Web Page 1036

Web Page 1036

Top Picture: Ben Lyon & Bebe Daniels plus Richard and Barbara

Second Picture: Vic Oliver

From Across the Pond

BBC radio relied heavily on many American comedians during and after the war. Lets look at just three of them.



Ben Lyon was born in Atlanta on February 6, 1901 and died on March 22, 1979 he was a well known American film actor and a 20th Century Fox studio executive. He entered films in 1918 after a successful appearance on Broadway. He was in the highly successful film Flaming Youth (1923), and steadily developed into a leading man and was successfully paired with some of the leading actresses of the silent era. His greatest success as an actor came in 1930 with the film Hell's Angels. The film was a major success and brought Jean Harlow to prominence. For the ten years he was constantly in demand, but his popularity began to wane by the early 1940s. By the mid 1940s he was working for 20th Century Fox. In 1946 he met a young aspiring actress named Norma Jeane Dougherty. He organised a colour screen test for the actress, renamed her, and finally signed her as Marilyn Monroe to her first studio contract. In 1930 he had married the actress Bebe Daniels. Together they were a notable couple in show business society, and sometimes acted together. This is where we first come across this couple on British radio in the long-running radio show Hi Gang. Hi Gang was succeeded in 1950 by Life With The Lyons, which also featured their real life son Richard and daughter Barbara, and had a run on BBC and ITV from 1954 until 1960. When Bebe Daniels's health declined during the 1960s following a series of strokes, Ben Lyon cared for her until her death in 1971. He then married the actress Marian Nixon. But when on the QE2 near Honolulu, Hawaii, when he suffered a heart attack and died.




Bebe Daniels was born Phyllison Virginia Daniels (Bebe was a childhood name) onJanuary 14, 1901 and died on March 16, 1971, she was an American actress, singer, dancer, writer and producer. Her father was a theatre manager and her mother an actress. The family moved to Los Angeles in her childhood and she began her acting career at the age of four. That same year she also went on tour in a stage production of Richard III. She began her career in Hollywood during the silent movie era as a child actress, became a star in musicals like 42nd Street, and later gained further fame on radio and television in Britain. In a long career, Bebe Daniels made over 230 films. In the 1920s, Daniels was under contract with Paramount Pictures. She became an adult star by 1922 and by 1924 was playing opposite Rudolph Valentino in Monsieur Beaucaire. Following this she was cast in a number of light popular films, Paramount dropped her contract with the advent of talking pictures. She was hired by RKO and RCA Victor hired her to record several records. Radio Pictures starred her in a number of musicals Warner Brothers realized what a box office draw she was and offered her a contract which she accepted. She retired from Hollywood in 1935. With her husband, Ben Lyon, and they moved to London. The Lyons' then moved into radio most notably, the series Hi Gang, continuing for decades and enjoying considerable popularity during World War II. Bebe Daniels wrote most of the dialogue for the Hi Gang radio show. The couple remained through the days of the The Blitz. Following the war, Daniels was awarded the Medal of Freedom by Harry S. Truman for war service. In 1945 she returned to Hollywood for a short time to work as a film producer for Hal Roach and Eagle Lion. She returned to the UK in 1948 and lived there for the remainder of her life. On March 16, 1971, Daniels died of a cerebral hemorrhage in London at the age of 70.



Vic Oliver was born Victor Oliver von Samek on 8 July 1898 and died on 15 August 1964. He was born in Vienna, the son of Viktor von Samek and came to England via America. He starred in the BBC radio show Hi, Gang! along with Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels; and appeared in many others. He was the first castaway on Roy Plumbley’s Desert Island Discs. He was also a skilled musician and played the violin (badly in his shows). He had aspirations as a conductor and founded the Vic Oliver Concert Orchestra which gave light classical concerts along the south coast. His theme tune was Prelude to the Stars. He was a regular on Henry Hall's Guest Night and Workers' Playtime and has been considered a precursor of Victor Borge. As a Jew, his name was listed on a Nazi blacklist of people to be arrested (and killed) immediately after a successful invasion of Britain. He married Winston Churchill's daughter, Sarah, in 1936, but was divorced in 1945. He died in Johannesburg, in 1964. Stay in touch, Yours, Peter DUSTYKEAT@aol.com Pj.keat@ntlworld.co.uk

Jonathan Writes: On the subject of house costs, here are some interesting numbers that show the almost impossible task of a young person today wanting to enter the bottom rung of the housing ladder. When I left University in 1970 I was fortunate to be able to get a job at £1250 per annum with the British Oxygen Company in the Midlands and able to buy my first three bedroomed semi detached house on an estate for £4250 i.e. 3.4 times my salary. Even then it was a stretch for the Building Society rules of the time and I had to include Carol's earnings as a bank secretary. That same graduate today is probably going to get a starting salary of say £25 000 (excuse me if I am a bit out of touch with UK starting salaries) but his or her three bedroomed semi is going to cost up to £250 000 or TEN times the starting salary. Their only solution is to hope that their kind parents can give back on their demise from the estate. In more recent times electronic goods price de-escalation can be brought into focus with these figures.... My first microwave oven bought in the late 70's cost a month's salary,that same article's price can be earned in well under an hour. The same goes for the original home personal computers. My first £ 286 bought in 1987 with a black and white monitor and dot matrix printer cost more than a month's pay but today a really super home PC with large colour LED monitor, and printer/fax/scanner will cost less than a week's pay. I am lucky to live in South Africa where beer/ wine and spirits cost less in the store than duty free at the airport but I stopped smoking long ago and took up running.

News and Views: Bert Weedon has died aged 91. He influenced the first generation of British pop musicians through his Play In A Day. He was an unassuming man with great technical playing ability. Many figures in rock music including Keith Richards, Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton started with Bert’s teach-yourself method. His manual first appeared in 1957 and introduced aspiring musicians to the three basic chords of most of the rock and roll hits and explained what to do next. Play In A Day sold two million copies. Its sequel Play Every Day, and updated video and DVD versions continued to provide him with an income well into his old age. He was born Herbert Maurice Weedon in East Ham. His father, a tube train driver on the District Line and performed an amateur song-and-dance act with the guard of his train, under the name of Weedon and Walmisley. When Bert was 12 his father bought him his first guitar, from Petticoat Lane Market, for 15 shillings . Having started playing in the classical style, he moved to the popular repertoire of the 1930s, forming his first dance band with a group of friends in 1934. His big break came after the war, when he joined Stephane Grapelli’s as a replacement for Django Reinhardt. By the early Fifties, he was resident guitarist with the BBC Showband and worked on regular radio sessions. He was in demand as a session guitarist, backing David Whitfield and Alma Cogan, as well as Frank Sinatra, Nat “King” Cole and Judy Garland. With the coming of rock and roll, he recorded with Laurie London, Marty Wilde and Cliff Richard. Although Parlophone released five of his solo guitar singles during 1957 and 1958, none reached the charts. His fortunes improved when he switched to Top Rank in 1959, his version of the Guitar Boogie Shuffle reaching No 7. Further releases fared less well until, in August 1960, his version of Apache reached No 24. He became a prolific broadcaster, appearing on children’s television shows as well as on radio and fronting his own long-running ITV series. For many years he was an active member of the Grand Order of Water Rats, and was King Rat in 1992. He was appointed OBE in 2001. He had two sons from his first marriage, and lived in Buckinghamshire with his second wife, Maggie.

