
Thursday 24 November 2022
Web Page 3020
23 November 2022
The Bumblies
First Picture: The Bumblies
Second Picture: Michael Bentine with the Bumblies
Third Picture: DVD featuring two Bumblies episodes
Do you remember the thirteen-part series presented by Michael Bentine, The Bumblies. Here is Michael Bentines explanation of who and what they were.
For many years I have been looking into space through a rose-coloured telescope without seeing anything very unusual, so you can imagine the excitement one night when I found myself looking at a new planet which no other human being had ever seen before. I was even more excited when a little while later three visitors from this planet came flying into my room in their own little spaceship, and since then they have become my dearest friends.
We appear on television together quite frequently, and you have probably seen us, so you will know that my three visitors are called Bumbly One, Bumbly Two and Bumbly Three, and that they come from the Planet Bumble. Their spaceship is called a flying saucer, and at home they have flying cups as well.
It is very hard to see the Planet Bumble from earth, because it is almost always on the other side of the moon. In fact Bumblies do not see the face of the man in the moon; they see only the back of his head.
The Bumblies have told me a lot about life on their planet, and I have taught them a lot about our life on earth. They love eating ice-cream, but they were very surprised to find that the only way to get it here is to go into a shop and buy some. At home, they can go out into the country and dig up great big chunks of ice-cream for nothing. You see, on the planet Bumble they have ice-cream mountains--all different kinds--and even the rock is peppermint flavoured.
Bumblies like very sweet things to eat, and they always have plenty of treacle on their food. This comes from treacle wells which are dotted all around the countryside. In the woods you will find Balloon bushes and Twang trees. I think the trees have been given that funny name because the branches are very good for making catapults and when you fire a catapult it goes 'twang'.
You have probably noticed on my television programme that the Bumblies do not walk. They simply float from place to place--which really is a simple way of getting around and I wish I could do it because it would stop me getting holes in my shoes. Mind you, on the Planet Bumble, the Bumblies can either walk or float; but the different quality of the atmosphere on earth makes it impossible for them to walk here. Unfortunately he tripped over an electric cable and put all the lights out in the studio, which brought the Head of Television running upstairs in a great temper and he ordered Bumbly Three never to try and walk in the studios again.
by "Professor" Michael Bentine
Bumbly Three is always getting into trouble, poor chap, for, as he says himself, he is not very bright. But he always has the best intentions, so I can never find it in my heart to blame him when things go wrong. Bumbly One and Bumbly Two, who are both much cleverer, are always ready to excuse Bumbly Three and I thought it was very good of them that they did not get angry with him when he let their flying saucer run out of Bumble juice half-way between the Planet Bumble and Mars. All that happened on that occasion was that Bumbly Three had to get out of the saucer and tow it through space until they came to a garage where they could buy some more Bumble juice. It might have been very dangerous, but it turned out all right, and Bumbly Three apologized in the nicest way. He promised never to let it happen again, but knowing him as well as I do, I think he will find it very difficult to keep his promise.
One thing I must admit is that Bumbly Three is always willing to try anything once. When he came to afternoon tea with me for the first time, he asked if he could make the sandwiches. He had never seen a sandwich before, but I gave him a cucumber and a loaf of bread, and explained what a sandwich is. Bumbly Three went off into a corner by himself, and came back as proud as Punch with his sandwich.
'Here it is, Professor,' he said. I couldn't help laughing when I saw what he had done. He had cut the loaf of bread in half, and put the whole cucumber in the middle. I don't know who would have had a mouth big enough to eat it. Perhaps a giant, but certainly not a Bumbly.
It seems that whatever Bumbly Three tries to do, he can't do it quite right. Ah, well, as he says himself, we can't all be geniuses. So far as I'm concerned, Bumbly Three may not be a genius, but he is so lovable that I forgive him all his mistakes even before he has made them.
But that does not mean I like him better than Bumbly One (who is so wise) and Bumbly Two (who is such good fun). Ever since I first met them, I have been trying to decide which one of the three is the nicest. Some days I think it may be Number One, and other days it may be Number Two, and then I change my mind and say, 'Well, after all, it's Number Three'. Perhaps you would like to write and tell me which one you like best.
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Peter
gsseditor@gmail.com
Thursday 17 November 2022
Web Page 3018
16th November 2022
Comedy Bands
First Picture: Sid Millwall and his Nitwits
Second Picture: Dr Crock and his Crackpots
Third Picture: Nuts & Bolts
Around the later years of the 1940’s right up to the mid 1960’s one of the most popular forms of entertainment was the comedy musical groups with their acts based on classical music. Here are three of the most popular.
