WEB PAGE NO 782

FIRST PICTURE: MR KEN WELLS WAS THE METAL WORK TEACHER AT MANOR COURT. KEN PASSED AWAY ABOUT 18 MONTHS AGO.


SECOND PICTURE: SOMETHING FROM THE PAST A SCAMMELL MECHANICAL HORSE USED BY THE BRITISH ROAD SERVICES DIVISION OF BRITISH RAILWAYS. THESE WERE OFTEN SEEN DELIVERING AROUND THE TOWN IN THE 1960’S. THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN AT A RALLY AT GOODWOOD RACE TRACK IN MAY!


THOSE NOT SO SMALL SHOPS.

Shopping when we were kids were as a very different experience than it is today. I know in pat mailings I have dealt with the corner shop and local deliveries (way before Tesco’s You Shop We Drop, it’s funny how things come round again!) and before the giant supermarkets of today. I know that the first supermarket in the country was a Coop store in Southsea but at that time it was the small chains of shops that held sway in the High Street.

The Home and Colonial Store, or to give it its full name The Home and Colonial Tea Store was one of the leaders in this field. These stores were distinguished by having the name displayed in gold on ceramic tiles inside their shop windows and the fact that all their counter assistants wore long white aprons. The Home and Colonial, as far as I know never progressed into supermarkets not like their rivals The International Stores, again the complete title was The International Tea Stores. This was originally a Cambridge company which was set up to do exactly what its name suggested, dealing with groceries, mainly tea, from all over the world. Over the years it grew and had stores all over the country. The International Stores Group was taken over by British American Tabacco (BAT) in 1972, later the Dee Corporation took control and changed the shop names to Gateway and now Somerfield. Other companies in the International Stores Group were, Payantake, Priceright and Ridgways Tea.

Moving on I remember the David Greig store that was at the top of Cosham High Street just up from Ye Olde Sweet Shoppe on the corner of Spur Road. My mother was a devotee of this shop and every Saturday morning we had to get the bus to Cosham to do the weekends shopping in David Greigs. David Greig was the supermarket chain of the Greig family. With its grocery stores across Britain it was at one time a rival to the ever growing Sainsburys. There was actually personal rivalry between the two families dating back many years. The first store was opened in in 1888 and by the 1960s there were more than 160 stores across the country but the company collapsed after the payment of crippling death duties when several of the men in the family died in quick succession.

Another of the popular stores at the time was Macfisheries I really do not know a vast amount about this company so al I can do is direct you to its fascinating web site which can be found at http://www.macfisheries.co.uk/index.htm

One non-food store which had its home in Portsmouth was Timothy White’s, later Timothy White & Taylor Ltd. It was taken over by Boots in 1968, who briefly retained the brand for a chain of kitchenware shops. The dominance of the chains in the market was so high that saying "I'm just going to Boots" or "I'm just going to Timothy White's" as a line in a novel or play would be immediately understood that someone was going to the chemist's and with no further explanation being necessary. It is amazing how far the influence of Timothy White’s streched as there were references to it in episodes of "Dads Army" and in “Monty Python's Flying Circus” one of the characters refers to"Timothy White's suncream". The store I remember was again in Cosham High Street on the corner of Albert Road, opposite Weston Harts electrical and record shop but that is another story.

Pinks is the store I really remember and the shop which I knew best was the one on the south side of the Havant Road in Drayton. This was a real old fashioned place, the sort of place where there was a seat for the ladies by the counter, the cheese was cut from a block with a cheese wire, bacon was still sliced on the hand driven Berkel slicer, butter was cut from a block with special butter pats and sugar came loose and was weighed loose into blue paper cones. Ahhhhhhhhhh those were the days.

What other stores have disappeared from Cosham High Street over the past few years? Weston Harts as I have already mentioned, Ditman and Malpas the Corn and Seed Factors who had a large outlet on the western side of the High Street almost opposte Weston Harts. Mendalls the furniture store near the crossing gates and is Whitmore Jones still there?

In town many old names have gone Rumblelows, Seals, Picket and Purser, Saqusi & Laurence, LDB, the Shirt King and the Chocolate King and many many more.

Mens outfitters also seem to be in short supply today as well. What happened to Weaver to Wearer, Dunn & Co, Hepworths or John Colloier John Collier the window to watch? And girls serving in Burtons that was unheard of. I really must be getting old!



Take Care

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.com

YOU WRITE:

Geraldine sent me this warning:-
Just last weekend on Friday night we parked in a public
car park. As we drove away I noticed a sticker on the
rear window of the car. When I took it off after I got home, it was a receipt for petrol. Luckily my friend told me not to stop as it could be someone waiting for me to get out of the car.Then we received this email yesterday.

WARNING FROM POLICE

THIS APPLIES TO BOTH WOMEN AND MEN

BEWARE OF PAPER ON THE BACK WINDOW OF YOUR VEHICLE-- NEW WAY TO DO CARJACKINGS (NOT A JOKE)'

Heads up everyone! Please, keep this circulating.. You walk across the car park, unlock your car and get inside You start the engine put it into Reverse. . When you look into the rearview mirror to back out of your
space, you notice a piece of paper stuck to the middle
of the rear window. So, you stop and jump out of your car to remove that paper (or whatever it is) that is obstructing your view.
When you reach the back of your car, that is when the carjackers appear out of nowhere, jump into your car and take off. They practically run you over as they speed off in your car.

And guess what, ladies? I bet your purse is still in the car.
So now the carjacker has your car, your home address, your
money, and your keys. Your home and your whole identity are
now compromised!


BEWARE OF THIS NEW SCHEME THAT IS NOW BEING USED.

If you see a piece of paper stuck to your back window, lock your doors and just drive away.
Remove the paper later. And be thankful that you
read this e-mail. I hope you will forward this to friends and family, especially to women. A purse contains all kinds of personal information and identification documents, and you certainly do NOT want this to fall into the wrong hands.

Please tell all your friends


NEWS AND VIEWS:
Sad to say that one of our school contemporaries died last week Linda Mack passed away after a long struggle against illness. We send our sympathy to her sister Sandra and all the family.
Al Martino, the Italian crooner who charted 37 times died on October 13th in his Pennsylvania home at the age of 82. Born Alfred Cini in south Philadelphia in 1927, He worked as a bricklayer before joining the Marines (where he was wounded in the invasion of Iwo Jima), all the while hoping to be a singer like his friend Mario Lanza. Upon his return he adopted his grandfather's surname and began work in New York nightclubs, eventually winning a recording contract with Capitol Records in 1952. His first single, "Here In My Heart" topped the charts that year and was followed by "Take My Heart". Unfortunately, this drew the attention of organized crime figures, who bought out his management contract. He fled to England and had no American chart records for the next seven years, until a friend was able to work out his safe return in 1958. Over the next twenty years, he had six top 20 hits. He possibly is best remembered for the role of Johnny Fontane in "The Godfather" trilogy of movies, which many say was based on Frank Sinatra, a claim Al always denied.

ON THIS DAY 1ST NOVEMBER 1960-1965

On 01/11/1960 the number one single was Only the Lonely - Roy Orbison and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 01/11/1961 the number one single was Walkin' Back to Happiness - Helen Shapiro and the number one album was The Shadows - Shadows. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 01/11/1962 the number one single was Telstar - The Tornadoes and the number one album was Out of the Shadows - Shadows. The top rated TV show was The Royal Variety Performance (BBC) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 01/11/1963 the number one single was You'll Never Walk Alone - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

The big On 01/11/1964 the number one single was (There's) Always Something There to Remind Me - Sandy Shaw and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 01/11/1965 the number one single was Tears - Ken Dodd and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was 7 die in UK hurricane-force winds.