On this day 28th April 1960-1965 On 28/04/1960 the number one single was Do you Mind - Anthony Newley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Wagon Train (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. On 28/04/1961 the number one single was Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. On 28/04/1962 the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - 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 Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. On 28/04/1963 the number one single was How Do You Do It? - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. On 28/04/1964 the number one single was A World Without Love - Peter & Gordon and the number one album was With the Beatles - The 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 Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. On 28/04/1965 the number one single was Ticket to Ride - The Beatles and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. On 28/04/1963 the number one single was How Do You Do It? - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. On 28/04/1964 the number one single was A World Without Love - Peter & Gordon and the number one album was With the Beatles - The 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 Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. On 28/04/1965 the number one single was Ticket to Ride - The Beatles and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page 1034

Top Picture: John Perfumo





Second Picture: Christine Keller


The Scandle that rocked a Government

Brigadier John Dennis Profumo, 5th Baron Profumo CBE was informally known as Jack Profumo His title, 5th Baron, which he did not use, was Italian. Although Profumo held an increasingly responsible series of political posts in the 1950s, he is best known for his involvement in a 1963 scandal involving a prostitute. The scandal, now known as the Profumo Affair, led to Profumo's resignation and withdrawal from politics, and it may have helped to topple the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan.

After his resignation, Profumo began to work as a volunteer cleaning toilets at Toynbee Hall, a charity based in the East End of London, and continued to work there for the rest of his life. Eventually, Profumo volunteered as the charity's chief fundraiser. These charitable activities helped to restore the fallen politician's reputation; he was awarded a CBE in 1975, and in 1995 was invited to Margaret Thatcher's 70th birthday dinner. [edit] Early life and career.

He was born in Kensington, the son of a diplomat and barrister of Italian origin, who died in 1940. He was educated at Harrow School and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he read law. On 1 July 1939, he was commissioned into the Royal Armoured Corps as a Second Lieutenant. He had previously been a member of the Officer Training Corps and a Cadet Sergeant while at Harrow. He served in North Africa with the Northamptonshire Yeomanry as a Captain where he was mentioned in despatches. He landed in Normandy on D-Day and was engaged in the subsequent fierce fighting to secure that region of France. His final rank in the British Army was Brigadier.
Major Profumo was awarded an OBE "in recognition of gallant and distinguished service in Italy".

In 1940, while still serving in the army, he was elected to the House of Commons as a Conservative MP for Kettering. Profumo was well-connected with a good war record, and was highly regarded in the Conservative party. These qualities helped him to rise through the ranks of the Conservative government of 1951. He was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation in November 1952, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation in November 1953, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in January 1957, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office in November 1958, and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in January 1959. In 1954 he married the actress Valerie Hobson. In July 1960 he was appointed a Secretary of State for War, (outside of the cabinet) and a member of the Privy Council.

But it is for the more unsavoury side of his life that he is most remembered. In July 1961, at a party at Cliveden, home of Viscount Astor, he met Christine Keeler, a model with whom he began a sexual relationship. Profumo ended it after only a few weeks but rumours about the affair began to circulate. Since Keeler also had sexual relations with Yevgeni Ivanov, the senior naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy, the Profumo Affair took on a national security dimension.

In December 1962, a shooting incident in London involving two other men who were involved with Keeler led the press to investigate Ms Keeler, and reporters soon learned of her affairs with Profumo and Ivanov. But the British tradition of respecting the private lives of British politicians was maintained until March 1963, when the Labour MP George Wigg, claiming to be motivated by the national security aspects of the case, taking advantage of Parliamentary Privilege, referred in the House of Commons to rumours that Profumo was having an affair with Keeler. Profumo then made a personal statement in which he admitted he knew Keeler but denied there was any "impropriety" in their relationship.

Profumo's statement did not prevent newspapers publishing stories about Keeler. On 5 June 1963, he was forced to admit that he had lied to the House, he resigned from office, from the House and from the Privy Council. Before making his public confession Profumo confessed the affair to his wife, who stood by him. It was never shown that his relationship with Keeler had led to any breach of national security. The scandal rocked the Conservative government, and was generally held to have been among the causes of its defeat by Labour at the 1964 election.

Profumo maintained complete public silence about the matter for the rest of his life, even when the 1989 film Scandal and the publication of Keeler's memoirs revived public interest in the affair.

Shortly after his resignation Profumo began to work as a volunteer cleaning toilets at Toynbee Hall, a charity based in the East End of London, and continued to work there for the rest of his life. All this work was done as a volunteer, since Profumo was able to live on his inherited wealth. His wife, the actress Valerie Hobson, also devoted herself to charity until her death in 1998.

Jack Profumo was awarded a CBE in 1975, which he received at a Buckingham Palace ceremony from the Queen signalling his return to respectability. In 1995, former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher invited him to her 70th birthday dinner, where he sat next to the Queen. He appeared only occasionally in public, particularly in his last years when he used a wheelchair. His last appearance was at the memorial service for Sir Edward Heath on 8 November 2005.

On 7 March 2006, he suffered a severe stroke and died two days later surrounded by his family. He was 91. In the immediate aftermath of his death, most commentators said that he should be remembered as much for his contribution to society after his fall from political grace as for the scandal of 1963 which caused that fall.
Stay in touch,

Yours,

Peter

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

You Write:

Last month, nine days into a scheduled three-week trial, P.J. Proby was acquitted on benefit fraud in Worcester when the prosecution dropped its case in light of newly-discovered evidence. He had been accused of gaining over £46,700 in benefits between 2002 and 2008, while claiming he had just £5.00 in his bank account.

News and Views:

There's more health troubles for Robin Gibb. The Bee Gee is reportedly battling pneumonia in a London hospital while recovering from emergency intestinal surgery. Brother Barry has returned from America to be by his brother's side, his family are also there.

On this day 21st April 1960-1965

On 2

1/04/1960

the number one single was My Old Man's a Dustman - Lonnie Donegan and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Armchair Theatre (ABC) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On

21/04/1961

the number one single was Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On

21/04/1962

the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - 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 Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On

21/04/1963

the number one single was How Do You Do It? - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On

21/04/1965

the number one single was Ticket to Ride - The Beatles and the number one album was Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page 1032

Top Picture: Titbits




Second Picture: 1960’s portable TV










What price nostalgia?


