Web Page 30951 3rd September 2023 First Picture: In Fishing Mode

Second Picture: In the shed

Third Picture: How

Fourth Picture: Out Of Towm

Jack Hargreaves OBE (31st December 1911 – 15th March 1994) was a television presenter and writer. He is remembered for appearing on How, a children's programme, which he also conceived, about how things worked or ought to work. It ran from 1966 on Southern Television and networked on ITV until the demise of Southern in 1981. He also was the presenter of the weekly magazine programme Out of Town, first broadcast in 1960 following the success of his series Gone Fishing the previous year. Broadcast on Friday evenings on Southern Television the programme was also taken up by many of the other ITV regions, usually in a Sunday afternoon slot. In 1967, with Ollie Kite he presented Country Boy, a networked children's programme of 20 episodes in which a boy from the city was introduced to the ways of country. Two further series followed in 1969 and 1970. He was involved in the setting up of ITV, and a member of Southern's board of directors, and was employed by the National Farmers' Union, serving on the Nugent Committee (the Defence Lands Committee that investigated which parts of the Ministry of Defence holdings could be returned to private ownership). He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1972 New Year Honours. He was born in London in 1911 to James and Ada Hargreaves, Jack (christened John Herbert) was one of three brothers. The family was rooted in Huddersfield but James Hargreaves based himself partly in London for commercial advantage and to allow his wife the benefit of the capital's midwifery. The brothers attended Merchant Taylors' School, after which Edward and Ronald Hargreaves pursued successful careers in medicine while Jack went to study at the Royal Veterinary College at London University in 1929. On leaving university he earned a living as a copywriter, journalist and script writer for radio and films, and by the late 1930s he had established a reputation for his pioneering approaches to radio broadcasting. the outset of the Second World War, broadcasting was recognised as part of the war effort. His talents in this field meant that he faced being recruited to a restricted post in radio, a reserved occupation. Instead, he joined the Royal Artillery as a gunner, quickly became an NCO, entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the Royal Tank Regiment. Even so, his reputation as a communicator went ahead of him. He was recruited to the staff of General Montgomery to play a role setting up broadcasting services to allied forces before and after D-Day. He left the army in 1945 with the substantive rank of major, having briefly held the acting rank of lieutenant-colonel.] After the war he worked on Picture Post where his brilliance as a communications manager led to his being recruited to the National Farmers Union, he organised and developed the NFU's Information Department, founding the British Farmer magazine, He loved angling. As an independent member of the Defence Lands Committee 1971–73, Hargreaves made key contributions to the Nugent Report, 1973, reviewing the use of land held by the armed forces for defence purposes. He became of the opinion that one of the best ways to reserve the countryside for its proper purpose was to keep most people out of it. He believed that although agriculture would be preferable, military exercises seemed less harmful in their impact on the environment than its use for the recreational choices. This he shared with his audience, gently repeating that the countryside, insofar as it had a purpose for humans, was to grow their food in sustainable ways. Jack Hargreaves was married, in 1932, to Jeanette Haighler. They had two sons, Mark and Victor; then, after divorce, he married Elisabeth Van de Putte. Two more sons were born – James Stephen in 1946 and Edward John in 1947. That marriage ended in 1948 when he began a relationship with a journalist from Vogue, Barbara Baddeley Living with her until 1963, He became a stepfather to Bay and her brother Simon, Barbara's children. He also had a daughter Polly, born in 1957 as a result of a six-year relationship with his secretary Judy Hogg. In 1965, he married Isobel Hatfield who died four years after her husband on 5 February 1998 and her ashes were scattered with his on Bulbarrow Hill in Dorset, near their home. Stay in touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com