Web Page 780

FIRST PICTURE: SGT ERNIE BILKO




SECOND PICTURE: THE LONG FORGOTTEN MINIATURE TRAIN AT HILSEA.













BILKO OR THE PHIL SILVERS SHOW ‘YOU’LL NEVER GET RICH’.

The Phil Silvers Show (originally entitled You'll Never Get Rich) was one of the most popular American comedy television series which ran from 1955 to 1959 for a total of 143 episodes (including a 1959 special).The series starred Phil Silvers as Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko of the United States Army. The series was created and written by Nat Hiken and won three consecutive Emmy Awards for Best Comedy Series. The show is sometimes titled Sergeant Bilko or simply Bilko in reruns. The show's success transformed Phil Silvers from a jobbing comedian into a major star.

By 1955, most American television had moved to Los Angeles, but Nat Hiken insisted on filming the series in New York City. Early episodes were filmed at Dumont's television centre in New York (with later episodes shot at the CBS Studios in the Chelsea, Manhattan. Most of the series was made to simulate a live performance. The actors memorized their lines, as in a play, and performed the scenes in sequence before a studio audience. Thus, there are occasional awkward pauses. This method of filming changed when Mike Todd made a guest appearance and refused to memorize the script. He insisted on the episode being filmed like a Hollywood movie, one scene at a time, and out of sequence. It was found that Todd's way was faster, cheaper, and was less demanding for the actors, so the series changed production methods. The finished films were screened for a live audience, whose response was recorded and added to the soundtracks.

Bilko's right-hand men were Cpl. Rocco Barbella and Cpl. Steve Henshaw. The large supporting cast included Private Sam Fender, the slovenly Private Duane Doberman and Private Dino Paparelli. Some episodes gave Bilko a romantic interest (with Sgt. Joan Hogan). Paul Ford (Col. Hall) was notorious for forgetting his lines and when he would get a blank expression on his face, the cast knew that they had to do something. They would then say something to the effect of "Oh you remember Colonel, the top brass is coming." At that point, Ford would pick up where he left off and the audience would respond by laughing.

The series was originally set in Fort Baxter, a sleepy U.S. Army base in the fictional town of Roseville, Kansas. Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko trying to wheedle money through various get-rich-quick scams usually behind the back of Col. Hall with his soldiers regularly helping him. Through it all, the platoon was fiercely loyal to Bilko and would depend on him to get them out of any military misfortune.

The show's setting changed with the fourth season, when the men of Fort Baxter were reassigned to Camp Fremont in California. This mass transfer was explained as being the inadvertent result of a Bilko con gone wrong. In reality, creator Hiken had left and it was an excuse to move the production to California and fill the episodes with guest appearances from nearby Hollywood.


In the series finale, Bilko discovers a cook who is the exact double of Colonel Hall. Bilko hires him to impersonate the colonel, so he can cheat the other officers in a bogus charity effort. The real Colonel Hall learns of the scam, and Bilko, Henshaw, and Barbella end up being locked in the guardhouse. As Colonel Hall looks at his prisoners on a closed-circuit TV he says "It's a wonderful show, and as long as I'm the sponsor, it will never be cancelled." The camera cuts to Bilko finally behind bars who waves to the camera and says, "Th-th-that's all, folks!" So ended the series.


Phil Silvers was born Philip Silversmith in Brooklyn the youngest of eight children in a Russian Jewish family. His father was one of the workers on the early New York skyscrapers. He started entertaining at age 11, when he would sing in theatres when the projector broke down. Two years later, he left school to sing professionally, before appearing in vaudeville as a stooge. He worked in short films for the Vitaphone studio and on Broadway. He made his major film debut in ‘Hit Parade of 1941’. Over the next two decades, he appeared in films for MGM, Columbia, and 20th Century Fox, in such films as ‘Lady Be Good’, ‘Coney Island’, ‘Cover Girl’, and ‘Summer Stock’.

A little known fact is that Phil Silvers wrote the lyrics for Frank Sinatra's "Nancy (With the Laughing Face)". Although he was not a songwriter, he wrote the lyrics on a whim while visiting Sinatra's home with composer Jimmy Van Heusen and meeting Sinatrs’s daughter.

He became a household name in 1955 when he starred as Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko in The Phil Silvers Show. Throughout the 1960s he appeared in films such as ‘It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’ and ‘40 Pounds of Trouble’. He was featured in Marilyn Monroe's last film, the unfinished ‘Something's Got to Give’. In 1967 he starred in ‘Carry On, Follow That Camel’. He also appeared as a guest on The Beverly Hillbillies, The Carol Burnett Show, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, and The Dean Martin Show.

In 1972, he suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered. Despite his poor health, he continued working into the early 1980s including an appearance on Happy Days as the father of "Jenny Piccolo" (played by his real-life daughter Cathy Silvers). He died on November 1, 1985 in Century City, California at the age of 74. The cause of death was a heart attack. He was interred at Mount Sinai Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California.

A few years ago a remake of Sgt Bolko was made staring Steve Martin but this was a poor shadow of the original.

Take Care

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.com

YOU WRITE:

Steve writes:-
Hi Peter, reading your blog and the announcement of the upcoming solid silver 60s tour and P.J.Proby, reminded me of a conversation I had with a second hand record shop owner in Evesham some years back.

According to this chap P.J.Proby lives or did live in Evesham and the Man himself used to frequent his emporium occasionally.

The shop owner also ran the Billie Davis fan club and had met her a few times and She was currently (back then)touring with Jet Harris the ex and original bass player in The Shadows.

I was taking this info at face value only unless.....someone out there knows better?

NEWS AND VIEWS:

Elvis Presley's 17 year-old grandson, Benjamin, has been offered a $5 million, five-album deal by Universal Music. "The music will be nothing like Elvis, nothing like him at all," said the teenager.


ON THIS DAY 24TH OCTOBER 1960-1965

On 24/10/1960 the number one single was Only the Lonely - Roy Orbison and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Take Your Pick (AR) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 24/10/1961 the number one single was Walkin' Back to Happiness - Helen Shapiro and the number one album was Black & White Minstrel Show - George Mitchell Minstrels. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Britain grants Malta autonomy.

On 24/10/1962 the number one single was Telstar - The Tornadoes and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Cuban Missile Crisis. Very scary at the time.

On 24/10/1963 the number one single was Do You Love Me? - Brian Poole & the Tremoloes and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 24/10/1964 the number one single was (There's) Always Something There to Remind Me - Sandy Shaw and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 24/10/1965 the number one single was Tears - Ken Dodd and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page No 778

FIRST PICTURE: SOME OF THE ORIGINAL FITTINGS THAT CAME WITH THE HOUSE WHEN A PURCHASER BOUGHT A HOUSE ON THE HIGHBURY ESTATE.





SECOND PICTURE: A BLAST FROM THE PAST A ROYAL BLUE COACH PASSING THROUGH FAREHAM IN JUNE THIS YEAR.


Three programmes from our Youth


ALL OUR YESTERDAYS

This was an ITV documentary series featuring archive news footage of the previous 25 years. Unusually its duration time was only 20 minute duration and ran for two series. 1960 - 73. 1987 - 89.

