Coronation Street - Every UK Number 1

The Intro

The shocking death of John Lennon in December 1980 saw the singles chart understandably awash with his material, old and new. Happy Xmas (War Is Over) was among them. And yet, this novelty song by St Winifred’s School Choir become Christmas number 1. Lennon’s murder proved the world could be an awful place. There’s No One Quite Like Grandma was the icing on this shit cake.

Before

St Winifred’s School Choir was formed at St Winifred’s Roman Catholic Primary School in Stockport in 1968. A local newspaper cutting from 1972 reveals that the choir first recorded that year, at 10cc’s local Strawberry Studios. Miss Olive Moore was their conductor, with Miss Terri Foley on guitar.

In 1978, the choir were selected to provide backing vocals on Brian and Michael’s Matchstalk Men and Matchstick Cats and Dogs (Lowry’s Song). Pupils sang The Big Ship Sails on the Alley-Alley-O as a counterpoint to the song’s chorus as it draws to a close. When the single became a surprise number 1, St Winifred’s School Choir got to appear on Top of the Pops. And that should have been the end of it.

The choir’s brush with fame (pun intended) saw them signed to EMI’s Music for Pleasure (MFP) in 1979. MFP was a budget label, often releasing cheap compilations or re-recordings of popular film and TV soundtracks. Popular with the older record buyer, and families, it was a natural home for St Winifred’s School Choir. Referred to as ‘The Matchstalk Children’ on the sleeve of their debut single, Bread and Fishes, the children were arranged in a circle – boys in blue, girls in pink – with Miss Foley (now credited as Chorus Master) strumming away next to Sister Aquinas – the ‘Management’. MFP were so cheap, the sleeve was reused for their debut LP, And the Children Sing – which featured covers of Any Dream Will Do and Mull of Kintyre.

In 1980, their second album, My Very Own Party Record, featured wall-to-wall bangers like If You’re Happy and You Know It and London Bridge. Most likely with one eye on the Christmas market, and remembering how well 1971 number 1 Grandad had performed, they chose There’s No One Quite Like Grandma.

Gorden Lorenz had been a travelling evangelist before turning to music, where he learned his way around the recording studio by writing music for Border Television to be used between their daytime shows. In 1980, Lorenz saw an opportunity to cash in on the Queen Mother’s 80th birthday. He wrote There’s No One Quite Like Grandma and sent a demo to EMI, despite not being convinced himself that it was any good. At first they turned it down. However, one day he received a call from the managing director, who said they couldn’t get the chorus out of my mind, and he suggested they put it out at Christmas. Using St Winifred’s School Choir, fresh from their Top of the Pops appearance, was an evil masterstroke, designed to tug at the heartstrings.

Review

There are no positives to mention when discussing There’s No One Quite Like Grandma. The worst number 1 in many years, and the worst festive chart-topper of the 80s, is an abomination, plain and simple.

It’s painful to listen to, with wretched production, and is an example of how shameless and cynical the music business could be and would become. That it kept Happy Xmas (War Is Over) and Stop the Cavalry from the Christmas number 1 spot makes it even more awful.

The lyrics are abysmal, and read like one of those awful poems you occasionally see on Angry People in Local Newspapers. The children singing on the record could probably create better rhymes than Lorenz did. Your honour, I give you:

‘There’s no one quite like Grandma,
She always has a smile,
She never hurries us along,
But stays a little while’

Worst of all is the lead vocal by Dawn Ralph. Of course, that’s not her fault, she was just a little girl with the kind of sickly sweet, short-tongued voice that fitted the bill perfectly. But without getting too personal, her performance on that Top of the Pops appearance above reminds me of the twin girls in The Shining. It gives me chills, and I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way.

Dreary, vapid and queasy, There’s No One Quite Like Grandma is a throwback to the novelty number 1s of the early years of the charts, such as Lita Roza’s (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?. 1980 was a bumper year for chart-toppers – 25 in fact. There’s No One Quite Like Grandma is easily the worst of the year and the earliest frontrunner for worst of the decade. On the plus, side, my youngest daughter asked me what I was writing about, so I showed her the clip, and she thought Ralph was singing ‘No-one fights like Grandma’. Now there’s an idea for a sequel.

After

St Winifred’s School Choir’s reign was mercifully short – lasting only a fortnight. Such was the magnitude of Lennon’s death, the end of the festive season saw his records ruling the roost again. But at least their Christmas number 1 helped to pay for new carpets and classroom facilities at the school.

Thankfully, St Winifred’s proved to be a one-hit wonder, though the choir continued recording albums until 1985’s 20 All-Time Children’s Favourites.

However, in 1986 came It’s ‘Orrible Being in Love (When You’re 8 ½), credited to Claire and Friends. Claire and her pals went to St Winifred’s, and the song was written by Mick Coleman and produced by Kevin Parrott, AKA Brian and Michael. St Winifred’s School Choir provided backing vocals, though they were uncredited. The single reached 13, and is no doubt also hard work, but because I was seven when it was released, I can’t help but have a soft spot for it. That’s nostalgia for you.