The price of things nowadays! Why, I can remember when ten shillings would buy you four pints of bitter, a fish supper, a packet of fags and you would still have change for the bus ticket home." How often have we heard this sort of thing from some people usually a bit older than ourselves? And if we are being really truthful we sometimes find ourselves saying, or at least thinking the same sort of things don't we? But just how cheap were things?


Wages were much lower but the buying power of the florin (that's 10p to anyone reading who can't remember the pre-decimal days) was a lot more than it is today so making a comparison is difficult. That was until I discovered a rather nifty calculator on the internet which gives us the real price of things back then, compared with today and vice-versa. Because of something called Resale Price Maintenance, the prices in shops were much the same wherever you went. So the price of baked beans in Tesco for example was the same as it was at the corner shop (in theory). So a way to give customers more value was through Green Shield stamps which could be saved up to be redeemed for other goods was introduced.


There are few things more fascinating than old advertisements in newspapers, especially for products that are no longer around. But even for products that are still with us, how can we tell, for example, whether the price of 58 guineas for a portable television in 1960 was a good deal by today's standards or not? A guinea, as most people will remember, was the equivalent of twenty one shillings or a pound and five pence to the uninitiated, it was a posh way of quoting prices, pounds were considered 'common' for high ticket items in those days. So we can easily work out that 58 guineas was £60.90 for a black and white portable television with a 17 inch screen and amazingly, a thirteen channel dial. Why there was a thirteen-channel dial we can only guess, because there were only two television stations in 1960, perhaps they were expecting more. So £60.90 doesn't sound too bad for a television does it? Mind you this 'portable' TV weighed in at 31 pounds so you needed to be on a Charles Atlas course before you could start shifting your 'portable' television around. It was all the valves and capacitors, resistors, accumulators and transformers packed inside the mahogany effect bakelite casing. The equivalent television today weighs just 5 pounds. But what about the cost? Priced at just £60.90 it sounds quite reasonable compared with £99.99p (or less) for a 17 inch LCD from Argos today, but is it? If you were getting £1,000 per year back then you were doing well, so even £60.90p was quite a chunk of money to spend. However, thanks to the nifty little calculator on the internet, we discover that £60.90 in 1960 actually has the value today of an astonishing £980.60p. A television costing nearly a grand these days comes all singing, all dancing in surround sound and with so many channels and catch-up TV options you not only have no idea exactly how many channels you have, you can watch whatever you like anytime whether it is being broadcast now or not. In 1960 it was two channels in black and white and that was yer lot! And there was a good chance that it would breakdown because one of the valves would go, no wonder people were more likely to rent their sets back then.

Let's turn it on its head, how much would £99.99p today be worth in 1960? Well the magic calculator tells us that it was just £6.22 or £6-4s-5d in pre-decimal money, imagine buying a television for that price back then! So as we can see 58 guineas was an incredible amount of money to splash out, which meant that most people rented their televisions, because the option of renting your set for just nine shillings and six pence per week (47p) certainly made sense. For that weekly cost you also got free maintenance, free insurance and a free ITA aerial. "If a breakdown should occur your viewing is usually restored the same day," promised the advertisement for Rentaset who had a team of "experienced engineers". This indicates just how unreliable televisions were in those days, so nine shillings and six pence per week seemed like a good deal. However, the equivalent of 47p per week in 1960 by today's values is £7.57, which is not bad I suppose, but these days most of us budget monthly which would mean a monthly outlay of £30.24 which is about the same as renting SKY which would also include your phone, internet and more channels than you can shake a stick at. So maybe 47p was not such good value for money back then after all.

If you were a teenager in the 1960s and spending your hard earned paper-round money on the latest single buying an album was a major event and until I had a look at the magic calculator I always assumed it was because I had so little money then, that it took weeks to save up for an album. But in fact these records were an astounding amount of money by today's standards. For many years in the mid 1960s the cost of an album was 32 shillings and sixpence (£1.62) and the cost of a single was six shillings and eight pence (33p) but let's just take 1965 as an example. The price of an album was the same wherever you went, it was 32s/6d take. I don't know about you, but to me it represented a huge outlay, so buying a new album was a really big event. And what is today's equivalent of £1.62 in 1965? Believe it or not it is £21.93p! No wonder we only got these vinyl albums at Christmas and birthdays. A single such number one hit in 1965 would set you back the equivalent of £4.50, but the song only ran for two and a half minutes and the 'b' side was 15 seconds shorter, so less than five minutes of music for £4.50...hmmm.

Were cars more expensive back in 1960 or cheaper? This is difficult because we expect more in specifications from a car now than were available back then and not only that, but most of the makes available then no longer exist. But let's have a look at a four-door saloon, the Riley 4 sixty eight. This had a 1485cc engine and a three-speed gear box, and it was considered to be in the top of the middle range of saloon cars, maybe a bit like a Ford Mondeo today. A brand new 1600cc Mondeo, would not leave you not much change from £20,000 while a Riley 4 sixty eight would have cost you £725 plus £303 'purchase tax'. That is a 41% tax rate and we moan about VAT at 17.5% today, so the total cost was £1028 to drive it away in 1960. That means that the equivalent price today would be £16,552, not bad, but there was no radio, no power steering, no electric windows, no heated rear window, no air conditioning and not forgetting just three gears?

But back to the household. Remember twin tub washing machines? What a pain in the neck they were. If yours was stored under a work surface then every washday (remember when we had such things) the twin tub had to be dragged out with all its wires and tubes trailing behind. And you couldn't just switch it on and leave it, you had to stand over it and transfer the clothes from the washer to the spinner while being sprinkled water from the kitchen tap through a hose, which would keep coming off. The kitchen would soon be awash with water. A twin tub would cost 52 guineas in 1960 and believe was considered a bargain Today's equivalent? £879.16. You can get an Indesit automatic washing machine from Comet today for £225 which does the washing all by itself, that would have been the equivalent of £14 in 1960.
But what about everyday items? The latest in frozen foods, which was still quite a novelty in 1960, were two succulent steaks of whole fish from 'Eskimo' which would set you back one shilling and ten pence but reduced on special offer for your first pack to just one shilling and four pence (7p). In today's prices that's £1.13p which compares with £3.00 for four frozen cod fish fillets from Birds Eye at ASDA so that's £1.50 for two. But the 1960s advertisement does not make clear what sort of fish it is.

Then there were cigarettes, which nearly every adult smoked before it was realised that they killed you. Cigarettes were everywhere and were advertised frequently. Take 'Full Strength Capstan' with 'man-size flavour', probably with enough tar per packet to re-surface sizable sections on the A27. A packet of twenty 'full strength smoking' cigarettes would cost you three shillings and eleven pence or just under 20p in 1960, that equates to £3.22p much cheaper than the average of around £5.20 today. And the price of a pint of beer in 1960 down the pub was about one shilling and three pence, which is about £1.25 today. So it is clear that drinking and smoking was much cheaper in those days and it is things like that that we tend to remember.