It was of Granada Television's most successful series of all time, and began in 1960 and was presented by James Cameron who linked together edited version of two 1930s cinema newsreels from the same week twenty-five years ago. In 1961 Brian Inglis took over and it was with him that the programme became best remembered.

Each programme took a somewhat light-hearted look at past life; but by 1964 it took on much more serious overtones as it concerned itself with the outbreak of World War Two. In fact a friend of my mothers saw her husband going off to war on film and unfortunately he never came home again. This really upset her and she wrote and complained to Granada who sent a standard letter of apology in reply. Studio guests and newspaper articles were used to get a flavour of the time. The programme continued with the war years throughout the rest of the 1960s and in the early 1970s took a look at post war austerity and how the Britain came to terms with the after-effects of the conflict. 'All Our Yesterdays' finished in 1973 after thirteen years. The series was revived in 1987 and was presented by Bernard Braden, utilising footage from the archives of Granada, ITN and Pathe Newsreel-but it finally disappeared from our screens in 1989.

Animal Magic

Who can forget this unique BBC programme all 440 half hour episodes of it between 1962 and 1984!

Presented by Johnny Morris 'Animal Magic' was a firm children's favourite on BBC television for 21 years. Johnny Morris had previously hosted a radio show in the West Country in which he became a jack-of-all-trades, doing other people's jobs for a day. The shows were 15 minute slots and went out under the title 'Pass The Salt.' Later on he became television's Hot Chestnut Man, telling a weekly self-penned children's story whilst standing on a street corner waiting to sell his next bag of hot chestnuts from his barrow. It proved hugely popular and ran for 8 years. The year after he finished with The Hot Chestnut Man, he was asked to host a new show when the BBC's Natural History Unit was formed. It was thought that the show should be about animals that was instructive and entertaining. It was said that "Children love animals and they love magic," so it was called 'Animal Magic.'" Originally the programme staggered along to start with until a new producer was found and it was under him that Johnny Morris became the zookeeper who was responsible for looking after all the animals at Bristol Zoo. You never saw the boss - he was a voice off-stage who shouted out from time to time, 'Morris, what do you think you are doing?”

In order to get close up Johnny would often enter the animal's cages as a nervous cameraman filmed him. Mostly, the cameraman took as little equipment as possible into the cages because once a young gorilla ripped a tripod from a camera man's grasp and hit him over the head with it. Oddly enough it was years before the BBC realised that they hadn't taken out an insurance policy on their star presenter. In spite of its success, 'Animal Magic' drew criticism. To make animals appear as though they were talking was absolutely unscientific and complaints were received that it was a cheap way to entertain children. Despite this 'Animal Magic' became a runaway success and soon other nations zoos realised they had increased attendances. 'Animal Magic' was very much a show of the 1960s. The zoos may have provided the animals, but it was Johnny Morris who provided the magic.

OUT OF TOWN


Out of Town was a hugely successful series from our local station Southern Television that ran for 25 years, each episode presented by Jack Hargreaves offering viewers an insight into rural life of years gone by, as well as their dwindling traditions.

Jack Hargreaves effortlessly managed to cross the generation gap and imparted his knowledge of country life of times gone by. Up to the age of 17 he went to a market every Wednesday at 6mph behind a grey pony called Quicksilver. At 23 he sailed to America in five days on the Aquitania to take part in a programme called 'The March of Time'. He had listened with earphones to Big Ben chiming midnight on 31st December 1921: this was 2LO, the first station of the British Broadcasting Company. As an army cadet he learned to shoot a Lee Enfield rifle and was blown up in Antwerp by a V2. At 22 he became associated a radio entertainment and when he was 44 he was asked to do a few television programmes about the old country life.
but he believed people had little interest in the past. How wrong he was as 'Out of Town' on for 25 years.

Jack Hargreaves was not born a country boy he came from North London on the last day of 1911, to James and Ada Hargreaves. Jack (christened John Herbert) was one of three brothers. The family was rooted in Huddersfield but in his youth Jack was placed by his mother with old family friends at Burston Hill Farm north of Aylesbury. Later, he went on to study at the Royal Veterinary College at London University, but left to earn a living as a copywriter, journalist and script writer for radio and films. By the late thirties he had established a enviable reputation.

With the outbreak of war in 1939, it was recognised that broadcasting would become an important part of the war effort and his talents meant he would possibly be recruited by radio. However, he wanted active service and joined the Royal Artillery as a private. He working his way up to an NCO and entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and then commissioned into the Royal Tank Regiment. He could not escape his reputation as a communicator and was recruited to the staff of General Montgomery to help setting up broadcasting services to allied forces before and after D-Day. He left the army in 1945 as a major.

After the war, he returned to the media and during the 1950s became editor of the magazines 'Lilliput' and Picture Post. He was recruited to the National Farmers Union by Lord Netherthorpe and developed the NFU's Information Department, founding the 'British Farmer' magazine. In 1959, as representative of the NFU, Jack was sent to Southern Television to talk to Roy Rich following an inaccurate TV programme on 'meat marketing', that had incensed the union. From that, Southern Television began a series called 'Farm in the South'. and Jack was offered the post of programme maker and assistant programme controller, which he accepted. Roy Rich he'd heard Jack was a bit of a fisherman, and asked if he would he take a cameraman and catch a fish for them live on air. Once again Rich was impressed and offered Jack the chance to do another show like the last one. Allegedly, Jack replied "I'll do six, for a lark!" and Rich said okay. Those six shows went out under the title 'Gone Fishing'. The signature tune to 'Gone Fishing' was sung by Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong 28 editions of the programme were made.
'Gone Fishing' led straight into 'Out of Town' which began in 1963. An article in 'Television and Radio 1978', informed viewers that 'whether it shows the shoeing of horses, angling or rabbiting, 'Out of Town' presents a complete and unsentimental picture of country life in all its aspects. It is not a programme solely about fishing, nature or gardening, but all of these things as they effect the countryman; if it is interesting and part of country life it will be in the programme.' Jack received a 1972 silver award from the Royal Television Society for outstanding creative achievement in television in front of the camera, and later still an OBE from the Queen.

Jack Hargreaves became a household name in England during the 1960s and 70s. He devised and co-presented the long running 'How! shown from 1966 until 1981 when Southern Television lost its franchise. His country TV programmes continued in the 1980s with 'Country Boy' and 'Old Country' for C4. Jack Hargreaves passed away on 15th March 1994. The series may well be a distant memory, but its legacy lives on. The Inner London Education Authority found Jack a fifty acre farm at Beaulieu, Hampshire where a hostel was built called the 'Out Of Town Centre', to show children what rural ways and life in the English countryside were really like. Jack regarded this as his retirement project and, still going strong today as part of the Countryside Education Trust.
Take Care

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.com

YOU WRITE:

NEWS AND VIEWS:
To be confirmed
Next spring, the Solid Silver 60s tour will be The Troggs, Swinging Blue Jeans, plus Vanity Fare who will back Brian Poole, Dave Berry and Mike Pender.
In the autumn, The Searchers undertake a large tour, with Gerry and The Pacemakers, PJ Proby and The Tremeloes with Chip Hawkes

ON THIS DAY 17TH OCTOBER 1960-1965

On 17/10/1960 the number one single was Tell Laura I Love Her - Ricky Valance and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On 17/10/1961 the number one single was Michael - The Highwaymen and the number one album was The Shadows - Shadows. The top rated TV show was Sunday Night at the London Palladium (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On 17/10/1962 the number one single was Telstar - The Tornadoes and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Hyde Park Underpass opens.