In 1990, St Winifred’s School Choir teamed up with Ziba Banafsheh to record the single A Better World, in aid of Mother Theresa of Calcutta’s charity. Three years later they were uncredited for their performance on Bill Tarmey’s (Coronation Street‘s Jack Duckworth) cover of Barry Manilow’s One Voice, produced by Mike Stock and Pete Waterman.

In 2009, 14 of the 1980 line-up teamed up to re-record There’s No One Quite Like Grandma, produced by drinks company Innocent in aid of Help the Aged and Age Concern.

The Outro

Among the choir responsible for the original There’s No One Quite Like Grandma were two who became actresses. Most famous is Sally Lindsay, who starred in Coronation Street as Shelley Unwin. The other, Jennifer Hennessy, starred in The Office and Doctor Who. Neither were involved in the remake, and nor was Ralph, who refuses to give interviews. Can’t blame her.

The Info

Written by

Gordon Lorenz

Producer

Peter Tattersall

Weeks at number 1

2 (27 December 1980-9 January 1981)

Trivia

6 January 1981: Novelist Andrew Britton

Deaths

27 December 1980: Golfer Eric Green/Golfer Arthur Havers
29 December: Jazz pianist Lennie Felix/Businessman John Wall, Baron Wall
31 December: Marxist philosopher Maurice Cornforth
2 January 1981: Actor Victor Carin
3 January: Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone
4 January: Royal Navy captain Gordon Charles Steele
5 January: Aircraft engineer Sir James Martin
6 January: Aristocrat Ernestine Bowes-Lyon/Scottish novelist AJ Cronin/Labour Party MP Tom Litterick
7 January: Broadcaster Alvar Lidell
9 January: Racing driver Sammy Davies/Scottish artist William MacTaggart

Meanwhile…

28 December 1980: The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) awarded TV-am the first ever breakfast television contract.

2 January 1981: 34-year-old lorry driver Peter Sutcliffe, from Bradford, was arrested in Sheffield. After two days of questioning in Dewsbury, he admitted he was the serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper.

4 January 1981: British Leyland workers voted to accept a peace formula in the Longbridge plant strike.

5 January: Sutcliffe was charged with the murder of 13 women and attempted murder of seven more between 1975 and 1980.
Also on this day, the TV adaptation of Douglas Adam’s radio series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy began on BBC Two, while Norman St John-Stevas departed the Conservative Party Cabinet, to be replaced by Leon Brittan and Norman Fowler.

7 January: A parcel bomb addressed to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was intercepted.

8 January: A terrorist bomb attack happens on the RAF base at Uxbridge.

The Intro

Yes, your eyes don’t deceive you, that’s two characters from a BBC sitcom, up there, at number 1. For three whole weeks in the long, hot summer of 1975, Windsor Davies and Don Estelle, stars of, ironically, the Jimmy Perry and David Croft comedy It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, ruled the hit parade with a trad-pop ballad from 1940.

Before

Thanks to their Second World War sitcom Dad’s Army, Perry and Croft were one of the most successful comedy writing duos of the 70s. Their second series set in the period, It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum had begun in 1974. Set in the fictional village of Tin Min in Burma during the last months of the conflict, and chronicling the exploits of a Royal Artillery concert party, Perry and Croft were recalling their own experiences in the war. It was another huge success, running until 1981, but you’ll probably never see it repeated ever again. There’s a fair bit of homophobia directed at camp character Gunner ‘Gloria’ Beaumont (Melvyn Hayes) and one actor, Michael Bates, blacked-up to portray Indian Bearer Rangi Ram.

The most enduring character was Windsor Davies’ Battery Sergeant Major Tudor Bryn ‘Shut Up’ Williams, an imposing, ferocious officer, who hated how his troop were stage performers. So much so, he would often call them a ‘bunch of poofs’. Among his victims was Don Estelle’s diminutive Gunner ‘Lofty’ Harold Horace Herbert Willy Sugden, but even Sergeant Major Williams could not help but enjoy Lofty’s lovely tenor voice.

Davies was born in Canning Town, London on 28 August 1930, but the family returned to their roots in the Welsh village of Nant-y-Moel in 1940. After he left school he worked as a coal miner before undergoing National Service in Libya and Egypt between 1950 and 1952. He then moved into teaching but also got the acting bug, performing amateur dramatics before turning professional in 1961. He had his first film role in 1962 in The Pot Carriers, and television roles followed, often as figures of authority, and was a paid heavy in the Doctor Who story “The Evil of the Daleks” in 1967, and was a sailor in The Onedin Line in 1971.

When Davies got the job on It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, he based Sergeant Major Williams on his superiors during National Service. With his catchphrases of ‘Shut up!’, ‘Hello lovely boy’ and ‘Oh dear, how sad, never mind’, Davies somehow made a complete bastard rather lovable. When a cast spin-off album was made, putting Davies and Estelle together was a natural decision as they spent four years touring the clubs as a duo before they became famous.