Sid Millward and his Nitwits
Sidney Millward (9th December 1909 – 2nd2 February 1972) was a British musician who led the comedy band Sid Millward and His Nitwits, performing comedy classical music from the 1930s until the 1970s.
Sid Millward was born in London, and raised in the East End. He left school in his teens but studied woodwind at the Royal College of Music. By the mid-1930s he was known as a leading saxophone and clarinet player in swing bands, including the Jack Hylton Orchestra.
He formed his own band in 1937 naming them the Nitwits the following year. They made regular appearances on BBC radio, and became the resident band at the Café Anglais in Leicester Square. In the Second World War they performed as part of Stars in Battledress in ENSA.
After the war, they were the house band on the BBC radio show Ignorance Is Bliss, and featured in the 1949 film The Nitwits on Parade. In 1950 they had their own radio show, Nitwit Serenade, and later were frequent performers on British television variety shows. Beside Sid Millward, band members included Wally Stewart, Cyril Lagey, Charlie Rossi, Arthur Calkin, Sid Flood, Harry Coles, Ronnie Genarda and Tony Traverci. They played "wild versions of classical hits, interspersed with madcap, visual jokes", and were an influence on the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. Comedian Roy Hudd described them as "an idiot conductor in an ill-fitting tail suit with mad hair and a Hitler moustache... [with] a bunch of idiot-looking senile delinquents...". By 1960, as theatre work dried up in Britain, the band started working regularly at Le Lido nightclub in Paris, and moved to the Stardust Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, run by Moe Dalitz, in 1962. They returned to Britain in 1967, before a short stint working in Teheran just before the Six Days War. The band then returned to Las Vegas. Following several heart attacks, Sid Millward gave up playing the clarinet, and instead "wandered around the stage in tails and spats, waving a baton around rather pointlessly. He died in 1972, from another heart attack, in a hotel in Carolina, Puerto Rico, during a season performing there. He was buried in Puerto Rico after his widow refused to pay for his body to be repatriated.
Dr. Crock and his Crackpots
Dr. Crock and His Crackpots were another British comedy band popular between the 1940s and 1960s. They were led by saxophone and clarinet player Harry Hines.
Henry Albert "Harry" Hines (born Henrick James Albert Rudolph Hinz; 9 June 1903 – 14 May 1971) was a jazz musician, born in Tottenham, London. He learned clarinet when in the Royal Navy, later learned the saxophone, and became a professional musician in 1933. In the 1930s and early 1940s, he played in various dance bands, including those of Ambrose, Ray Noble, Teddy Brown, and Maurice Winnick, and wrote arrangements.
In 1947, Maurice Winnick persuaded Harry Hines to take over the musical interludes in the popular radio programme Ignorance Is Bliss, after Sid Millward and His Nitwits left the show. Though he as a serious musician, was initially reluctant, he formed a band, which was given the name Dr Crock and His Crackpots by Maurice Winnick. They typically played classical themes at breakneck speed, interspersed with noises such as cowbells and hooters; "like a cross between a small symphony orchestra and a Dixieland jazz band".
Soon afterwards, when Harry Hines wanted to leave the radio show, he took a successful legal action against Maurice Winnick, who claimed he had the legal right to use the band name. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Dr Crock and His Crackpots, with a line-up comprising both musicians and comedians, toured successfully, often topping the bill at variety shows and performing in a style similar to the American combo, Spike Jones and His City Slickers.
Harry Hines died in London in 1971, aged 67.
Nuts and Bolts
Nuts & Bolts were another world-famous musical comedy orchestra from the UK. This absurd act performed their last American tour in 2000 to rave reviews. Before that they toured all over Europe and South America performing their hilariously funny 'Concert Of Music'. The fun started when you thought you were about to hear a concert of classical music and then mayhem came to call in the shape of Count Rossini! Each of the characters in the show had a strange, quirky personality and played even stranger musical instruments! Nuts & Bolts left you aching with laughter and wondering what on earth had just hit you!
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Peter
GSSEditor@gmail.com
Thursday 10 November 2022
Web Page 3016
9th November 2022
Conway Stewart
First Picture:
Conway Stewart Advert
Second Picture: The Gold nib
Third Picture: Gift Set
Forth Picture: The Winston Set
For those who wanted a pen a little better than the Osmoroid a Conway Stewart was the pen of choice. Conway Stewart is a British former manufacturing company of writing implements, founded in 1905 by Frank Jarvis and Thomas Garner in London. The company became notable for its fountain pens, although it also produced ballpoint pens. Conway Stewart was placed in receivership in 2014, with its stocks and assets acquired by Bespoke British Pens Ltd., which owns the rights to the brand since then.