On 17/10/1963 the number one single was Do You Love Me? - Brian Poole & the Tremoloes and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Macmillan resigns as Prime Minister.

On 17/10/1964 the number one single was Oh Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles.
The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Brezhnev replaces Krushchev.

On 17/10/1965 the number one single was Tears - Ken Dodd and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Lesley Ann Downey's body found on Pennines.

Web Page No 776

FIRST PICTURE: THIS SOMETHING THAT MOST OF US LADS COULD DO WITH THESE DAYS, A ‘BEATLE WIG’.


SECOND PICTURE: IT WAS THE CAMERA FOR THE MASSES BOTH POST WAR AND PRE WAR, THE KODAK BOX BROWNIE.




Smile Please and watch the Birdie

One of the things that have changed out of all recognition since we were kids is they way we take photographs and the number of picture we take today.

My first camera was bought second hand from a Boy Scout Jumble Sale in the Scout Hut in Farlington and was a Kodak Eastman Box Brownie. A very basic box with a shutter release on the side, very slow shutter speed and not at all tolerant of bad light conditions. The first Brownie, was introduced in February 1900 and was a very basic cardboard box camera with a simple lens that took 2¼-inch square pictures on 120 roll film.

In my early teens I was bought for Christmas 1960 a Kodak Brownie 127, millions of which were sold between 1952 and 1967. The Brownie 127 was a simple bakelite camera which used 127 roll film. This was cutting edge technology at the time Three models of the 127 were produced. Model 1 introduced in 1952 and Model 2 in 1959 (this was mine) had a side in orange filter but I never found out what it was supposed to be used for. The model 2 was discontinued in 1963. However the brand identity was so strong that two years later a model 3 was introduced and was produced for four years. Despite sharing the name, this was a complete redesign, with little in common with the original models. They all had the famous Kodak logo on the front and the model 2 the selling price in 1960 was £1 4s 6d. The model 2 originally took 8 6 x 4 pictures on a roll of film but this was soon stepped up to 12 4 x 4 pictures. In those days a roll of film, which was developed at the chemist, was expensive to process so a roll or two would probably have lasted you all year. It was at this time that my father an I set up dark room in the kitchen and developed and printed our own black and white prints. This was a relatively easy process as the negatives were the same size as the prints so an expensive enlarger was not needed. I then progressed on to having a flash gun with single use flash bulbs for inside work, with this new innovation we did debate going into colour processing but the chemicals were too expensive so when colour became popular it was the long walk back to the Chemist.


From the 127 type of camera things rapidly developed with the mass production of SLR (single lens reflex) cameras and the introduction of German and Japanese products at affordable prices. Most of us had one or more of these with their interchangeable lens whilst the ladies carries those small flat miniature cameras, the Instamatic type, that would fit into a handbag, I know my wife did.

From here technology moved onto Polaroid cameras and other self-processing cameras. I am not going to touch other sorts of cameras, the 8mm cine camera which progressed onto the Super 8 and if you were really good 16mm. Then on to video and huge video cameras down to the one I have now which I can put into my pocket.

But look at today all this has been bypassed and even the transparency market is falling off with the introduction of the instant view and easily printed digital camera which most of us have now.

All very efficient and we no longer have to work out exposures, lens settings, shutter speeds and the ASA speed of the film. A little gismo within our modern cameras does all this for us and gives great results but somehow we seemed to have lost the challenge of composing and taking a good picture. And all this can be done just as easily on you mobile phone today!!!!!!!


So stay in touch
Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.com

YOU WRITE:

Ray Writes:

Thanks as always for your, so interesting' articles and here is some additional notes on the song: Diggin' My Potatoes was the second track on side B of the E.P. released on Decca DFE 6345 under the title "the LONNIE DONEGAN Skiffle Group", (how imaginative was that?) following behind "Bury My Body", another track which didn't meet with BBC approval at the time, both tracks having been recorded at the Royal Festival Hall on October 30th 1954. Side one consisted of "Rock Island Line" and "John Henry" which was a studio recording made on July 13th 1954. I have a (almost mint) copy of the original EP here in front of me although the cover is a little discoloured (as am I!!) but not too surprising after 50 years


NEWS AND VIEWS:

A survey of sales of records over the years has led to a definitive list of the top 40 selling Beatles singles in the UK. "She Loves You" is no.1 and "I Want To Hold Your Hand" is no.2, followed by "Can't Buy Me Love," "I Feel Fine" and "Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out."


ON THIS DAY 10TH OCTOBER 1960-1965 +2

I know I normally only cover 1960-65 but today I have to cover 1967 as well as it was our wedding day!!!

On 10/10/1960 the number one single was Tell Laura I Love Her - Ricky Valance and the number one album was Tottenham Hotspur. The top rated TV show was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68.The big news story of the day was No Hiding Place (AR).

On 10/10/1961 the number one single was Kon-Tiki - The Shadows and the number one album was The Shadows - Shadows. The top rated TV show was Sunday Night at the London Palladium (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Heller's Catch-22 published.

On 10/10/1962 the number one single was Telstar - The Tornadoes and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 10/10/1963 the number one single was Do You Love Me? - Brian Poole & the Tremoloes and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 10/10/1964 the number one single was Oh Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was XVIIIth Olympics in Tokyo.

On 10/10/1965 the number one single was Tears - Ken Dodd and the number one album was Help - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 10/10/1967 the number one single was The Last Waltz - Engelbert Humperdinck and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Jungle Book. A pound of today's money was worth £10.99 and Manchester City were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Che Guevara confirmed dead and there was a very interesting wedding in St Andrews Church in Farlington!

3rd October 2009

Web Page No 774


FIRST PICTURE: POST WAR ROAD SIGNS.







SECOND PICTURE: THE TRADITIONAL PHONE BOX WITH BUTTONS ‘A’ AND ‘B’.




On the Streets


Walking along the street the other day I came to a set of traffic lights and as I waited I remembered that when we were kids each set of traffic lights were preceded by a rubber counting strip set into the tarmac. It was always a challenge for us to jump up and down on the strip to try to get the light to change, of course it never worked as we were far too light to make any impact on the mechanism but we would always try. But then I thought, with the coming of electronics we do not see these strips any more, when did they go? I really do not know. This naturally set me off to thinking about other street items we no longer see.


The first thing I thought about was lamps and lamp posts. In the 1960’s most of the major roads were illuminated by large square glass lamps which gave off an eerie blue glow which made everyone look as though they were dead! But the minor roads were lit by what looked like conventional light bulbs (I assume they were a different voltage from the domestic ones, otherwise they would not have lasted long), which gave a warm yellowish glow. From the top of Portsdown hill looking down on Portsmouth the scene showed a fascinating view of different coloured lights all over the city. Today, of course, the City is lit wholly by modern lights with their bright orange glow, far more efficient than the old ones but nowhere near as pretty from a distance! Associated with street lights were lamp posts and in the minor roads these were silver painted cast items with the city crest set into the door at the bottom. This also applied to the long disused tram poles that survived in certain areas in the city and the trolley bus poles.

Something else which is long gone is the policeman on point duty, standing in the middle of a cross roads keeping traffic moving. For greater visibility the Officer would wear long white arm bands on each arm and during evening rush hours in the dark days of winter he was very often illuminated by a big overhead light. Of course the most famous traffic constable was the one on Fratton Bridge, PC ‘Dutch’ Holland, I am sure you all remember him and if you look back at my emails three or four years ago you will find a whole article about him.


