One-hit Wonder

475. Joe Dolce Music Theatre – Shaddap You Face (1981)

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The Intro

The UK singles chart of early 1981 was in a strange state of flux. John Lennon’s murder had understandably turned much of the top 10 into a shrine, with three posthumous chart-toppers. At the same time, Lennon’s fans suffered the indignation of seeing his records be overtaken in the hit parade not once (There’s No One Quite Like Grandma), but twice, by novelty songs. And the type of novelty songs that are retrograde, screaming ’70s or earlier’, rather than displaying any sign of the new, youthful pop of the 80s that was (thankfully) right around the corner. This time around, it was one-hit wonder Joe Dolce Music Theatre’s Shaddap You Face. Yep. That one.

Before

Joseph Dolce was born 13 October 1947 in Painesville, Ohio. He was the eldest of three children to Italian-American parents. In his senior year at Thomas W Harvey High School, Dolce got the acting bug, playing the lead role of Mascarille in Molière’s Les Précieuses Ridicules, and he also created a song based on material in the script. One of his co-stars, the Canadian Carol Dunlop, introduced Dolce to folk music and poetry.

From 1965 to 1967, Dolce majored in architecture at Ohio University. While there he formed several bands, including country rock act Headstone Circus, who released the album Please Tell a Friend in 1968. One member, Jonathan Edwards, had a US hit with Sunshine in 1971.

By 1974, Dolce was performing a mix of poetry and rock along the US east coast. Four years later he relocated to Melbourne, Victoria in Australia. His first single, in 1979, was Boat People, a protest song about the poor treatment of the growing community of Vietnamese refugees in the city.

That same year saw the formation of Joe Dolce Music Theatre. This revue toured cabarets and pubs with various line-ups, including Dolce playing a character he called Guiseppe. Among the songs he performed was Shaddap You Face, based on his memories of childhood (‘Just about the eighth grade’), where parents and grandparents would often speak in broken English. Audiences loved the story of Guiseppe and his dreams of stardom, answering his bossy mum back with the song’s title. So much so in fact, that drunken crowds began cheering ‘Heh” inbetween each chorus line.

Shaddap You Face was recorded and released in late 1980 by Australian musician Mike Brady’s label Full Moon Records, who correctly predicted a monster hit.

Review

My opinion on Shaddap You Face is divided. Clearly, we’re not talking about high art here. Dolce’s one-hit wonder is catchy to the point of extreme irritation. The over-the-top Italian-American accent is annoying and highly cliched, annoyingly shifting between spoken word and singing, and the tune is simplistic in the extreme, never shifting a gear. In a pop climate that was about to erupt with Adam and the Ants and the New Romantics, Shaddap You Face belongs in the 70s along with other novelty number 1s like Kung Fu Fighting (which is highly superior). It’s also a good example of the UK’s obsession with distilling an entire country and its culture into a silly song. So no wonder it was huge here.

However, Dolce is rather charming, so it’s also simultaneously hard to dislike, too. The accordion adds a nice touch of authenticity, and the story the song tells is rather sweet. Grown-ups doubt loved the breezy, infectious tune, while children relished the chance of shouting ‘Ah, shaddap you face’ to their parents. As novelty number 1s go, there’s much worse out there – and how many feature an accordion solo?

The official video is filmed in a smoky club full of nonplussed people, until the end, when Dolce successfully urges the audience to shout ‘Heh’, until a weird guy in sunglasses brings proceedings to a sudden halt by throwing a pizza at the singer.

After

Shaddap You Face was massive, becoming number 1 in the UK and 11 other countries – though, perhaps surprisingly, not in the US. Whether deliberate or not, beloved DJ Terry Wogan played a part in the UK success by spinning the record on his show, proclaiming it to be the worst thing he’d ever heard. Bit rich, when you consider The Floral Dance. It kept Ultravox’s Vienna from number 1 in the UK, and became Australia’s best-selling single ever, ironically usurping Up There Cazaly by Brady.

Dolce turned his back on comedy songs, forming several performance groups with Lin Van Hek, including Skin the Wig and Difficult Women. In 1984 the duo wrote Intimacy, which became the final track on the original soundtrack to The Terminator. Dolce also became an actor, starring in the Australian comedy Blowing Hot and Cold (1988). Since 2009 he has been a successful, award-winning poet.

The Outro

I’m very happy to report that writing this blog helped me become reacquainted with a bastardised version of Shaddap You Face, used in a 1990 advert for McCain Pizza Slices.