Jarvis and Garner had previously worked for the De La Rue Company, the leading British fountain pen manufacturer of the time. Drawing on the experience they had gained at De La Rue, the two started their own business, initially reselling fountain pens manufactured by other companies. The name "Conway Stewart" was apparently derived from a popular music hall act of the time.
The fountain pen market in Britain at that time was dominated by De La Rue and it was clear to Frank Jarvis and Thomas Garner that only a very limited market share could be gained by reselling un-branded fountain pens. At the same time, De La Rue was embarking on a substantial marketing campaign by re-branding its products "Onoto". Jarvis and Garner identified a market niche for attractive and reliable writing instruments at an affordable price.
The 1920s saw rapid development of the Conway Stewart product line. Pens of several different types of filling mechanisms, materials and sizes were offered for sale. The business model proved successful for Conway Stewart and its market share increased at the expense of other established manufacturers. As a result, Conway Stewart had outgrown its initial premises and in 1927 the company relocated to a larger facility which would serve as its home for the next two decades.
During the depression years, the company was able to remain profitable, helped by the public's perception of good value products. In 1935, Conway Stewart went public, raising additional capital at the same time by offering shares. The years of World War II proved difficult for Conway Stewart and many other manufacturers; there were shortages of materials but the company managed to survive by continuing to offer good reliable pens at reasonable prices.
Emerging from post-war austerity in Britain, the 1950s proved to be golden years for Conway Stewart, with the creative use of coloured plastic reaching its peak. The company once again relocated to new premises, but the golden age proved to be short-lived. At the same time, the ballpoint pen was being developed and while initially unreliable and more expensive than comparably finished fountain pens, soon decreased rapidly in price. Conway Stewart, along with most other fountain pen manufacturers of the time, failed to anticipate the effect that this innovative product would have on fountain pen sales.
In the 1960s, fountain pen sales declined very quickly and Conway Stewart began to feel the effect of falling revenues. The company tried to compete by offering lower priced fountain pens and also introduced ballpoint pens to its range. The company relocated to Crumlin, Caerphilly in Wales in 1968, taking advantage of regional development grants, but its financial health continued to deteriorate. In 1975, the company was wound-up and production ceased.
The company was revived in the 1990s, with headquarters in Plymouth. Sales started in 1998, although some models had been produced for special occasions before that, including for the Heads of State attending the 1998 G8 Summit in Birmingham.
On 28 August 2014, the company was placed in receivership. The remaining stock, as well as the machinery and tooling, were sold off and its offices closed. Bespoke British Pens went on to acquire the stock of components from the Conway Stewart factory. The Turners Workshop Ltd in the UK bought all the remaining materials including large stocks of Casein, Ebonite Cellulose Acetate and Acrylics. On 11 November 2014, Mr Caltagirone Emmanuel registered the trademark Conway Stewart for the USA.
Early models marketed by Conway Stewart were sourced from other manufacturers, were made of hard rubber and were indistinguishable from many other pens available at that time. By the mid-1920s, the company was establishing its own design style, helped by the use of colourful celluloid and casein plastics.
The plastics of the 1940s to 1960s were produced in a variety of styles and colours and while never specifically named by Conway Stewart, they have become known informally by collectors by names such as cracked ice, herringbone, tiger’s eye and crosshatch and the more common marbled finish. Of particular note is the model 22 which was produced in the 1950s in a floral pattern. This was produced in very small numbers compared to other models of the time. There is some uncertainty as to the number produced; estimates range from 200 to 2000.
After the early 1960s injection moulded plastic of a uniform colour was used for the manufacture of pens. Nibs, which had been 14ct gold until this time, were generally replaced by stainless steel.
1990s–present
Models produced in this era are made for the "high-end" of the market and feature precious metals, enamels and celluloid plastics and 18ct gold nibs.
The Conway Stewart trademark in the UK was purchased by Helix from the liquidators in 1975. The trademark was then purchased by another company with a view to relaunching the brand on a range of fibre tipped pen for the mass market, only limited numbers were produced and in 1994 Don Yendle purchased the UK tradename from the company. The USA trademark was purchased from Stuart Edwards of Palo Alto in 1994. In 1995 Don Yendle met with the directors of Shaeffer Australia who had registered the name with a view to relaunching a cheap range of Chinese pens for the Australian market. A meeting was held in Hong Kong in early 1995 whereby Don Yendle purchased the rights to the CS tradename for Australia.