Even the road signs have changed! Remember the School sign before the one of the two children stepping off the kerb. The flaming torch was used for many years and affectionately known by generations of school children as the ice cream cone. The hospital sign used to be a black St. Johns cross on white background which was replaced by the simple ‘H’ years ago, but the strange thing is that the sign for an ungated railway crossing is still a steam engine and we have not used them regularly on the main line railway for decades. A sign which has subtly changed is the hill or gradient sign, I knew what a 1 in 12 meant but I have to think what a 20% gradient means!

What else? Bus stop signs without the words ‘Fare Stage’ attached to them, telephone boxes which took pennies and were worked by pushing button ‘A’ and ‘B’. Police boxes small and large like the very large one at the top of the Eastern Road. Bubble gum machines that took ha’pennies and pennies, milk machines, postage stamp machines (where have they gone?), newspapers hanging in racks outside the paper shop, a match stand on the counter of the tobacconists for the convenience of the smoker. Those were the days when you just turned up at the doctors and waited to be seen and did not have to telephone (if you had one) for an appointment and if you asked for a home visit your own doctor actually turned up on your doorstep.


Flashing Belisha Beacons, road sweepers with their hand carts, drain cleaners with long snorkels which sucked up the muck and dustmen who carried the dustbins on their shoulders and emptied them into side filling lorries.

Ah well so much for memories, I am sure you can add a whole list of things to the items that I have mentioned. I look forward to hearing from you.


So stay in touch
Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.com

YOU WRITE:
Peter Writes: -

I have recently read your Manor Court Update. I went through school at Court Lane from Infants to Juniors to senior Secondary Modern at Court Lane School in Hillary Avenue. Manor Court started as I left the 5th year in September 1958. I now live in Murcia, Espania. I started school at Court Lane Infants in 1948 having first attended a preparatory school in Carmarthen Avenue Run by a Miss Neville. My parents had a Chemist Shop in Cosham High Street, "Bakers of Cosham". Every morning, A miss Woodman picked my brother Robert and I up in the High Street, And walked with us along the Havant Road to Carmarthen Avenue, where she was a helper/teacher.

In 1948, I started at Court Lane Infants School which was at the Salisbury Road End of the School. This was before the new infants school was built at the other end of the site at the Court Lane End. In the same part of the infants school, was the Junior Girls school and after a gap, was the Boy's school, Juniors and seniors. I remember my parents taking me there on the first day of term in September and handing me over to the Head Mistress Miss Henderson. I seem to remember my first teacher was a Mrs Wallis? there was also Miss Haysom. We sat at very old fashioned desk's with an old canvas bag attached to the back of the chair for our books. I remember the names of one or two of the other children in my class. There was Elizabeth Primmer, who lived in Hillary Avenue, Mary Foster, Simon Ward, Pearl Wilson.



Griff Writes:

An elderly man in Queensland had owned a large property for several years. He had a dam in one of the lower paddocks where he had planted mango and avocado trees. The dam had been fixed up for swimming when it was built and he also had some picnic tables placed there in the shade of the fruit trees.

One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the dam to look it over, as he hadn't been there for a while. He grabbed a ten litre bucket to bring back some fruit. As he neared the dam, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee. As he came closer he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his dam. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end.One of the women shouted to him, 'We're not coming out until you leave!' The old man frowned, 'I didn't come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the dam naked.' Holding the bucket up he said....................

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'I'm here to feed the crocodile.'

NEWS AND VIEWS:
Mary Travers, of Peter, Paul & Mary, lost her battle with leukemia at the age of 72. She died in a Danbury, Connecticut hospital on Wednesday September 16th.

ON THIS DAY 3RD OCTOBER 1960-1965

On 03/10/1960 the number one single was Tell Laura I Love Her - Ricky Valance and the number one album was Down Drury Lane to Memory Lane - A Hundred and One Strings. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On 03/10/1961 the number one single was Johnny Remember Me - John Leyton and the number one album was Ipswich Town. The top rated TV show was "Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £not very interesting and 13.25 were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Sunday Night at the London Palladium (ATV)".


On 03/10/1962 the number one single was She's Not You - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On 03/10/1963 the number one single was She Loves You - The Beatles and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On 03/10/1964 the number one single was I'm Into Something Good - Herman's Hermits and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On 03/10/1964 the number one single was I'm Into Something Good - Herman's Hermits and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On 03/10/1965 the number one single was Tears - Ken Dodd and the number one album was Help - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page No 772

FIRST PICTURE: FRANKIE VAUGHAN AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS CAREER




SECOND PICTURE: EAST COSHAM HOUSE WHICH WAS PUT UP FOR SALE IN MAY FOR £1,250.000. THIS WAS MY GREAT UNCLES HOUSE UNFORTUNATELY WE COME FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FAMILY!!!


Another school pal has just come on board, welcome Peter Barlow.


FRANKIE VAUGHAN

He did high kicks, chuckled in the middle of a song, made love to Marilyn Monroe on screen and, at one time, was Britain's most successful popular entertainer. Frankie Vaughan, who died aged 71 in 1999, was loved for himself as well as for his talent. The fact that boys' clubs all over Britain once had plaques and photographs of him in their huts and halls told another part of his story. He gave them his money as well as his talent.

One of the reasons for his huge success was that he was not like the other crooners of his generation. He had a very distinctive style - he wore a tuxedo on stage, and carried a shiny top-hat and a cane. Entertainers had not done that for over twenty years when he hit it big in the early 1950s. His theme song, Give Me The Moonlight- and others like Green Door, Garden Of Eden and Kisses Sweeter Than Wine - were hits at a time that young men were still being enlisted into national service while their girls danced in full frilly full skirts.

Later, in the 1960s, came Tower Of Strength and Loop De Loop. He also recorded the title numbers of shows such as Cabaret, Mame and, biggest of all, Hello Dolly. His voice was also different from other pop singers. It wasn't just the chuckle, which, along with the kick, was always the cue for the girls to scream. You couldn't miss the Liverpool twang - he put that city on the map long before the Beatles made their appearance. But there was something else. Like his idol, Al Jolson, there was much of the music of the synagogue in his voice. In fact, his earliest appearances were singing in the choir at services in Leeds, the city where he grew up.

He was born Frank Abelson in Liverpool his parents struggled to provide a decent home for their son and two daughters. Both parents seemed to spend every waking hour working - his father as an upholsterer, his mother as a seamstress. As a result, young Frank spent a great deal of time with his grandmother. It was she who, indirectly, was responsible for his change of name. When he first went into show business, his agent, Billy Marsh, said that Frank Abelson wasn't the name to get him up in lights. Frank remembered that his grandmother always called him - in her Russian Jewish accent - "my number vawn grandson". So he took her at his word and became Frankie Vaughan.

Before that, he had thought of becoming a boxer. He had taken up boxing at the Lancaster Lads Club, this was the beginning of his life-long connection with the Boys' Club movement. He also studied at Lancaster College of Art, to which had won a scholarship at the age of 14. There, he sang in the dance band but his studies were interrupted by national service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, although he spent most of his time boxing and was an army champion. On demob, he became a student teacher at Leeds College of Art.

