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. Stay in touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com

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. Stay in touch Peter gssditor@gmail.com

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. Stay in touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com

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