Estelle was born Ronald Edwards on 22 May 1933 in Crumpsall, Manchester. At the age of eight he was evacuated to Darwen, Lancashire to escape the German bombing of the city. In Darwen he found his voice and became a boy soprano at his new local church, and continued to sing at his old one when he returned home. He joined local charity group the Manchester Minstrels and took part in a BBC Radio talent show in 1954. It was while working as a warehouse manager by day and performing in clubs by night that he first met Davies.

On days off he worked as an extra for Granada Television and made his TV debut throwing darts on Coronation Street. Arthur Lowe, then a regular on the soap, suggested to Estelle that he should contact Perry and Croft, and as a result he landed a bit part in Dad’s Army in 1969, returning a year later for several episodes. Measuring only 4ft 9, Estelle was the perfect man to cast for the ironically nicknamed Lofty, and next to the towering Davies, they made for a great mismatched pair.

Whispering Grass was a near-faithful cover of The Ink Spots version from 1940, but it was originally recorded by Erskine Hawkins & His Orchestra. Fred Fisher, a Tin Pan Alley songwriter, wrote it with his daughter Doris.

Review

This is understandably considered a novelty number 1, and is certainly a weird idea, especially for anyone not around at the time. However, once I got past Davies’ in-character recital of some of the lyrics, I was pleasantly surprised. Estelle really does have a lovely voice, and other than Davies popping up again in the middle briefly (and is he helping with the backing vocals?), it’s played completely straight and is very similar to The Ink Spots version. It’s a sweet, endearing tune, and it took me back to the early days of this blog when most of the songs I covered were of this ilk. Lovely, boys.

After

Such was the popularity of their Whispering Grass, the duo followed it up with a cover of The Mills Brothers’ Paper Doll, which just missed out on a chart placing. They also recorded a full album together, Sing Lofty, in 1976.

While It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum was at the peak of its popularity, drawing in audiences of 17 million, Davies also starred in Carry On Behind (1975) and Carry On England (1976), where he played… yes, another comically angry Sergeant Major. He also had a role in the 1978 Welsh rugby film Grand Slam.

Such was the unmistakably rich quality of Davies’ voice, he had no shortage of voiceover work when It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum ended in 1981. I will have likely first heard his dulcet tones on the children’s sci-fi series Terrahawks (1983), where he played… a sergeant major. He also provided voices in Paul McCartney’s Rupert and the Frog Song (1984) and an advert for Cadbury’s Wispa. From 1981 to 1991 he starred alongside Donald Sinden in the ITV sitcom Never the Twain, and in 1997 appeared in an episode of another Perry and Croft sitcom, Oh Doctor Beeching!. Davies retired in 2014 and moved to the south of France with his wife. He died on 17 January 2019, aged 88.

Estelle fared less well. After It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum was axed, he starred in a BBC adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and had small roles in the films A Private Function (1984) and Santa Claus: The Movie (1985). He formed Don Estelle Music Publishing and released cassettes of his recordings on his Lofty label for years to come, but disappeared into obscurity.

He cut a rather tragic figure towards the end of his life, performing in his Lofty outfit in shopping centres beside his tapes, and was understandably bitter, but perhaps unreasonable, that his most famous role would never be shown on TV again in repeats. There was a return to the small screen for him though, thanks to his appearance as Little Don in early episodes of The League of Gentlemen in 1999. In 2001 he played a dirty old man in Page 3 girl Jo Hicks’s cover of The Benny Hill Show theme Yakety Sax.

The Outro

Estelle spent the last few years of his life living in New Zealand, but he returned to the UK weeks before his death. He needed a liver transplant but was too ill to undergo it, and he died in Rochdale Infirmary on 2 August 2003. He was buried with the oversized pith helmet he wore as Lofty.

The Info

Written by

Fred & Doris Fisher

Producer

Walter J Ridley

Weeks at number 1

3 (7-27 June)

Trivia

Births

19 June: Rower Ed Coode

Deaths

27 June: Conservative MP Arthur Salter, 1st Baron Salter

Meanwhile…

8 June: Peter Samuel Cook, aka The Cambridge Rapist, was arrested after stabbing a young woman at a nurses’ hostel.

9 June: Parliament proceedings are broadcast on radio for the first time.

13 June: UEFA places a three-year ban on Leeds United from European competitions following the behaviour of their fans at last month’s European Cup final.

14 June: West Midlands Ambulance crews stage a ban on non-emergency calls in a dispute over pay and hours.

17 June: Leeds United lodge an appeal against their ban from European competitions.

19 June – A coroner’s court jury returns a verdict of wilful murder and names Lord Lucan as the murderer in the inquest on Sandra Rivett, the nanny who was found dead at his wife’s home in London seven months previously.