Soon afterwards, he managed to go to London on the proceeds of a prize to design a furniture exhibition stand. He came second in the radio version of Hughie Green's Opportunity Knocks talent show - working with a girl singer named Irene Griffen. They had no intention of developing a permanent act; it was the only way that Frankie could get on the show. Then, he had his first big break: at the Hulme Hippodrome, where he topped the bill at the then huge sum of £100 a week. In 1954, Vaughan made his first recording for HMV, My Sweetie Went Away. He sang with the Ken Mackintosh Band numbers like No Help Wanted and Look At That Girl. He then really made it big with a tour of the then vast Moss Empire variety theatre circuit, during which he discovered an old piece of sheet music in a Glasgow shop. It was Give Me The Moonlight. His record of the song sold more than a million copies, establishing him with the young fans who bought the new 45 rpm discs as well as the versions on 78’s.

In 1960, he was invited to go to Hollywood to make the film Let's Make Love, with Marilyn Monroe. He had earlier appeared in Arthur Askey's comedy Ramsbottom Rides Again (1956) and a musical, The Lady Is A Square, with Anna Neagle. Marilyn Monroe tried to entice him into an affair, but he maintained that he loved his wife, Stella, whom he had met at the Locarno ballroom, Leeds, after the war, and that they needed to live in London. Back home, he filled the Talk of the Town restaurant for weeks, and became a sort of elder statesman among British performers. He also carried out significant charitable work on social projects for which he received an OBE in 1965 and a CBE in 1997. In 1985, Vaughan had one of his most notable successes - starring in what turned out to be his swansong role, the lead in the musical 42nd Street at Drury Lane. He left the cast after a year at the start of what turned out to be a terminal series of illnesses. He died in 1999. Frankie Vaughan wrote his own his epitaph. "I am lucky to have a talent, lucky to have met such a wonderful girl as my wife Stella, lucky to have such a wonderful family, and lucky to have a job I adore." What else could anyone ask for?

In the summer of 2000 the Frankie Vaughan Archive was donated to Liverpool John Moores University by Mrs. Stella Vaughan. Frankie was an Honorary Fellow of the University. The archive consists of sheet music, scores, orchestral and band parts used by Frankie Vaughan throughout his career. Many of the scores and parts have handwritten notes relating to the occasions they were used, including stage directions, lead-ins and running orders for stage and television appearances.


Take Care

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.com
Thanks

Thanks to Copnorboy for sending me the YouTube film of Nero and the Gladiators.


YOU WRITE:

Griff writes:

I recently visited Southsea and was witnessing the demolition of the Savoy Ballroom which brought back a flood of memories of the good times spent there on a Friday and a Saturday night. Just think of all the bands and the groups of the time who appeared there and who went on to be famous if not already famous. I can think of a few and many I met back stage waiting to go on for their turn. Freddy and the Dreamers, Spotniks, Swinging Blue Jeans, Shane Fenton and the Fentones (he went on later to become Alvin Stardust (!) ) Billy J Kramer and The Dakota's, The Searchers, The Fortunes, Paul Jones... and you could probably fill in the gaps of those I can't remember.
I use to help out a famous local Portsmouth band of the day called Ricky Dean and the Rivals who use to front the stage before the big names came on.
The lead singer's real name was Ron Rickwood and he worked at Gauntlett & Walkers Dairies in Purbrook (now a housing estate ! ) in the day job and I got to know him because I worked there as a "Saturday Boy" bottling milk in the dairy plant.
Like all singers in those days they were just waiting for their 'big break' and a record deal and so many people went from total obscurity to being famous in just a week or so and many did. Helen Shapiro instantly springs to mind as just one of many others in the early 60's.
I got to know Ron really well and in no time at all I was helping out the band with setting up the stage equipment.
The big time eluded this group even after they had won the South Coast Best Group Award and eventually they split up like most pop groups do. Anyway, it was a great 18 months or so helping out.
Ron is still singing in the Northern Clubs and Holiday Parks and we still keep in touch from time to time by email




Above is the only known photo of Ricky Dean and the Rivals taken at the Savoy Ballroom circa. Summer 1961 .........unless you know any different of course.


NEWS AND VIEWS:
Gerry Marsden of Gerry & the Pacemakers, premiered his new documentary on the band, "It's Gonna Be Alright," in Liverpool on Wednesday August 26th. Gerry also launched the campaign to get his home town selected as the host for the 2018 soccer World Cup.


ON THIS DAY 26TH SEPTEMBER 1960-1965

On 26/09/1960 the number one single was Apache - The Shadows and the number one album was Down Drury Lane to Memory Lane - A Hundred and One Strings.The top rated TV show was The Army Game (Granada) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On 26/09/1961 the number one single was Reach for the Stars / Climb Ev'ry Mountain - Shirley Bassey and the number one album was The Shadows - Shadows. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On 26/09/1962 the number one single was She's Not You - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Flood kills 333 in Barcelona.

On 26/09/1963 the number one single was She Loves You - The Beatles and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On 26/09/1964 the number one single was I'm Into Something Good - Herman's Hermits and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On 26/09/1965 the number one single was Make It Easy On Yourself - Walker Brothers and the number one album was Help - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page No 770

YOU NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD.



FIRST PICTURE: WITH AVAILABILITY OF HIRE PURCHASE A WASHING MACHINE IN MANY HOMES WAS NOW POSSIBLE



SECOND PICTURE: THE FAMOUS SPAGHETTI HARVEST FROM BBC TV’S PANORAMA






Firstly welcome to a new schoolmate Paul Fenwick. Paul left Manor Court in 1964 and love to hear from anyone who remembers him.


YOU NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD.

Have you ever thought that the period of time when we all left school, 1960-1965, saw so many major changes in life in general throughout the country. The Prime Minister at the time Harold McMillan, SuperMac, had convinced us all in 1958 that ‘we had never had it so good’ and to a degree that was correct. So let’s just, as the film newsreel used to say, take a look at life in 1960-1962 and see what some of those changes were. These were the years when many our traditional ideas and those of our parents were challenged, the years that saw the end to National Service and how often since have we heard ‘a spell in the Army is what the youth of today need’.

To the average family hire purchase became possible and the never, never was soon to allow many households to afford the luxuries that had long been denied to them.

Our idea of a sports car, the Morgan or MG shaped car was totally changed by the introduction of the sleek E type Jaguar. This was a car, which sold for just £2,196 when the average weekly wage was £8 6s 8d for a 46 hour week. Also about now the millionth Morris Minor rolled off the production line.

What else? BBC TV dropped Children’s Hours from the radio schedules after over 40 years, George Blake was convicted of spying and sentenced to 42 years in jail. Great Britain applied to join the Common Market and massive anti nuclear protests were staged outside the Russian Embassy. These were protests where celebrities joined in and were arrested, people like Vanessa Redgrave, George Melly, Bertrand Russell and John Osbourne.

Prices of everyday items rose. A pack of cigarettes was 1/9d for 10 and petrol, if you could afford an old banger, was 3/10p a gallon. Whilst talking about road in 1961 the government announced the slow introduction of pedestrian operated crossings, they were soon to be known as Pelican crossings and would eventually replace the old zebra crossings with their Belisah Beacons.

It was as long ago as 1961 that the British Government agreed in principle to the introduction of decimal currency but it would not take effect for another ten years!

The big news locally in the early 60’s was the discovery of Fishbourne Roman Villa and for weeks many volunteers and almost as many experts spent hours excavating the site. On completely the other side of things the Russians succeeded in putting a man, Yuri Gagarin, into space albeit only on an up and down basis.