Having formed Conway Stewart as a Limited Company in the UK the trademark was registered in Europe and Asia to ensure worldwide security for the brand. Having researched Conway Stewarts previous manufacturing history and techniques Don Yendle wanted to keep true to its core values from 1905. What followed were 3 years of research into Casein and plastics including vulcanite for barrels and feeders for nibs. The company even used a Birmingham-based company who still used a 1-metre pantograph to make the miniature moulds for the pen clips in order to keep the detail in the clips. All of the new clips were exactly the same size as the originals so pen collectors would have spares for the vintage pens they wished to repair.
After much experimentation with slabs of casein from uk and some very old stock from Japan Conway Stewart re-launched in 1997. At that first exhibition the Foreign Office chose Conway Stewart as a supplier of gifts for Number 10 Downing Street and gifts from the government to visiting dignitaries. The first collections were all made from casein with solid gold rings swaged on to each cap. Each slab of casein had to be cured for at least 3 months in drying room with just the right humidity. Returning the barrels to the drying room after each process in order to train the material to be 'round'. Each collection was limited to 500 pcs based on material and colour. Each pen code and number laser engraved on to each barrel.
The company then introduced designs (Churchill series, 58, Dinkie) in acrylic, solid silver, and solid gold. The first solid gold pens were made for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and HRH Prince Philip on the celebration of their golden wedding anniversary 20 November 1997. Two pieces were made in 18ct solid gold. The queen wrote a letter of thanks for the gift stating they were 'useful to boot'. The pens were originally made in Horrabridge and the company moved to its Plymouth premises in 2001 having outgrown the original premises. The company continued to produce pens for the Prime Ministers Office, supplying birthday presents of a Conway Stewart Churchill to Bill Clinton, George Bush, Jacques Chirac, Vladimir Putin to name but a few.
The pens were also selected by the Foreign Office as gifts to all world leaders at the G8 and G20 summits, along with pens for Prince Charles, Princess Diana and Barbara Cartland. Conway Stewart introduced a few prototype celluloid pens, mainly as overlays on solid silver Duro pens. The company supplied another set of gold pens for the celebration of Her Majesty's Golden Jubilee featuring a hard rubber Churchill with an 18ct Overlay. Only a few pieces were sold. Don Yendle sold the company to an investor in October 2003 having established worldwide distribution.
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Peter
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Thursday 3 November 2022
Web Page 3014
2nd November 2022
WHACKO!
First Picture: Professor Jimmy Edwards
Second Picture: School nameplate
Third Picture: A mass whacking
Forth Picture: In the classroom
Whack-O was a sitcom TV series starring Jimmy Edwards, written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, and broadcast from 1956 to 1960 and 1971 to 1972.
The series (in black and white) ran on the BBC from 1956 to 1960 and (in colour) from 1971 to 1972. Jimmy Edwards took the part of Professor James Edwards, M.A., the drunken, gambling, devious, cane-swishing headmaster who tyrannised staff and children at Chiselbury public school (described in the opening titles as "for the sons of Gentlefolk"). The Jimmy Edwards character bore more than a passing resemblance to Sergeant Bilko as he tried to swindle the children out of their pocket money to finance his many schemes.
The first six episodes were subtitled "Six of the Best". In 1959 a film was made based on the show, called Bottoms Up!. The series was revived in colour with updated scripts in 1971–72, slightly retitled Whacko!. In all, it ran for a total of 60 episodes, with 47 of black-and-white and 13 colour, of 30 minutes each. There were three special shorts. There was also a radio version with Vera Lynn starring as herself in the second episode. Many of these radio episodes were recovered by a BBC archivist from a listener's collection of tapes in 2012, and are now being broadcast on Radio 4 Extra.
The front of the historic house of near Egham in Surrey was used in the opening title sequence of the TV comedy series, behind the name of the fictional Chiselbury School.
Most of the show's episodes are missing, presumed lost. Six of the original black-and-white episodes are known to exist today; from the colour revival series of the early 1970s, only one is known to have survived.
TV comedy historians have written that the central theme of Whack-O! and Bottoms Up! was corporal punishment and specifically the caning of boys’ backsides. This however was largely absent from the revived series in 1971, as by that time corporal punishment was becoming less acceptable in Britain and was eventually banned in state and many independent schools in 1986.
Whack-O! tended to glorify a ritualised form of punishment that had been an accepted practice in British schools, but by modern standards the popular humourizing of corporal punishment is an anathema. The comedy of the series was built around whether boys would be caught and punished for minor misdemeanours, and the size and effectiveness of canes and the building of caning devices. In one episode a device and long cane was made so six boys could be punished together. In another a device was made so the teacher carrying out the caning did not see the boy, and it turned out that all the backside seen to be caned were that of deputy headmaster Pettigrew (when played by Arthur Howard). A feature of Jummy Edwards carrying out punishment was the clear enjoyment he exhibited.