The Info

Written by

Joe Dolce

Producers

Joe Dolce & Ian McKenzie

Weeks at number 1

3 (21 February-13 March)

Trivia

Deaths

22 February: Olympic athlete Guy Butler
25 February: Labour politician Mary Sykes
26 February: Conservationist Robert Aickman/Actor Gerald Cross/Actor Robert Tonge
28 February: Carry On screenwriter Talbot Rothwell
1 March: Welsh Congregationalist Minister Martin Lloyd-Jones
4 March: Chess player Nancy Elder/TV producer Ian Engelmann/Actor Torin Thatcher
5 March: Artist Winifred Nicholson/Actress Totti Truman Taylor
6 March: Cricketer George Geary/Actor Garry Marsh/Motorcycle racer Roland Stobbart
8 March: Conservative MP Nigel Birch, Baron Rhyl/Biologist Joseph Henry Woodger
10 March: Composer Bill Hopkins
11 March: Intelligence chief Sir Maurice Oldfield
12 March: Newspaper proprietor William Denholm Barnetson
13 March: Writer Wrey Gardiner/Industrialist Sir Patrick Hennessy/Author Robin Maugham, 2nd Viscount Maugham

Meanwhile…

21 February: 30,000 people in Glasgow march in an unemployment protest.

24 February: The engagement of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer is announced. 

26 February: The England cricket team withdraws from the Second Test when the Guyanese government serves a deportation order on Robin Jackman.

27 February: Two-time former Labour Prime Minister Sir Harold Wilson announces he is to retire from Parliament at the next general election.
Also on this day, The Archbishop of Canterbury to view homosexuality as a handicap, not a sin. Jesus.

3 March: The first Homebase DIY and garden centre superstore opens in Croydon, Surrey.

5 March: The ZX81 (my first ever computer) is launched by Sinclair Research.

9 March: Lorry driver John Lambe is sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape of 12 women.
Also on the day, thousands of civil servants hold a one-day strike over pay.

472. St. Winifred’s School Choir – There’s No One Quite Like Grandma (1980)

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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.

    438. Anita Ward – Ring My Bell (1979)

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    The Intro

    Originally intended to be sung by an 11-year-old, disco song Ring My Bell was an innocent tune about children talking on the phone. With new, saucy lyrics, it became a one-hit wonder for US singer Anita Ward.

    Before

    Ward was born 20 December 1957 in Memphis, Tennessee. She loved gospel from an early age, and joined the Rust College A Cappella Choir. Ward graduated with a degree in psychology and became a substitute teacher, but the music bug didn’t leave her. She got herself a manager, who put her in contact with one-hit wonder singer-songwriter Frederick Knight, who had scored a number 22 UK hit with I’ve Been Lonely for So Long in 1972.

    Knight agreed to record a three-song demo with Ward, but during recording he became so enamoured with her voice, they had nearly an album’s worth of material. But they needed one last song. Knight remembered he’d written one for 11-year-old Stacy Lattislaw. Knight kept the chorus as it was but rewrote the verses, so that Ward could sing from the point of view of a horny housewife waiting for her husband to return home so they can get it on. The song’s title was now far less innocent than originally planned. Ward didn’t like the song but Knight insisted they needed an uptempo tune to take advantage of the disco craze, so she relented.

    Review

    You either like or dislike Ring My Bell, it seems, depending on your tolerance for the Synare electronic drum. This pad was used throughout and is responsible for the decaying high-pitched tom tone at the first beat of every bar. Personally, I’m a fan for retro disco drum sounds, so bring it on. I’m also a fan of Ward’s performance, cooing her way through the lyrics breathlessly, putting across the mood of sexual anticipation effectively.

    The lyrics could be taken as demeaning towards women if you consider the idea of a housewife telling her husband, ‘Well lay back and relax/While I put away the dishes’. However, I think the opposite. I see it as empowering and, for its time, refreshing to see the woman so forward in her desires, striking out of the classic Victorian marital setup. I can certainly see both sides of the argument though.

    You can’t deny it’s a cool little tune. Slinky guitar and disco bass seemingly doing their own thing. I recommend the album version, which at 8:11 allows the groove to hypnotise like the best disco 12-inches do. Ring My Bell isn’t a classic, but it’s better than I remember it being in the past.

    After

    Ward’s debut single was a huge hit, reaching number 1 in the US, UK and several other countries. The album that spawned it, Songs of Love, also did well, reaching eight in the States. But that was as far as stardom stretched for Ward. Sweet Surrender, her second LP, was released only a few months later, but it tanked. Nothing else matched the catchiness of her sole hit and she failed to chart ever again – which apparently is what Ward had feared when Knight presented her with Ring My Bell.

    Ward and Knight had a fractious relationship and a third album was abandoned. The Ring My Bell singer was involved in a severe car accident, and that coupled with the disco backlash, meant she disappeared into obscurity.

    The Outro

    10 years after her initial brush with fame, Ward released a third album, Wherever There’s Love (though not in the US). It contained an inferior remake of her hit. She had a daughter soon after and disappeared again, resurfacing briefly in 2011 to release a single, It’s My Night. Ward occasionally makes live and TV appearances, reminding nostalgic disco fans of her place in history.