On the TV front Danny Blanchflower famously refused to be the subject of ‘This is your Life’ and Panorama ran that famous Spaghetti tree story on the first of April 1957.

In 1952 tea bags had been introduced and in 1960 Nestles tried to introduce coffee bags but these were never to catch on. But one sort of food bag did excite the public’s interest in 1960 when Vesta introduced their boil in the bag range of curries and Chinese foods.

I have spoken several times about the food of the 60’s, the clothes of the 60’s and the music of the 60’s so I will not touch on them here but instead look at inventions of the period.

Firstly the 1950’s saw these for the first time:- The World's First Credit Card (1950) In 1950, the Diners’ Club issued the first credit card, invented by Diners' Club founder Frank McNamara, in the United States for use in restaurants. Super Glue (1950). Superglue is actually a chemical substance called cyanoacrylate that was originally discovered by Dr. Harry Coover during a research project.
Mr. Potato Head was invented and patented in 1952 by George Lerner of New York. The idea was based on an earlier toy known as “make a face”.

The Black Box Flight Recorder. David Warren of the Aeronautical Research Laboratories in Melbourne, Australia was involved in the accident investigations related to the mysterious crash of the world’s first jet-powered aircraft, the Comet, in 1953. He argued that a cockpit voice recorder would be a useful means of solving otherwise unexplainable aircraft accidents. The idea initially raised little interest, so David decided to design and build an experimental unit to demonstrate the concept.

Liquid Paper (1956). Bette Nesmith Graham never set out to be an inventor, her vocation in life was to be an artist. However, after the Second World War ended she found herself divorced and a single parent (the child Michael Nesmith, later went on to become a member of The Monkees) living in Dallas and working as a secretary. Being an artist and noticing that typing errors at work were costly, she considered better ways to correct them. Using the theory that if artists could paint over their mistakes, then typists should be able to do something similar, she mixed up her first batch of Liquid paper by using her own blenderin her kitchen at home.
New toys of the time were: Fuzzy Felt (1950), Matchbox Cars (1953), Play-Doh (1956), Corgi Toys (1956) and Barbie Dolls (1959).
Now the 60’s: The Laser (1960) Albert Einstein laid the foundation for the invention of the laser in a published paper as far back as 1917, but it wasn't until 1960 that a working laser became a reality.
Light Emiting Diodes - LEDs (1962) The first practical visible-spectrum (red) LED was developed in 1962 by Nick Holonyak Jr., while working at General Electric Company.
The Computer Mouse (1963) Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute invented the mouse in 1963 after extensive usability testing. He never received any royalties for it, as his patent was owned by the Company.
Astroturf (1964) AstroTurf was co-invented in 1964 by James M. Faria and Robert T. Wright, employees of Monsanto. It was patented in 1967.
New toys of the time were: Mouse Trap Board Game (1963), The Operation Board Game (1965), Action Man (1966), Action Man (1966)

Stay in touch and keep those memories coming.

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

Pj.keat@ntlworld.com


YOU WRITE:

Had this sent in:-
The other day someone asked, ‘What was your favourite fast food when you were young?’ I replied ‘We didn’t have fast food then, all food was slow’.
'C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?'
‘It was a place called home’ I explained. Mum cooked every day and when dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I did not like what she put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.
By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.
Here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if his system could stand it:-
Some parents never owned their own home, wore Levis, set foot on a golf course, travelled out of the country or had a Credit Card.
My parents never drove me to school.
We never had a telephone at home.
Pizzas were not delivered but milk was.


NEWS AND VIEWS:
A street in the Smogorzewie district of northern Poland was named after the Beatles. A plaque noting the honour was also erected.


ON THIS DAY 19TH SEPTEMBER 1960-1965

On 19/09/1960 the number one single was Apache - The Shadows and the number one album was Down Drury Lane to Memory Lane - A Hundred and One Strings. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Parking tickets and traffic wardens introduced in London

On 19/09/1961 the number one single was Johnny Remember Me - John Leyton and the number one album was Ipswich Town. The top rated TV show was "Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £not very interesting and 13.25 were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Take Your Pick (AR)".

On 19/09/1962 the number one single was She's Not You - Elvis Presley and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 19/09/1963 the number one single was She Loves You – The Beatles and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 19/09/1964 the number one single was You Really Got Me - Kinks and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 19/09/1965 the number one single was (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Rolling Stones and the number one album was Help - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

WEB PAGE NO 768

FIRST PICTURE: Alan Price in Concert at the Gosport Waterfront Festival August 2009.



SECOND PICTURE: an icon from the 1960’s the Isetta bubble car.




THIRD PICTURE: A legacy from before the war a Triumph Mayflower its angled ‘modern’ look was not manufactured until post war. It was well appointed with walnut fittings and was unusual but not popular and having only a side valve engine soon fell by the wayside when the overhead valve engines came into production.






ANY MORE FARES PLEASE.

As kids most of us had dressing up clothes and sets some home made and some bought from the shops which were usually kept in the toy box. The commercially bought sets came in various guises. To start with there was the Bus Conductors or Conductresses outfit with its cap and badge, a rack of tram like tickets and a ticket machine which punched the tickets with a satisfying ‘ting’ every time. Actually this was not all make believe I am old enough to remember the last trams in London and the conductor punching your ticket was actually something that I really did experience. Moving forward to childhood in North Portsmouth where the bus and trolley bus reigned supreme the one desire of every child was to be given the end of the ticket roll by the bus conductor. Do you remember these ends had a red line through them to alert the conductor that the roll was running out and it would be extreme good fortune if you happened to be on the bus when this happened and be offered the end of the roll to play with.

Then, of course, there was the Cowboy outfit, ten gallon hat, waistcoat with Sheriffs badge, chaps, belt holster and six gun ready to fire caps and, we hoped, ready scare all the neighbours. To compliment this some folks had Indian outfits with war bonnet, Indian dress and a tomahawk. However these outfits were never popular as the Indians never won.

Sometimes we would come across a girl in a cowgirl or Indian squaw outfit but that was rare, the more common outfit for a little girl was a Nurse. As far as I remember these outfits normally consisted of a white apron and little cap, both with a big red cross on them, a cape, a toy thermometer and stethoscope and little ruffs for the sleeves and to carry the instruments and bandages and slings a nurses bag. We always seemed to be satisfied with simple things which we could play make believe with when we were kids, no electronics for us! Although later on I did have a chemistry set.

Pirates were also popular and sets with eye patches, head scarf, cutlasses and pistols could always be bought in the local toy shop, along with little bags of golden doubloons and a stuffed parrot.

One of the most popular games was the Toy Post Office which came complete with writing paper envelopes, postage stamps of Toyland, postal orders and best of all a big rubber stamp and ink pad so that the owner could stamp everything in sight with an ‘official’ rubber stamp. Closely allied to the Post Office set was the Shop set. This normally came as a General Store (Arkwright had nothing on these sets)! It always fascinated me to see the miniature packets of products we all knew so well. Persil, Rinso, Brillo, Atora Suet, Bluebird Toffees, Sunlight Soap, Robinson’s Jam including a miniature Golly and oh! so many products from home. The set normally came with a cash register, some little paper bags and lots of other odds and ends that were found in the corner shop. I never did have a shop set but I do remember being bought a toy cash register at some point.
Looking back is fun but looking at what the modern child plays with would really have had us baffled as kids. My 5-year-old grandson knows his way round a computer and will very soon be putting Pam and I to shame. But it is great to see that still one of his favourite toys, the ones that come out again and again are the toy cars, so maybe not so much has changed.