Magazines and newspapers were priced at under a shilling, as was 'Tit Bits' a pre runner to 'OK', 'Hello' or 'Chat' magazine. It was priced at four and half pence and an advertisement for it said that its readers had already won £519,944 on the Pools, the National Lottery of its day. A Yorkshire housewife £152,319 on the Pools in 1961, which prompted her to say famously 'I'm going to spend! spend! spend!' A win today on the National Lottery of £152, 000 although very welcome would not be exactly life changing or even in many cases come close to paying off the mortgage. But her win was the equivalent of £2,452,615 now. And the £519,944 in pools wins for readers of Tit Bits amounts to over £8 million today.

So we can see that prices for everyday items like frozen food, cigarettes and beer were somewhat cheaper in real terms and even a family saloon was cheaper albeit without our modern extras, but electrical goods were unbelievably expensive. You will have noticed that I haven't mentioned house prices, the reason being that property prices have inflated out of all proportion so a real equivalent could not be made, but just for a laugh (or cry) let's have a quick look. A 'pleasing modern' semi-detatched house with three bedrooms was on sale for £2,750. That is the equivalent of, wait for it... just £44,280 today. Nowadays you would not be able to buy one for much under £190,000 in the same area, in 1960 that would have been £11,799. No wonder young people find it difficult to get on the property ladder. If you have enjoyed this trip down the shopping receipt of time unfortunately the web site I found has now been taken down.
Stay in touch,

Yours,

Peter

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

You Write:

I overheard a discussion the other day between two people of our age who were discussing what the routine was at the end of term at their junior schools and I came to realise that we did the same sort of things at our Junior school. Term always finished on a Thursday afternoon, I don’t know why it not Friday maybe it was something to do with giving the teachers a long weekend!


News and Views:

Cilla Black hosted "Cilla's Unswung Sixties" on March 19th on the Yesterday channel. The documentary is said to "reveal what the great British public was really wearing in the 1960s, what records they bought and what they liked to do at the weekend." Strange programme!

On this day 14th April 1960-1965

On

14/04/1960

the number one single was My Old Man's a Dustman - Lonnie Donegan and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Wagon Train (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On

14/04/1961

the number one single was Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was The Budget (All Channels) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On

14/04/1962

the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - 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 Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Georges Pompidou becomes French Prime Minister.


On

14/04/1963

the number one single was How Do You Do It? - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. 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 Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On

14/04/1964

the number one single was Can't Buy Me Love - The Beatles and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was The Budget (All Channels) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Telstar broadcasts live TV pictures to UK from Japan


On

14/04/1965

the number one single was The Minute You're Gone - Cliff Richard and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page 1030

Top Picture: Paulsgrove Chalk Pit





Second Picture: A Monarch Record Player with a BSR deck

The Early ’60’s and Chalk Pits

The first quarter of the year 1960 was to turn out to be a very eventful and significant year musically, just take a look at what occurred that year.

In February the manufacturing of records changed dramatically when Columbia decided with the introduction of the 45rpm disc to stop the production of the 78rpm record. The artist who had the privilege of having his record become the last Columbia 10” 78rpm single was Russ Conway. The title of the record was ‘Royal Event’ a now long forgotten track but Columbia presented Russ Conway with a gold disc of the record to mark the occasion. Whilst in April RCA Victor Records announced that it would release all pop singles in mono and stereo simultaneously, being the first record company to do so. Elvis Presley's single, "Stuck on You," was RCA's first mono/stereo release.

The biggest star in the pop world made his one and only visit to the UK in March 1960. As a serving sergeant, he was only promoted to sergeant in January of that year, in the US Army the plane returning Elvis Presley back to the US to be demobed landed at Prestwick airport for 80 minutes just to refuel. This was the only time that Elvis ever set foot in the British Isles. A car soon whisked him away after he had had a very brief chat to a small group of reporters who were waiting at the airport. Elvis then made a flying visit to the nearby US bases’ NCO and teenage clubs. The visit allowed some of the local girls to actually glimpse him being only separated from him by a chicken wire fence several girls claimed that Elvis came over and kissed them, but this was treated with much scepticism by those at the back of the crowd. Elvis then reboarded the plane and disappeared off to the USA never to return to the UK. In April Elvis returned to Hollywood for the first time since coming home from Germany to film G.I. Blues.

Also in March Eddie Cochrane died in a car accident in which he and Gene Vincent were travelling. Eddie Cochrane and Gene Vincent were returning to London after a highly successful concert in the Hippodrome in Bristol when their Ford Consul taxi swerved and hit a lamppost on the A4 near Chippenham. One part of this tragic story is well know and has gone down as a pop legend and that is that the police cadet Dave Harman, who was later to become Dave Dee, was charged with taking care of Eddie Cochran’s guitar. But what is less well known is that three days earlier a young 13 year old lad called Mark Feld had carried that same guitar to Eddie Cochran’s waiting car, that lad became Marc Bolan!

In April the first fashion pair of Doc Martens boots went on sale.

The early 60s produced some of the best music of all time. Even today it is listened to not only by the 60s generation but by our children and grandchildren. Oldies stations playing the 60s are popping up everywhere. The music is as popular today as it was when we were kids.
Now for something completely different:

Chalk Pits

Most of us knew thay were there and many of us played in them but have you ever stopped to think how many there were?

There were three pits very close together on Portsdown Hill. There was the Old Chalk Pit North of Upper Drayton Lane on the right. Then on the left further up the same road was another smaller one with a hut in it where, what we called The Hermit, lived. I wonder who he was and what happened to him? On the main A3 on the left hand side was yet another Chalk Pit with a cave cut into it which at one time was the cold store for the Cliff Dell Tea Gardens which were built there in Edwardian times. Behind this on the Wymering side was another pit and there was also another above the Paulsgrove estate but these we did not frequent. This at one time had a tramway which connected it to Paulsgrove Quay. The only other pit I can remember is the one on the right hand side of Waterworks Road which was a haven for those who wanted to go birds nesting! Can anyone remember any more?

Stay in touch,

Yours,

Peter

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

You Write:

Jonathan Writes:-

Fablon was invented by a British Company:

Commercial Plastics Ltd
Willington Quay
Wallson on Tyne
Northumberland

The product was registered for US Patent on Wednesday March 9th 1960
and patent Number 72092447 for "A self adhesive flexible plastic material for general use as a decorative and protective coating" was granted on 25th October 1962.

This patent has now lapsed.


News and Views:

Louise Cochrane, the creator of Rag Tag and Bobtail has died aged 93. Rag, Tag and Bobtail’s innocent woodland capers delighted children in that period when only one-third of homes had a television and screens went blank between 6 and 7pm so that small children could be put to bed . To those brought up in the early 1950s, the Watch With Mother line-up - Picture Book on Monday; Andy Pandy on Tuesday; The Flowerpot Men on Wednesday; Rag, Tag and Bobtail on Thursday; and The Woodentops on Friday, is probably more familiar than memories of their first school.