Both Jimmy Edwards and Arthur Howard were gay men and Anthony Slide, a biographer of Jimmy Edwards with "Wake Up at the Back There!
This is how the BBC sums up this aspect of Whack-O! on its official website: "Watching the series now is a little painful in one respect – we're too sensitive to find canings amusing – but it's right on the money in other ways, mainly because finding over-privileged kids vile hasn't gone out of fashion."
BBC Radio adapted the TV scripts into 45 thirty-minute shows, mostly with the original cast, of which 42 recordings survive. There were three series which originally ran on the BBC Light Programme from 23 May 1961 until 22 July 1963. They have been repeated on BBC Radio Extra since 2015 and the last airing was in 2020.
Jimmy Edwards died in 1988
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Peter
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Thursday 27 October 2022
Web Page 3012
26th October 2022
Ruby Murray
First Picture: Ruby Murray
Second Picture: Publicity Photograph
Third Picture: Sheet Music Softly, Softly
Forth Picture: A Ruby Murray
Ruby Murray was a Northern Irish singer and actress. One of the most popular singers in the British Isles in the 1950s, she scored ten hits in the UK Singles Chart between 1954 and 1959 and made pop chart history in March 1955 by having five hits in the Top Twenty in a single week. Ruby Florence Murray was born near the Donegall Road in south Belfast the youngest child in a Protestant family. She had surgery at six weeks of age due to swollen glands, and as a result, had a very husky voice. Entering a public speaking contest run by Eglinton Young Farmers Club, Londonderry in March 1947, she won a special prize for the youngest competitor under 18. A performance at the Ballymena Variety Theatre in February 1948 received a wonderful reception[ and she then toured in Northern Ireland as a child singer. Murray first appeared on television at the age of 12. Owing to laws governing children performing, she had to delay her start in the entertainment industry. She returned to Belfast and full-time education until she was 14.
She was kept busy on the variety stage in Northern Ireland and in 1954 she joined a touring revue called "Yankee Doodle Blarney" which gave her very useful exposure on the English variety stages. Richard Afton offered her the position of resident singer on the BBC's Quite Contrary television show, to replace Joan Regan. After being again spotted by Ray Martin she was signed to Columbia and her first single, "Heartbeat", reaching No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart in December 1954. "
The 1950s was a busy period for Ruby, during which she had her own television show, starred at the London Palladium with Norman Wisdom, appeared in a Royal Command Performance (1955) and toured the world. In a period of 52 weeks, she constantly had at least one single in the UK charts – this at a time when only a Top 20 was listed.
Her only film role was, as Ruby, in A Touch of the Sun, a 1956 farce with Frankie Howerd and Dennis Price. A couple of hits followed later in the decade; "Goodbye Jimmy, Goodbye", a No. 10 hit in 1959, was her final appearance in the charts.
Her popularity led to her name being adopted in Cockney rhyming slang as a rhyme for "curry".
In 1957, while working in Blackpool, she met Bernie Burgess, a member of a successful television and recording vocal quartet, the Four Jones Boys. Shortly afterwards she left Northern Ireland to marry him and live with him in Northampton. Burgess, contrary to press reports, did not become her manager, but rather his role was that of a supporting husband. The couple included a song-and-dance segment in her act during the 1960s.
She struggled with alcoholism for most of her life and this contributed to the breakdown of her marriage in 1974. The divorce was finalised in 1976 and she moved to Torquay to live with an old friend, Ray Lamar, a former stage dancer and theatre impresario, who was 18 years her senior. They married in 1991 and spent the evening with a small party of friends and family at an Italian restaurant in Babbacombe.
She had two children from her marriage to Burgess, Julie (b. 1960) and Tim (b. 1965). Tim died unexpectedly from a heart condition in July 2020, aged 55.
Although her days as a major star were long over, she continued performing until close to the end of her life. Spending her last couple of years in Asprey's Nursing Home, she often delighted her carers with a song, and was visited by her friend Max Bygraves. She died of liver cancer on 17 December 1996, aged 61.
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Peter
gsseditor@gmail.com
Thursday 20 October 2022
19th October 2022
Brian Matthew
First Picture: The Thank Your Lucky Stars days
Second Picture: Brian and his wife Pamela
Third Picture: Sounds of Sixties fifth anniversary
Forth Picture: Brian Matthew in later days
Brian Matthew (17 September 1928 – 8 April 2017) was a broadcaster who worked for the BBC for 63 years from 1954 until 2017. He was the host of Saturday Club, among other programmes, and began presenting Sounds of the 60s in March 1990, often employing the same vocabulary and the same measured delivery he had used in previous decades.