Web Page 30949 26th August 2023 First Picture: Album cover

Second Picture: Cherry Wainer

Third Picture: DVD Cover

Fourth Picture: Jack Good

Lord Rockingham's XI Lord Rockingham’s X1was a group of British session musicians, led by Scotsman Harry Robinson (1932–1996), who had a No. 1 hit on the UK Singles Chart in 1958 with "Hoots Mon". The group was created to perform as the resident band on the pop TV programme Oh Boy!, which was produced by Jack Good, and shown nationally on Britain's ITV network during 1958/59. They were fronted by Harry Robinson and also included jazz baritone saxophonist (later well-known writer/broadcaster) Benny Green, and organist Cherry Wainer. Other members were Cherry Wainer's husband Don Storer (drums), Reg Weller (percussion), Red Price (tenor sax), Rex Morris (tenor sax), Cyril Reubens (baritone sax), Ronnie Black (double bass), Bernie Taylor (guitar), Eric Ford (guitar). Joining the group later were Kenny Packwood (guitar) and Ian Fraser (piano). In addition to backing the singers of the day such as Marty Wilde and Cuddly Dudley, they recorded several novelty rock instrumentals for Decca Records, the first being "Fried Onions", which fa iled to chart in the UK but did slip into the US Billboard charts for a week at No. 96. The second single, was HarryRobinson's "Hoots Mon", a rocked-up version of the traditional Scottish song "A hundred Pipers", featuring Scots phrases like "Hoots mon, there's a moose loose aboot this hoose!", it rose up the charts supported by weekly TV exposure, and stayed at number one for three weeks. Following a legal case brought by descendants of the real Lord Rockingham, which was settled out of court, the group toured and made several less successful follow-ups, including "Wee Tom" (#16, 1959). They disbanded with the end of the TV show in 1959, although the name was revived for a couple of albums in the 1960s. Harry Robinson's career in TV and music continued, one notable credit being for his string arrangement on Nick Drake's track "River Man". "Fried Onions" was used in a television advertisement for Options indulgence chocolate drink, first shown on UK TV in December 2011. Cherry Wainer, probably the most well known member of the group, died in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 14, 2014, at the age of 79. Mary Writes:- I read your blog with great interest. My parents were just the same as yours. After seeing 1 episode they refused to watch it saying it was disgusting & an insult to the country. Some years later I was with my parents at a charity cricket match held at the Bat & Ball Inn. David Frost was there, & I was quite shocked to see him. On TV he appeared to be quite a good looking man. He didn`t look very nice at all, & was quite unpleasant to members of the public who tried to speak to me. He just totally ignored them. After that I never took any notice of what he had to say! Stay in touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com

Web Page 3097 19th August 2023 First Picture: Radio Times Cover

Second Picture: The Team

Third Picture: Millicent Martin

Fourth Picture: The most well known sketch That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, was a satirical television comedy programme that aired on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced, and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost. The programme is considered a significant element of the satire boom in the UK in the early 1960s, as it broke ground in comedy by lampooning political figures. Its broadcast coincided with coverage of the politically charged Profumo affair. TW3 was broadcast from Saturday, 24 November 1962 through to late December 1963. An American version under the same title aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, also featuring David Frost. Cast members included cartoonist Timothy Birdsall, political commentator Bernard Levin, and actors Lance Percival, who sang topical calypsos, many improvised to suggestions from the audience, Kenneth Cope, Roy Kinnear, Willie Rushton, Al Mancini, Robert Lang, David Kernan and Millicent Martin. The last two were also singers and the programme opened with a song – "That Was The Week That Was" – sung by Martin to Ron Grainer's theme tune and enumerating topics in the news. Frankie Howerd also guested with stand-up comedy. The programme opened with a song ("That was the week that was, It's over, let it go ...") sung by Millicent Martin, referring to news of the week just gone. Lance Percival sang a topical calypso each week. Satirical targets, such as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Home Secretary Henry Brooke were lampooned in sketches, debates and monologues. Some other targets included the monarchy, the British Empire, nuclear deterrence, advertising, public relations and propaganda, capital punishment, sexual and social hypocrisy, the class system, and the BBC itself. Well-remembered sketches include the 12 January 1963 "consumers' guide to religion", which discussed relative merits of faiths in the manner of a Which? magazine report and led to the Church of England being described a 'best buy' The programme was not party political but did not treat all issues with what the producers considered to be a false level of impartiality and balance; one example of this is the issue of racism and "the evils of apartheid", following the view of BBC Director-General Sir Hugh Greene that the BBC should not be bound by its charter to be impartial on issues of racism, which Greene and the producers of TW3 viewed as "quite simply wrong”. TW3 was broadcast on Saturday night and attracted an audience of 12 million. It often under- or overran as cast and crew worked through material as they saw fit. At the beginning of the second season in the autumn of 1963, in an attempt to assert control over the programme, the BBC scheduled repeats of The Third Man television series after the end of TW3. David Frost suggested a means of sabotaging this tactic to Ned Sherrin, and he agreed. For three weeks, at the end of each episode David Frost read out a brief summary of the plot of the episode of The Third Man that was due to follow the show, spoiling its twists, until the repeats were abandoned following the direct intervention of Hugh Greene David Frost often ended a satirical attack with the remark "But seriously, he's doing a grand job".At the end of each episode, he usually signed off with: "That was the week, that was." At the end of the final programme he announced: "That was ‘That Was The Week That Was’ …that was TW3 produced a shortened 20-minute programme with no satire for the edition on Saturday, 23 November 1963, the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It featured a contribution from Dame Sybil Thorndike and Millicent Martin performing the tribute song "In the Summer of His Years" by Herbert Kretzmer. This was screened on NBC the following day, and the soundtrack was released by Decca Records. A clip featuring Roy Kinnear was shown in the David L. Wolper documentary film Four Days in November and on the History Channel 2009 documentary JFK: 3 Shots that Changed America. BBC presenter Richard Dimbleby broadcast the president's funeral from Washington, and he said that the programme was a good expression of the sorrow felt in Britain. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was initially supportive of the programme, chastising Postmaster General Reginald Bevins for threatening to "do something about it". However, the BBC received many complaints from organisations and establishment figures. Lord Aldington, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, wrote to BBC director-general Hugh Greene that Frost had a hatred of the prime minister which "he finds impossible to control". The programme also attracted complaints from the Boy Scout Association about an item questioning the sexuality of its founder Lord Baden-Powell, and from the government of Cyprus which claimed that a joke about their ruler Archbishop Makarios was a "gross violation of internationally accepted ethics". TW3 also flouted conventions by adopting "a relaxed attitude to its running time", and "it seemed to last just as long as it wanted". The programme was taken off the air at short notice in December 1963 with the explanation that '1964 is a General Election year'. My parents refused to watch the programme and went to bed when it came on!! Stay in touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com