On this day 7th April 1960-1965

On

07/04/1960

the number one single was My Old Man's a Dustman - Lonnie Donegan and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was The Budget (All Channels) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On

07/04/1961

the number one single was Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was British liner burns in Persian Gulf - killing 100.

On 07

/04/1962

the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was The Budget (All Channels) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 07

/04/1963

the number one single was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. 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 Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was JFK makes Winston Churchill a US citizen.

On 07

/04/1964

the number one single was Can't Buy Me Love - The Beatles and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Labour wins first GLC election

On

07/04/1965

the number one single was Concrete & Clay - Unit 4 Plus 2 and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the

Web Page 1028

Top Picture: Formica Topped Table







Second Picture: Duradio Paint

Formica

Several weeks ago someone commented on the blog that he would like to hear about Formica, so here goes. How well I remember my father making, carefully cutting and eventually wrestling with a very large sheet of Formica when he covered the kitchen table. The other vital ingredient was a large tin of Evo Stik. I seem to remember that it was highly inflammable and whilst my father was spreading the glue on the table with the serrated red plastic comb provided I can still hear my mother saying “Norman, do you think ou should be smoking whilst you are spreading that glue?” It made no difference, he finished his cigarette whilst till applying the sticky mess. Not only tables but work surfaces, the top of the dresser and the shelves in the larder all eventually ended up covered in Formica. Well all these memories started me thinking and looking and this is what I have managed to turn up about Formica.

Formica, was technically known as a wipe clean plastic laminate of paper or fabric with a melamine resin. It was invented a hundred years ago in 1912 by Daniel O’Conor and Herbert A Faber and today is produced under licence by the Formica Corporation in Newcastle upon Tyne.

At the time of the invention Daniel O’Conor and Herbert Faber were working for the Westinghouse of America and once they had perfected the process they then filed for a patent on it.

They originally conceived it as a substitute for mica which was used as electrical insulation. After the invention of Formica the two inventors left Westinghouse immediately afterwards to start their own business, enlisting lawyer and banker John G. Tomlin as an investor. Tomlin put up $7,500 and became a silent partner in the business. The company began operations on 2nd May 1913, and was immediately successful: by September, Formica Products Company had eighteen employees trying to keep up with the demand for electrical parts for Bell Electric Motor, Ideal Electric and Northwest Electric.

In 1927, Formica Insulation Company obtained a patent on an opaque barrier sheet that allowed the use of rotogravure printing to make wood-grained or marble-surfaced laminate, the first of many innovations that were to associate the name "Formica" with decorative interior products.

In 1938 melamine thermosetting resin was developed by American Cyanamid Company. It resisted heat, abrasion and moisture soon the Formica Corporation was buying the entire output of melamine from American Cyanamid.

During the Second World War Formica manufactured plastic impregnated wooden propellers and bomb parts. The company was headquartered in Cincinnati Ohio for many years.

With the end of WWII, the company entered the European market through a license agreement and production has never stopped. Since 2007, it has been a subsidiary of the Fletcher Building group and today Formica laminate can be found in everyday use in healthcare, retail, education, residential, corporate, industrial, transportation and sports and leisure environments. Offering an unrivalled collection of colours, patterns, wood-grains and surface finishes, Formica provides the perfect choice for architects and interior designers to create fashionable yet functional environments. There were other company’s who made similar products to Formica but none ever bettered it.

I also remember that strange sticky backed product that came on a roll, it was far less hard wearing than Formica and was called Fablon. How ever hard I try I cannot seem to find out the history of this product but I do remember my father using it somewhere in the house and spending hours rolling and pushing out the air bubbles in it!!! That was after trying to get it to lay straight after taking off the backing.
These were the days of home decorating paints we never hear of these days. Remember Household Paint sold by Woolworths, cheap, thin and covered very little. Other names that come to mind are Brolac, Duradio, Walpamur, Valspar and probably the only survivor to this day is Dulux. And whilst talking about DIY who remembers Rawlplug Paste? It was a fibrous dry powder which when wetted made up into a paste to fill holes and fix screws with. Also this product came with a special punch which was used, in conjunction with a hammer to make the required holes in the wall.
Ah well it is amazing how much we learnt by just looking over our dad’s shoulder!

Stay in touch,

Yours,

Peter

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

You Write:

Bernard writes:

I lived in close proximity of the Odeon Southsea (criminal by the way to demolish it!) Such Architecture inside in the Auditorium and show piece in its day - the 1930s). On Saturdays as a small boy I recall having to pay 6d or if in the holidays on a Thursday it was 9p for a seat. If you were posh you could go upstairs for a bit more! The serials came on first - remember the baddie Gene Roth?! They were from about 1951 - Captain Video, Buck Rogers and the Ghost of Zorro? Then there was a short interval with the cinema speakers playing 'Lollipop Time' (this changed later on to 'Lollipop, Lollipop!' to enable the usherette to appear at the front of the auditorium and to sell iced lollies - I seemed to remember orange flavour lollies - mm delicious! If you were crafty you didn’t go when the queue was outside and you waited to the beginning of the serial after the yo-yo contestants sponsored by the Daily Mirror had had a go on the stage. Then the lights faded for the main feature - usually an old black and white movie - probably a western. Everyone used to whistle at any kissing, boo at the baddies or cheer at the goodies especially during a chase close to the end of the film! The manager of the Odeon was a distinguished My Leybourne who always stood erect close to the box office. It wasn’t half bright outside when you came out of the cinema at the end. We all re-enacted the film in the back alley when we returned home much to the annoyance of our parents! The adult prices in the mid fifties as I recall were 1s/3p, 1/9, 2/6 or 3/6 upstairs. If we missed a film after it had been shown, one could always catch 6 weeks later at the Essoldo near the Kings Theatre, Albert Road.

News and Views:

Horse Sand Fort and No Man’s Land Fort in The Solent have been sold to the same company, Clarenco, which bought Spitbank Fort in 2009 and has turned it into a hotel and conference centre in a £3m revamp. No Man’s Land Fort is over 35,000sq ft – three times the size of Spitbank Fort – and was converted into a luxury hotel in the 1990s. Horse Sand Fort was built between 1865 and 1880 to defend Portsmouth from the French and is almost an exact replica of No Man’s Land Fort. It has several armour-plated floors with 15ft thick walls all round. Clarenco will transform Horse Sand Fort into a museum showcasing the artefacts and history of the three forts.
Guests will reach the forts by Clarenco’s own flotilla of boats from the Royal Clarence Marina in Gosport.

On this day 29th March 1960-1965

On

31/03/1960

the number one single was Running Bear - Johnny Preston and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Wagon Train (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On

31/03/1961

the number one single was Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was The Dickie Henderson Show (AR) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On

31/03/1962

the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - 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 Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On

31/03/1963

the number one single was Foot Tapper - The Shadows and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. 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 Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On

31/03/1964

the number one single was Little Children - Billy J Kramer and the number one album was With the Beatles - The 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 Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On

31/03/1965

the number one single was The Last Time - Rolling Stones and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page 1026

Top Picture: The Guildhall before rebuilding





Second Picture: Alexandra Palace TV mast

Firstly welcome to Pat Russell who has just joined us.