In January 2017, after a short break from the programme after suffering a fall at home, the BBC announced, against Matthew's wishes, that he would not be returning to the programme and that he would be replaced. He was succeeded by Tony Blackburn. Brian Matthew later died of pneumonia on 8 April 2017, aged 88.
Brian Matthew was born in Coventry, the son of musical parents. His father was a conductor of the Coventry Silver Band and his mother a professional singer.
He first broadcast in Germany in 1948, and trained as an actor at RADA before joining the BBC in 1954. On the BBC Light Programme, as a staff announcer, he introduced numerous programmes including Take It From Here and Saturday Club[5] (originally called Saturday Skiffle Club, starting in 1957) and Easy Beat (starting in 1960). Also starting in the 1960s he had a regular show on Radio Luxembourg. At the time, airtime for pop music on BBC Radio was limited, and the demand for it among young people meant the shows attracted large audiences. Virtually all the big names of the era, including the Beatles, appeared on the shows. Brian Matthew's voice is present on the Beatles' Live at the BBC and On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2 CD compilations, as well as other BBC session compilations from bands such as Led Zeppelin, Cream, and the Who. On television, he was the presenter of Thank Your Lucky Stars (ITV, 1961–66).
The influence of Easy Beat on radio declined owing to the rise of offshore radio after 1964. When BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4 launched in 1967, Easy Beat was dropped, and Saturday Club was taken over by another presenter, Keith Skues (formerly of the "pirate" Radio London), before it too was axed in 1969. Brian Matthew celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first edition of Saturday Club in a special edition of Sounds of the 60s on 4 October 2008, by featuring some recordings from some of the shows and entertaining listeners with some reminiscences. In 1972, he narrated The Beatles Story, a 12-part documentary series on BBC Radio 1 and 2 which has been repeated on BBC Radio 6 Music.
In 1973, he fronted a new radio series entitled My Top 12, which lasted for an hour on weekend afternoons on Radio 1.The programme was later presented by Bob Harris and Noel Edmonds. Guests in 1974 included Rod Stewart, Joni Mitchell and Neil Diamond
Later, he was the presenter of BBC Radio 2's arts magazine Round Midnight, from 1978 to 1990. From 1990 he hosted Sounds of the 60s (a programme first presented in 1983 by Keith Fordyce) on the same network on Saturday mornings, playing many of the records he initially played on Saturday Club and Easy Beat.
He announced at the end of his show on 26 August 2006 that owing to ill-health he would be taking several weeks off his Radio 2 show, for the first time in sixteen years. Johnnie Walker was the main host in his absence. Sandie Shaw, Joe Brown and Suzi Quatro were also guest hosts. Matthew returned to the show and the station on 10 February 2007.
He won a Sony Gold Award in 2008: "To celebrate an impressive record of more than 50 years of national and international radio broadcasting. For that lifetime career and in recognition of a truly outstanding contribution to UK radio." On 29 October 2016 he became the oldest regular broadcaster on BBC Radio, following Desmond Carrington's retirement.
On 26 November 2016, Tim Rice stood in as presenter of the show he announced that he would be sitting in for a few weeks since Brian was "under the weather" In fact, he had suffered a fall at home and had spent a few weeks in hospital. On 27 January 2017, the BBC announced that he would not return to the station due to ill health. Brian himself, however, disagreed with the BBC's statement, saying: "That's absolute balderdash. I was ready and willing and able to go back, and they've just said they are going to put the programme in the hands of other people."[
The BBC's off-hand treatment led to an e-petition signed by thousands of "avids" demanding his return but failed. and as a result he presented his final show on 25 February 2017, which was a compilation of his favourite tracks and moments from his time on the show. A week later, Sounds of The 60s became a live show, hosted by Tony Blackburn, moving to an earlier slot between 6am and 8am on Saturday mornings.
In 1951, Brian Matthew married Pamela Wickington with whom he had one child, Christopher, born in 1954. They involved themselves in amateur theatre and were prominent members of Chelsfield Players in Kent from 1958 to 1966. He built a theatre in his Chelsfield home and formed his own dramatic society called the Pilgrim Players. During this time he worked with actor brothers Arthur White and David Jason.
He died of pneumonia on 8 April 2017 in London. Four days before his death, the BBC had reported that he had died, but later corrected this, saying he was critically ill in hospital. He is survived by his wife and their son.