Stay in touch and keep those memories coming.
DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.com
THIRD PICTURE: ALAN PRICE PERFORMING AT THE GOSPORT WATERFRONT FESTIVAL A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO.

YOU WRITE:
STEVE WRITES:
Why
do Tesco's make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

do people order double cheeseburgers,large fries, and a diet coke.

do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

do we leave cars worth thousands of pounds in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.

do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.

EVER WONDER ...
Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin ?

Why women can't put on mascara with their mouth closed?

Why don't you ever see the headline 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?

Why is 'abbreviated' such a long word?

Why is it that doctors call what they do 'practice'?

Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?

Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?

Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?
Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?

Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?
If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?

Why? Good question.

NEWS AND VIEWS:
The Who's Pete Townshend, mastermind behind "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia," has announced that he is writing a new musical-- to be premiered in 2011-- called "Floss." As a 19-year-old, with 'My Generation', I wrote the most explicitly ageist song in rock [singing 'Hope I die before I get old']. At 64, I now want to take on aging and mortality, using the powerfully angry context of rock'n'roll." The story centres on the marital difficulties of a middle-aged couple. "Floss," by the way, is the name of the wife. Some of the songs may see the light of day on a Who album in 2010.

ON THIS DAY 12TH SEPTEMBER 1960-1965

On 12/09/1960 the number one single was Apache - The Shadows and the number one album was Down Drury Lane to Memory Lane - A Hundred and One Strings. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was MoT test introduced.

On 12/09/1961 the number one single was Johnny Remember Me - John Leyton and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 12/09/1962 the number one single was I Remember You - Frank Ifield and the number one album was Pot Luck - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 12/09/1964 the number one single was You Really Got Me - Kinks and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Conservative Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 12/09/1963 the number one single was She Loves You - The Beatles and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was 35 British tourists die in Pyrennees plane crash.

On 12/09/1965 the number one single was (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Rolling Stones and the number one album was Help - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page No 766

FIRST PICTURE: BARBARA KELLY

SECOND PICTURE: BERNARD BRADEN

BERNARD BRADEN AND BARBARA KELLY


Bernard Chastey Braden was born in Vancouver. He produced plays on CJOR Vancouver in the late 30s and early 40s and married Barbara Kelly in 1942 and they moved to Toronto the same year. Seven years later, he, his wife and two children moved to England. (A third child, Kim was born in London in 1949.) The radio show Breakfast with Braden began on Saturday morning, 21 January 1950, initially putting Bernard Braden alongside his dumb girlfriend, Pearl Carr this was followed by various sequels including Between Time, Bathtime and Bedlam with Braden. The usually straight BBC announcer was Ronald Fletcher who was drawn into the script which added to the ingenuity and enjoyment.

They made their television debut on An Evening at Home With Bernard Braden and Barbara Kelly in 1951 but, though popular, it ran for only one series. But by the end of the 1950s, Barbara and Bernard were well-established figure on television and radio in Britain, but for the next decade her husband's career moved to the fore, with the success of his On the Braden Beat, one of the earliest consumer guidance programmes, which won a Bafta award in 1964 and ran on ATV for six years and was also an opening for performers such as Peter Cook, Jake Thackray and Tim Brooke-Taylor.. The programme was followed by Braden's Week on the BBC, which lasted four years.

Bernard Braden fell from grace when he advertised margarine on the BBC's commercial rival ITV; the BBC felt this was inconsistent with his role as the consumers' spokesman and the show was cancelled. Esther Rantzen, one of the researcher/presenters, went on to front a remarkably similar consumer show.
In 1976, he hosted a quiz show for London Weekend Television called The Sweepstakes Game. The show proved to be unsuccessful and no further programmes were made after the original series. He died in Camden, in 1993 aged 76, following a series of strokes.
Barbara Kelly was born on October 5 1924 at Vancouver, British Colombia, and was given elocution lessons as a young girl. Barbara hated the stage, but her mother was a frustrated actress. Her first professional engagement was with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, when she played the Virgin Mary in a Nativity Play.
She married in 1942 – "to escape from my mother" and having been warned by her father: "Never do anything to besmirch the name of Kelly or I will kill you." Two years and two children later, she said, it occurred to her to ask: "How can you besmirch a name like Kelly?"

She was soon in demand for radio work and also toured a series of small theatres across Canada before making her first television appearances in The Stage Series.
Meanwhile Barbara Kelly was one of showbusiness's brightest personalities in the 1950s, often appearing with her husband, she was probably best known for her appearances on the panel show What's My Line? which featured Eamon Andrews as the chairman, and David Nixon, Gilbert Harding and Isobel Barnett. This simple format proved immensely popular, and the programme ran until 1963. When it was briefly revived in 1984, Eamon Andrews and Barbara Kelly were the only original members of the team to appear.
Her other television work included Kelly's Eye, Criss Cross Quiz and Leave Your Name and Number as well as the sitcom B and B in 1968, where she again teamed up with her husband, and in which their younger daughter Kim also appeared.

During the 1970s Barbara Kelly and her husband ran Adanac Productions, which they had set up 20 years earlier, and which by then was specialising in presentations at business conferences. Barbara Kelly then began an agency offering advice to celebrities on managing their image and career direction. Through her company Prime Performers she also offered the services of a number of figures – including Barbara Windsor, Joan Collins, Raymond Baxter, Norman Tebbit and Sir John Harvey-Jones – for the after-dinner-speaking circuit. She also ran Speakerpower, which provides actors to train people in public speaking and presentations.

Barbara Kelly took a no-nonsense approach to most things; even during an armed raid in 1978, she asked the robbers – who had knocked her husband out – to "take off the Noddy hats and have a drink". Despite having suffered from cancer during the 1980s, she nursed her husband during his own final illness. She died in 2007 aged 82 of her three children only her son predeceased her.
Take Care

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.com

SUE WRITES:

I was at college with two girls whose fathers had connections with Concord, Sue Whittle`s father was a test pilot for the aircraft and the other whose name does not readily come to mind as I type, was an engineer, In her words when the first flight was shown and reported " you would have thought he had built it all by himself and flown it too, he was that proud!"



NEWS AND VIEWS:

I expect that most of you will have heard that Simon Dee died on 29th August at the age of 72. Simon Dee, real name Cyril Nicholas Henty-Dodd was well known in the 1960’s as a television interviewer and disc jockey who hosted a twice-weekly BBC TV chat show, Dee Time. After moving from the BBC to LWT in 1970 he was dropped and his career never recovered. He died from bone cancer leaving three ex-wives, four children, and four grandchildren.

ON THIS DAY 5TH SEPTEMBER 1960-1965

On 05/09/1960 the number one single was Apache - The Shadows and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Cassius Clay wins Olympic Boxing gold.

On 05/09/1961 the number one single was Johnny Remember Me - John Leyton and the number one album was Black & White Minstrel Show - George Mitchell Minstrels. The top rated TV show was Sunday Night at the London Palladium (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 05/09/1962 the number one single was I Remember You - Frank Ifield and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 05/09/1963 the number one single was Bad to Me - Billy J Kramer and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 05/09/1964 the number one single was Have I the Right? - Honeycombs and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 05/09/1965 the number one single was I Got You Babe - Sonny and Cher and the number one album was Help - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.