Remember 1960

The first quarter of the year 1960 was to turn out to be a very eventful and significant year musically, just take a look at what occurred that year.

In February the manufacturing of records changed dramatically when Columbia decided with the introduction of the 45rpm disc to stop the production of the 78rpm record. The artist who had the privilege of having his record become the last Columbia 10” 78rpm single was Russ Conway. The title of the record was ‘Royal Event’ a now long forgotten track but Columbia presented Russ Conway with a gold disc of the record to mark the occasion. Whilst in April RCA Victor Records announced that it would release all pop singles in mono and stereo simultaneously, being the first record company to do so. Elvis Presley's single, "Stuck on You," was RCA's first mono/stereo release.

The biggest star in the pop world made his one and only visit to the UK in March 1960. As a serving sergeant, he was only promoted to sergeant in January of that year, in the US Army the plane returning Elvis Presley back to the US to be demobed landed at Prestwick airport for 80 minutes just to refuel. This was the only time that Elvis ever set foot in the British Isles. A car soon whisked him away after he had had a very brief chat to a small group of reporters who were waiting at the airport. Elvis then made a flying visit to the nearby US bases’ NCO and teenage clubs. The visit allowed some of the local girls to actually glimpse him being only separated from him by a chicken wire fence several girls claimed that Elvis came over and kissed them, but this was treated with much scepticism by those at the back of the crowd. Elvis then reboarded the plane and disappeared off to the USA never to return to the UK. In April Elvis returned to Hollywood for the first time since coming home from Germany to film G.I. Blues.

Also in March Eddie Cochrane died in a car accident in which he and Gene Vincent were travelling. Eddie Cochrane and Gene Vincent were returning to London after a highly successful concert in the Hippodrome in Bristol when their Ford Consul taxi swerved and hit a lamppost on the A4 near Chippenham. One part of this tragic story is well know and has gone down as a pop legend and that is that the police cadet Dave Harman, who was later to become Dave Dee, was charged with taking care of Eddie Cochran’s guitar. But what is less well known is that three days earlier a young 13 year old lad called Mark Feld had carried that same guitar to Eddie Cochran’s waiting car, that lad became Marc Bolan!

In April the first fashion pair of Doc Martens boots went on sale.

The early 60s produced some of the best music of all time. Even today it is listened to not only by the 60s generation but by our children and grandchildren. Oldies stations playing the 60s are popping up everywhere. The music is as popular today as it was when we were kids.

On a more serious front. The last time Britain was hit by deflation was March 1960, when Cliff Richard was the latest pop sensation. He had already claimed the top singles spot with Living Doll. At the time, the average house price was £2,530, while a loaf of bread, which could finally be bought ready sliced, was the equivalent of 5p. A packet of 20 cigarettes would have set you back less than 25p in today’s money and a season ticket to see Manchester United, when Sir Matt Busby was manager and Sir Bobby Charlton a star player, cost £8.50. Mind you, the club paid its footballers a maximum wage of £50 a week.

Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had delivered his historically important Wind Of Change speech to the parliament of South Africa. But later in the year Macmillan’s slogan – ‘Most of our people have never had it so good’ – began to seem increasingly hollow to the average man in the street.
This was the year of the Cuba missile Crisis, when Kruschov pounded the table with his shoe and when Cliff Richard had his first Christmas number One and the Beatles were formed.
Ahhh! I must be getting old

Stay in touch,

Yours,

Peter

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

You Write:

News and Views:

Songwriter Robert Sherman, who with his brother Richard gave us such hits as Johnny Burnette's "You're 16," Hayley Mills' "Let's Get Together" and Annette's "Pineapple Princess" and "Tall Paul," died on Monday March 5 of heart failure in London at the age of 86. Together, they created the music for such Walt Disney productions as "Mary Poppins," "The Parent Trap," and "The Jungle Book" and non-Disney shows like "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."

On this day 25th March 1960-1965

On

25/03/1960

the number one single was Running Bear - Johnny Preston and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Wagon Train (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On

25/03/1961

the number one single was Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was The Dickie Henderson Show (AR) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On

25/03/1962

the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - 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 Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was French Algerian War ends

On

25/03/1964

the number one single was Little Children - Billy J Kramer and the number one album was With the Beatles - The 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 Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was 10 found guilty of Great Train Robbery.

On

25/03/1965

the number one single was The Last Time - Rolling Stones and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page 1024

Top Picture: The John Bull Puncture Outfit





Second Picture: Peter Westcott on his new bike


The Open Road on Two Wheels

Most of us as kids had a bike and several years back I talked about the different bikes and makes of bikes we all had including that ghastly thing the Pink Witch, but today I would like to look at the other side of Cycling.

If we had a bike we all knew the joy of the freedom it gave us as we travelled around the area and out into the countryside. But we also knew the despair of a cycle breakdown. How many of you can remember the trouble caused by a puncture especially if you were miles from home. The joys of sitting by the roadside prising the tyre off with a set of metal tyre levers, no plastic ones in those days. Then hauling the inner tube out and attempting to find the hole without a bowl of water handy. Having found the split then came the repair, providing that you have remembered to put your John Bull or Romac Puncture Repair Outfit in your saddlebag.

First came the rubbing of the surface with sandpaper to rough it up, applying the rubber solution and leaving it until it was almost dry and then applying the patch. Then came the dusting with talc or French Chalk and the repair was done, but this was not the end of it. Oh no! Then it was feeling round the tyre casing to find the thing that made the puncture in the first place and then removing it. Having done all that it was time to put the inner tube back into the casing and replace the tyre without pinching the tube, this could be tricky, many is the time I have put the tyre back on and have gone to inflate it only to find that by putting it all back together I had pinched the tube and caused another puncture. So it was a case of start again!!!!

For those of us who lived in the Drayton area Wynns the cycle shop was the place where we would go to buy our bikes, our spares and replacement pieces and also model cars and other toys. If you lived in Cosham the shop that was used was Seals on the corner of High Street and Magdalen Road opposite Mary Ann Christophrs shoe shop.

These cycle accessory shops were invaluable for buying the odd part that was needed to undertake a repair. I remember buying spring links to join the chain together again after it had spilt or needed to be shortened for some reason. When the brake cable snapped at the handlebar end the piece of equipment required was a solder less nipple which clamped the cable back into place within the brake lever and if you have every tried to replace a ball race or the ball bearings in a hub you will remember what a terrible job that was!

To us a three or four speed hub, a fixed wheel or derailuer gears were things to be fiddled with and adjusted, we were never interested in the Pifco electric cycle horn or siren, give us the good old bell and bulb horn!!