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Peter
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Thursday 13 October 2022
First Picture: Arthur Brown with headdress
12th October 2022
Second Picture: Album cover
Third Picture: Larger headdress 
Forth Picture: Arthur Brown and his group
The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
The Crazy World of Arthur Brown are an English rock band formed by singer Arthur Brown in 1967. The original band included Vincent Crane (Hammond organ and piano), Drachen Theaker (drums), and Nick Greenwood (bass). This early incarnation were noted for Crane's organ and brass arrangements and Arthur Brown had a powerful, wide ranging operatic voice and was also notable for his unique stage persona such as extreme facepaint and burning helmet.
Their song "Fire" (released in 1968 as a single) sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc[2] reaching number one in the UK Singles Chart and Canada, and number two on the US Billboard Hot 100[3] as well as its parent album The Crazy World of Arthur Brown which reached number 2 on the UK album charts and number 7 in the US.[4]
In the late 1960s, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown's popularity was such that the group shared bills with the Who, Jimi Hendrix, the Mothers of Invention, the Doors, the Small Faces, and Joe Cocker, among others.
Arthur Brown quickly earned a reputation for his outlandish performances, including the use of a burning metal helmet, which led to occasional mishaps. During an early appearance at the Windsor Festival in 1967, he wore a colander on his head soaked in methanol. The fuel poured over his head by accident caught fire; two bystanders doused the flames by pouring beer on his head, preventing any serious injury The flaming head then became an Arthur Brown signature. On occasion he also stripped naked while performing, most notably in Italy, where, after setting his hair on fire, he was arrested and deported. He was also notable for the extreme make-up he wore onstage, which would later be reflected in the stage acts of Alice Cooper, among others.
By 1968, the debut album, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown became a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Produced by The Who's manager Kit Lambert, with Pete Townshend credited as associate producer, on Track Records, the label begun by Lambert and Chris Stamp, it spun off an equally surprising hit single, "Fire", and contained a version of "I Put a Spell on You" written by Screaming Jay Hawkins, a similarly bizarre showman. "Fire" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.
Theaker was replaced in 1968 by Chris Farlowe The band recorded a second album, titled Strangelands, intended for release in 1969 but shelved by their label over concerns that it lacked sales potential..
The band re-formed in 2000 and released Tantric Lover.[16]
In 2013, as the result of a successful pledge campaign on PledgeMusic, the band released the album Zim Zam Zim, recorded in Arthur Brown's yurt in Lewes.
Arthur is still performing, I last heard of him appearing in Brighton last September.
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Peter
gsseditor@gmail.com
Thursday 6 October 2022
Web Page 3006
5th October 2022
Billy Bunter
First Picture Billy Bunter
Second Picture Bunter Book
Third Picture With Mr Quelch
Forth Picture Gerald Campion Headstone ( he died 2002)
Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School was a BBC TV show broadcast from 1952 to 1961. It was based on the Greyfriars School stories, written by author Charles Hamilton under the pen name Frank Richards. He also wrote all of the scripts for the television show.
Bunter was portrayed by actor Gerald Campion, who was aged 29 when he was cast in the role in 1952, hence was playing a schoolboy only half his age. A number of genuine child actors were featured in the other schoolboy roles in the show, some of whom would gain notice in their subsequent adult careers, including Anthony Valentine, Michael Crawford, Melvyn Hayes and Kenneth Cope. Only 9 of the show's 52 episodes are known to exist.
The character Billy Bunter featured in stories about the fictional Greyfriars School which appeared for over 30 years (in fact, continuously from 1908 to 1940) in the boys' comic The Magnet, written mainly by author Charles Hamilton (although, as Hamilton was not always the author, the stories were published under the collective pen-name of Frank Richards). Plans to bring the stories to the cinema screen, featuring the comedian Will Hay as Bunter's form master Henry Samuel Quelch (based on his previous stage and film portrayals as a schoolmaster), had been discussed in the 1930s, but were unrealised. In January 1947, the Daily Mail reported that the Rank Organisation and Rock Productions were interested in resurrecting the film project, with the latter paying a £150 fee to Charles Hamilton, but again the project was dropped.