Web Page 3095 12th August 2023 First Picture: What’s My Line Board Game

Second Picture: Pinky and Perky

Third Picture: Jeremey Hawk

Web Page 3093 5th August 2023 First Picture: Alexandra Palace

Second Picture: Richard Dimbleby

Third Picture: Richard Baker

Fourth Picture: Hugh Greene

I expect that most of you remember sitting in front of your black and white TV set to watch the BBC News with the rest of your family. I am also sure your remember the title screen of the words BBC NEWSREEL overlayed rotating around the aerial cluster on top of the tower at Alexandra Palace along with its distinctive theme music. Television news, although physically separate from its radio counterpart, was still firmly under radio news' control in the 1950s. Correspondents provided reports for both outlets, and the first televised bulletin, shown on 5 July 1954 on the then BBC television service and presented by Richard Baker, involved his providing narration off-screen while stills were shown. This was then followed by the customary Television Newsreel with a recorded commentary by John Snagge (and on other occasions by Andrew Timothy). On-screen newsreaders were introduced a year later in 1955 – Kenneth Kendall (the first to appear in vision), Robert Dougall, and Richard Baker—three weeks before ITN's launch on 21 September 1955. Mainstream television production had started to move out of Alexandra Palace in 1950[ to larger premises – mainly at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush, west London – taking Current Affairs (then known as Talks Department) with it. It was from here that the first Panorama, a new documentary programme, was transmitted on 11 November 1953, with Richard Dimbleby becoming anchorman in 1955. In 1958, Hugh Carleton Greene became head of News and Current Affairs. On 1 January 1960, Hugh Greene became Director-General he made changes that were aimed at making BBC reporting more similar to its competitor ITN, which had been highly rated by study groups held by Greene. A newsroom was created at Alexandra Palace, television reporters were recruited and given the opportunity to write and voice their own scripts–without having to cover stories for radio too. On 20 June 1960, Nan Winton, the first female BBC network newsreader, appeared in vision. 19 September 1960 saw the start of the radio news and current affairs programme The Ten O'clock News. BBC2 started transmission on 20 April 1964 and began broadcasting a new show, Newsroom. The World at One, a lunchtime news programme, began on 4 October 1965 on the then Home Service, and the year before News Review had started on television. News Review was a summary of the week's news, first broadcast on Sunday, 26 April 1964 on BBC 2 and harking back to the weekly Newsreel Review of the Week, produced from 1951, to open programming on Sunday evenings–the difference being that this incarnation had subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. As this was the decade before electronic caption generation, each superimposition had to be produced on paper or card, synchronised manually to studio and news footage, committed to tape during the afternoon, and broadcast early evening. Thus Sundays were no longer a quiet day for news at Alexandra Palace. The programme ran until the 1980s – by then using electronic captions, known as Anchor – to be superseded by Ceefax subtitling (a similar Teletext format), and the signing of such programmes as See Hear from 1981. On Sunday 17 September 1967, The World This Weekend, a weekly news and current affairs programme, launched on what was then Home Service, but soon-to-be Radio 4. Preparations for colour began in the autumn of 1967 and on Thursday 7 March 1968 Newsroom on BBC2 moved to an early evening slot, becoming the first UK news programme to be transmitted in colour[– from Studio A at Alexandra Palace. However, much of the insert material was still in black and white, as initially only a part of the film coverage shot in and around London was on colour reversal film stock, and all regional and many international contributions were still in black and white. Colour facilities at Alexandra Palace were technically very limited for the next eighteen months, as it had only one RCA colour Quadruplex videotape machine and, eventually two Pye plumbicon colour telecines–although the news colour service started with just one. Black and white national bulletins on BBC 1 continued to originate from Studio B on weekdays, along with Town and Around, the London regional "opt out" programme broadcast throughout the 1960s (and the BBC's first regional news programme for the South East), until it started to be replaced by Nationwide on Tuesday to Thursday from Lime Grove Studios early in September 1969. Town and Around was never to make the move to Television Centre – instead it became London This Week which aired on Mondays and Fridays only, from the new TVC studios.[29] The BBC moved production out of Alexandra Palace in 1969. BBC Television News resumed operations the next day with a lunchtime bulletin on BBC1 – in black and white – from Television Centre, where it remained until March 2013. This move to a smaller studio with better technical facilities allowed Newsroom and News Review to replace back projection with colour-separation overlay. During the 1960s, satellite communication had become possible; however, it was some years before digital line-store conversion was able to undertake the process seamlessly. Stay in Touch Peter GSSEDITOR@gmail.com