At that time lots of us had two types of bikes the usual standard models and the non standard old converted bikes we used for tracking (today this is known as BMX I think). These bikes were our own inventions with bits taken off and bits added on, different gear ratios, knobbly and smooth tyres, anything to make the bike go faster. Mine was an old Raleigh which I stripped down, painted grey added a low geared fixed wheel and racing saddle (all very uncomfortable). I even remember Steve Long building a bike with front swinging arm suspension and rear sprung suspension. This must have been in about 1960-61 maybe Steve can correct me on the date.

We were even law biding those days making sure that the bikes had a bell and reflectors, removable lights or dynamo lights for night cycling and we were conscious of the law and here we could cycle. I look around today and see people riding along the pavement, up pedestrian precincts, sometime more than one on a bike and nothing is said. I have even seen them cycle past a policeman on the pavement. I know that when we were you we did not dare to cycle like that we knew w would be in trouble with the law if we did. Still I must be getting old and grumpy and I don’t even own a bike these days let alone a pair of cycle clips!!!!

Finally, do you remember those bright yellow cycle capes and leggings? I remember someone riding home on a boiling hot day with his cape on because his trouser zip had split, do you remember that Willie?


Stay in touch,

Yours,

Peter

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

You Write:

News and Views:

Tom Jones is currently filming his role as an aging British Teddy Boy in a television drama there. "King Of The Teds" is scheduled to air in the Spring.

On this day 14th March 1960-1965

On 14/03/1960 the number one single was Why - Anthony Newley and the number one album was The Explosive Freddy Cannon - Freddy Cannon. The top rated TV show was The Larkins (ATV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Plans for Thames Barrier.

On 14/03/1961 the number one single was Walk Right Back / Ebony Eyes - Everly Brothers and the top rated TV show was Bootsie & Snudge (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 The Dickie Henderson Show (AR).

On 14/03/1962 the number one single was Rock-a-Hula Baby/Can't Help Falling In Love - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - 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 Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 14/03/1963 the number one single was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. 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 Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 14/03/1964 the number one single was Anyone Who Had a Heart -Cilla Black and the number one album was With the Beatles - The 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 Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 14/03/1965 the number one single was It's Not Unusual - Tom Jones and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page 1022

Top Picture: The School Choir which sang The Messiah





Second Picture: Pedal boat at Hilsea

Music at School

I was never very musical; in fact I have been known to find it difficult at times to just strike a chord. This, however, was no deterrent as whilst at Solent Road Junior School it was decided that the whole class would learn to play the recorder. To me this was a nightmare, my mother bought me a brand new recorder and off I went to school with my copy of the green coloured Recorder Tutor with music (the second book, which I never progressed to, had a blue cover). Well over the weeks I sat in the music lesson trying my best to play the scales and individual notes and only succeeding in making a terrible row. Even with hours of practice at home things never got any better. It got to the stage where when the class tried to play the March from Skippio my attempts let the whole session down. I was told to practice more but what ever I did I could not master the beast but then I realised that I knew the fingering and if I did not blow I did not make the terrible squeaks and whistles; so her was the answer every lesson I sat there at my desk and whilst everyone else blew away happily I held my breath an just fingured the notes and guess what it worked. Suddenly I was not being pick out by the music teacher and life seemed much better and what’s more the managed to keep this pretence up until I moved onto another class. Wow

My second contact with school music was at Court Lane but this was purely vocal. Here John Stevens, the music master, had high standards but he knew how to instil the love of music in pupils and to bring out the best in them. I know, because I have spoken to many of you with the same memories and they all revolve round such productions as Trial by Jury and The Pirates of Penzance. Each year we, as a school choir, were entered into the Portsmouth Music Festival where we competed against other school choirs and very often came away with a cup or some prize. Who remembers going to the Central Hall in Kingston Road for the competitions? And in one year the competition was actually held in the Guildhall. Great fun and an afternoon off school.

This all paled into insignificance when we moved to Manor Court and Mr Stevens decided we would perform The Messiah. What a performance it was with semi professional soloists, the whole school choir, parents and friends and relations all rehearsing for weeks for the big day. The orchestra came from somewhere in Portsmouth and was augmented by good local amateurs, I remember that much to our amazement Ray Dopson was spotted playing the violin. (incidentally many years later Ray’s son Paul spent many hours in his teenage years making his father a violin which, after it had matured, played very well).

The great day came and we all sang our hearts out and the performance was a great success and we all went home feeling a great sense of satisfaction. Now I have a question. On the day in question the whole performance was recorded on a reel to reel tape recorder and on occasions later in the year parts were played back to us but the recording seems to have totally disappeared. My question is does anyone know what happened to it?

All this was a wonderful grounding in the wonderful world of music both pop and classical. I understand that Mr Stevens moved off to Somerset after he left Manor Court, does anyone know what happened to him? I think there are many ex-pupils who would like to thank him for kindling their life long interest in music.

Stay in touch,

Yours,

Peter

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

You Write:

Mary Writes:-

R

EMEMBER WHEN
All the girls wore ugly gym slips

It took five minutes for the TV to warm up

Nearly everyone's Mum was at home when the kids got home from school

Nobody owned a thoroughbred dog

You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny

Your Mother wore nylons that came in two pieces

You got your windscreen cleaned, oil checked, and petrol served, without asking, all for free, every time.

It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents

They threatened to keep children back a year if they failed. . . And they did it!

When a Ford Zephyr was everyone's dream car...

And people went steady

No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked

Playing cricket with no adults to help the children with the rules of the game

Bottles came from the corner shop without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger.

And with all our progress, don't you wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savour the slower pace, and share it with the children of today.

When being sent to the head's study was nothing
compared to the fate that awaited the student at home

Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of
drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.

As well as summers filled with bike rides, rounders , Hula Hoops,
and visits to the pool, and eating sherbert with liquorice sticks.
Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, 'Yes, I remember that'?

I am sharing this with you today because it ended with a
Double Dare to pass it on. To remember what a Double Dare is, read on.
And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and too young to care.

Send this on to someone who can still remember the Lone Ranger and Sgt Bilko

How Many Of These Do You Remember?

Coca Cola in bottles.

Blackjacks and bubblegums.
Home milk delivery in glass bottles with tinfoil tops.

Hi-If's & 45 RPM records.

78 RPM records?

Adding Machines??

Scalextric.
Do You Remember a Time When..

Decisions were made by going 'eeny-meeny-miney-moe'?
'Race issue' meant arguing about who ran the fastest?

Catching tiddlers could happily occupy an entire day?

It wasn't odd to have two or three ' Best Friends'?

The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was'chickenpox'?

Having a Weapon in School meant being caught with a catapault?

War was a card game?

Cigarette cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?

Taking drugs meant orange - flavored chewable aspirin?

Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?

If you can remember most or all of these, Then You Have Lived!!!!!!!