In May 1951, the BBC Children's Department made public its plans to screen a series of half-hour television shows featuring Billy Bunter as the principal character. These would be broadcast during Children's Hour. Later that year, in December 1951, the BBC announced that it was looking for an actor to portray the character of Bunter, prompting seventy-five hopefuls to apply for the part. The search for a suitable actor received wide newspaper coverage, with the Daily Mirror covering the auditions both on its front page and in columnist Ian Mackey's 'diary'. The Daily Telegraph and Reynolds News were among other newspapers that also provided prominent coverage. When a 29-year-old actor, Gerald Campion, who was married with two children, was cast in the role of Bunter, a 15-year-old schoolboy, the choice was greeted with mixed reactions. Apart from the matter of his age, Campion, although fairly short and somewhat rotund, was a relative lightweight at 11 stone 2 pounds (70.8 kg), compared with Bunter's weight of 14 stone 12 1/2 lb (94.5 kg) (as described in The Magnet in 1939), and this added to the controversy (for the television series, Campion would wear padding to make him appear much fatter than he actually was). In fact Campion had already been considered for the role of Bunter, twelve years earlier, when the intention was to make a cinema film based on the character.
Veteran character actor Kynaston Reeves was cast as schoolmaster Mr Quelch (and would play Quelch in four of the seven series, as the only recurring member of the main cast apart from Campion himself), with various unknown child actors cast in the roles of the various schoolboys. As the show continued into successive series over the following nine years, the schoolboy roles would be recast regularly as Campion's youthful co-stars aged beyond the putative ages of their characters. A number of the young actors later carved out successful acting careers as adults, including Anthony Valentine (cast as Lord Mauleverer and, later, as form captain Harry Wharton), Michael Crawford (as Frank Nugent), Jeremy Bulloch (as Bob Cherry), Melvyn Hayes (as the cad Harold Skinner), and Kenneth Cope (as school bully Gerald Loder).
Being set in a school, albeit a public school, the show was a production of the BBC's Children's Department rather than the Drama Department, and was aimed at a youthful audience. Accordingly, its first producer was Joy Harington, who had also produced an adaptation of Richmal Crompton's Just William stories, and of Robert Louis Stevenson's children's novel Treasure Island, among other children's shows. Later episodes were produced by Shaun Sutton, who would eventually become a long serving head of television drama for the BBC. The programme was made on a small budget.
Artist Tony Hart, who would later become well known as the presenter of TV shows Vision On, Playbox and Take Hart, provided the artwork for the opening credits.] The theme music was the "Portsmouth" section of Ralph Vaughan Williams's Sea Songs.
The earliest episodes were live performances, broadcast in two timeslots: at 5:40 pm (during children's programmes), and a repeat performance was given live the same evening at 8:00 pm, during family viewing when parents and children might watch together.
Many of the television scripts are adaptations, based on the Greyfriars novels featuring Bunter which Charles Hamilton wrote during the 1950s: more than three dozen such novels appeared in print between 1948 and 1965, and many of the television scripts bear titles which echo those of particular books.
Reaction to the first episode of the show was mixed. Jonah Barrington, radio critic of the Sunday Chronicle provided the doubled-edged observation that Bunter was the greatest TV character since Muffin the Mule. Newspaper reviewers generally agreed that the casting of Gerald Campion as Bunter and character actor Kynaston Reeves as Mr Quelch were successful .
The portrayal of the senior boys was generally viewed as adequate, but most reviewers agreed that the portrayal of the junior schoolboys was much less successful. The characters of Hurree Singh and Bob Cherry were seen as particularly poor.
The low budget of the production also attracted adverse comment, with reviewers noting a "certain emptiness of the sets" and the fact that the school seemed deserted apart from the principal characters.
The show did not lose its popularity over its nine years on the air. If anything, it gained in popularity and ratings as time went by, resulting in later seasons comprising greater numbers of episodes. It eventually came to an end due only to the death, in December 1961 at the age of 85, of Charles Hamilton, who had created the character of Bunter and who wrote all of the televised scripts over the entire nine years.
Almost all episodes have been lost. Nine episodes exist today as telerecordings. The survivors are the complete third series (six episodes), and three isolated subsequent episodes, one from each of the final three seasons, preserved under the BBC library's policy at the time of retaining one programme from a season as an example. Some audio-only recordings also exist, in private hands. No recordings of the first series or the 1953 special are thought to have ever existed, as they were live broadcasts before telerecording was fully utilised by the BBC.
The edition aired 3 June 1961 entitled Double Bunter, survives because a 16mm film print of the episode was presented by the BBC to Gerald Campion upon the series ending, as it was an episode he particularly liked (because the script called on him to play two characters, not merely Bunter), so that many years later his family were able to loan it to BBC Archives – an organisation which didn't exist in 1961.
Gerald Campion and a BBC film crew travelled to Malta to film location footage around the Mediterranean, for a sequence of episodes in which Lord Mauleverer lends his yacht, and takes a party of schoolboys (including Bunter), under the supervision of Mr Quelch, touring various holiday attractions.
Gerald Campion died in 2002
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