Pass this on to anyone who needs a break from their 'Grown-Up' Life.
and send it to youngsters that have "never lived"

I Double DareYou

News and Views:

Al DeLory, who gave us 1970's "Song From M*A*S*H" and co-wrote "Please Mr. Custer" died on February 5. He was 82 and Davy Jones lead singer with the Monkees died Wednesday (February 29) after suffering a heart attack at his home in Stuart, Florida. He was 66..

On this day 9th March 1960-1965

On 09/03/1960 the number one single was Why - Anthony Newley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was The Larkins (ATV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 09/03/1961 the number one single was Walk Right Back/Ebony Eyes - Everly Brothers 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 One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 09/03/1962 the number one single was Rock-a-Hula Baby/Can't Help Falling In Love - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - 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 Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 09/03/1963 the number one single was The Wayward Wind - Frank Ifield and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. 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 Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 09/03/1964 the number one single was Anyone Who Had a Heart -Cilla Black and the number one album was With the Beatles - The 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 Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 09/03/1965 the number one single was I'll Never Find Another You - Seekers and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was First public talking computer.

Web Page 1020

Top Picture: Mark Wynter EP cover





Second Picture: Rebuilding Commercial Road in the 1950’s

Mark Wynter

Mark Wynter is one of the few 1960,s pop artists who have maintained a career in show business. He was born Terence Sidney Lewis on 29th January 1943) and is now known as an actor and former singer, who had four Top 20 singles in the 1960s, including "Venus in Blue Jeans" and "Go Away Little Girl". He enjoyed a lengthy sucessful career in the pop world from 1960 to 1968 but later veered off into a acting in films, musicals and plays.

Upon leaving school, young Terry Lewis started work as a shop assistant. However, he was also an enthusiastic singer and his strikingly good looks helped him make the transition in this sphere from part-time amateur to full professional. His rendition of the teenage ballads of the era proved popular- particularly with female record buyers- and he managed to reach the UK top twenty with his first release; 'Image Of A Girl' on Decca. He followed this with the Lionel Bart penned 'Kickin' Up The Leaves' and a stream of further minor hits and misses- punctuated by a change to the Pye label during mid-1962. His first release for the new company was a cover version of the US Jimmy Clanton release 'Venus In Blue Jeans' and, in common with his other releases on Pye, benefited from its arrangement by Tony Hatch. This song is now easily his most memorable hit and was sufficiently popular to earn him a UK no 4 chart spot, whereas the Clanton original went almost unnoticed in Britain.


With his early musical career established he decided to change his name to lessen the confusion with the American comedian, Jerry Lewis. His manager suggested Wynter sounded more commercial, and the complete name change was later made official by deed poll.

He was entered as one of the contenders for the UK's place in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1961, with "Dream Girl", but only finished fourth behind The Allisons.
His cover version of the American hit by Jimmy Clanton - "Venus in Blue Jeans" (1962) - was his biggest success. Although he recorded a number of singles for the Decca and Pye labels in the UK, he made very few albums. Some recorded material came to light in 2004 when he discovered old tapes, they have subsequently been remastered and are now available as four CDs.

One event in his life is not well known for in 1968 he escorted a dazed young girl away from a burning BOAC aircraft, flight 712, upon which he had been a passenger.
By the early 1970s he had moved in pop stardom to a stage career in the West End of London.

He played the leading role in Conduct Unbecoming for more than a year at the Queen's Theatre in London, and for six months in Australia. He appeared with Julia McKenzie in On the Twentieth Century, and in Charley's Aunt. He also starred in Side By Side By Sondheim in Toronto, Chichester, and on the UK tour. In the 1982 Chichester Festival season he acted in several plays including On The Rocks and Henry V, and also sang in Valmouth. His other work in musicals during the 1980s included the role of the King in a revival of The King and I, the title roles in Hans Andersen and Barnum, the 1986 revival of Charlie Girl with Cyd Charisse and Paul Nicholas in London, and the part of Robert Browning in Robert and Elizabeth. During the 1990s he spent two years in Cats, and was also seen as the Phantom and M. Andre in The Phantom of the Opera, and starred as Vittorio opposite Bonnie Langford in the 1998 West End revival of Sweet Charity. He has appeared frequently in the provinces and portrayed Emile de Becque in a UK national tour of South Pacific. In 1994 he created the role of Van Helsing in the studio recording of the opera/musical "Nosferatu" by Bernard J. Taylor.

He was still working actively and successfully in theatre throughout the world well into the 1990s. In 2000 Castle Communications released Go Away Little Girl: The Pye Anthology, a double album compiling his complete output. In 2007 he toured the UK in a number of plays and musicals.

He now lives in Sussex, and tours the country with an Agatha Christie theatre company. He is married to Emma, and has three children; Barnaby, Josh and Darcey.
Stay in touch,

Yours,

Peter

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

You Write:

Stephen Writes:-

Forgetter Be Forgotten?

My forgetter's getting better,

But my rememberer is broke

To you that may seem funny

But, to me, that is no joke
For when I'm 'here' I'm wondering

If I really should be 'there'

And, when I try to think it through,

I haven't got a prayer!

Oft times I walk into a room,

Say 'what am I here for?'

I wrack my brain, but all in vain!

A zero, is my score.

At times I put something away

Where it is safe, but, Gee!

The person it is safest from

Is, generally, me!

When shopping I may see someone,

Say 'Hi' and have a chat,

Then, when the person walks away

I ask myself, 'who the hell was that?

Yes, my forgetter's getting better

While my rememberer is broke,

And it's driving me plumb crazy

And that isn't any joke.


News and Views:

Singer/songwriter Dory Previn-- one-time wife of composer/conductor Andre Previn-- who gave us the lyrics for Dionne Warwick's hit, "Theme From The Valley Of The Dolls" and the Oscar-nominated "Come Saturday Morning" from the movie "The Sterile Cuckoo" (a hit for the Sandpipers), died on Tuesday (February 14) at her home in Southfield, Massachusetts at the age of 86. Dory was nominated for two other Academy Awards-- for "Farway Part Of Town" from "Pepe" in 1960 and for "Second Chance" from "Two For The Seesaw" two years later.

On this day 2nd March 1960-1965

On

02/03/1960

the number one single was Why - Anthony Newley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was not listed and the box office smash was Some Like It Hot. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On

02/03/1961

the number one single was Walk Right Back/Ebony Eyes - Everly Brothers and the number one album was Tottenham Hotspur. The top rated TV show was The Army Game (Granada) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada).

On

02/03/1962

the number one single was Rock-a-Hula Baby/Can't Help Falling In Love - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - 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 Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On

02/03/1963

the number one single was The Wayward Wind - Frank Ifield and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 02

/03/1964

the number one single was Anyone Who Had a Heart -Cilla Black and the number one album was With the Beatles - The 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 Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On

02/03/1965

the number one single was I'll Never Find Another You - Seekers and the number one album was Beatles For Sale - 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.