    I recommend the reggae remake of Ring My Bell, by Blood Sisters. Listen here.

    The Info

    Writer & producer

    Frederick Knight

    Weeks at number 1

    2 (16-29 June)

    Trivia

    Births

    19 June: Paralympic springer Graeme Ballard
    29 June: 5ive singer Abs Green

    Meanwhile…

    18 June: As Labour continues to reel from their defeat in the General Election, Labour MP Neil Kinnock becomes the shadow education spokesman. 

    22 June: Former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe is cleared in court of the allegations of attempted murder of  Norman Scott with whom he had allegedly had a relationship. Thorpe’s career never recovered.

    421. Brian and Michael – Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs (Lowry’s Song) (1978)

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    The Intro

    One-hit wonders Brian and Michael, aka Michael Coleman and Kevin Parrott (I’ll explain) toppled Kate Bush from her deservedly lofty perch with this tribute to Lancashire artist LS Lowry’s depictions of the industrial north west. Yes, Don McLean wasn’t the only singer to immortalise a painter in a number 1 song.

    Before

    Brian and Michael started out as members of a Stax-style soul band called The Big Sound who toured Europe in the 60s. In 1976, the comedy musical duo Berk & Jerk began, consisting of Coleman and Brian Burke, who had both been part of The Big Sound. Parrott, who had also been in the band, had become lead guitarist with Manchester rock band Oscar. The trio remained friends.

    Coleman and Burke penned Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs (Lowry’s Song) as a tribute to the artist, who had died in 1976. Lowry painted matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs, offering a unique view of life in the working class north. His paintings were very stylised, casting no shadows and featuring little personal detail, using only five colours. Why this song refers to them as being ‘matchstalk’ rather than ‘matchstick’, I have no idea.

    At some point Burke & Jerk decided to become Brian and Michael instead (though they also used their old name on the record sleeve). They took this song to Parrott, who borrowed around £1,000 to record the song at Pluto Studios in Stockport. The studio, owned by former Herman’s Hermits rhythm guitarist Keith Hopwood, was in the same building as 10 cc’s Strawberry Studios. Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs was recorded over three sessions, beginning on 25 September 1977. Brian and Michael were backed by Tintwistle Brass Band, from the Derbyshire village where Parrott lived at the time and St Winifred’s School Choir.

    Parrott tried and failed several times over to get the single released but eventually he managed a deal with Pye Records. It was released on 25 September but within weeks Burke decided to quit. As the record slowly but surely gained traction, Parrott found himself cast as ‘Brian’. Back in the 70s, singles could take ages to climb the charts. Here’s a very good example – this took five months to top the charts.

    Review

    Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs, not to be confused with the one Status Quo song that doesn’t sound like all their others, is one of those strange chart-toppers that could only have happened in the 70s or early 80s. Fair play to the duo/trio for writing a song about a surrealist northern artist as it’s certainly an unusual subject matter for a hit. But they overdo the ‘Ay up love, it’s grim up north, t’int it?’ image too much. To me, Lowry’s work shows the north in a realistic way, cold and grey, and by giving the figures little in the way of personality, he portrays the working class the way many saw them – as unimportant, identical figures. Brian and Michael go overboard, turning the north into one big caricature. ‘He painted Salford’s smoky tops/On cardboard boxes from the shops’ is true, but there’s no need to sound so happy about it, that’s a pretty grim lyric really!

    The use of the choir is also too much. They join the duo on the chorus, which is fine, but there’s no need for them to also sing the children’s song The Big Ship Sails on the Alley-Alley-O towards the end. It’s sickly. And we know there was more to come from St Winifred’s School Choir. Though a spin-off LP, The Matchstalk Children, sank, they returned to delight and horrify the nation in equal measure with the 1980 Christmas number 1 There’s No One Quite Like Grandma.

    After

    Brian and Michael’s follow-up Evensong was a failure and so was the album The Matchstalk Men and second album I Can Count My Friends on One Hand. Coleman did however win an Ivor Novello for the Lowry tribute however, for The Outstanding Lyric of the Year.

    Both Coleman and Parrott remained in the music business. Most notably, the former wrote and latter produced It’s ‘Orrible Being in Love (When You’re 8½), a number 13 hit in 1986 for Claire and Friends, a young schoolgirl and her mates from, you guessed it, St Winifred’s School Choir.

    The Outro

    In 2002, Coleman and Parrott became Brian and Michael once more, performing a reunion concert with the original St Winifred’s choir at Manchester’s Lowry Centre. 10 years later they formed The Matchstalk Men with Parrott’s brother Nigel on drums and Coleman’s brother Tim as lead vocalist. The line-up has changed since but the one-hit wonders remain, performing material from their two albums and hits from other acts from the 50s and 60s.

    The Info

    Written by

    Michael Coleman & Brian Burke

    Producer

    Kevin Parrott

    Weeks at number 1

    3 (8-28 April)

    Trivia

    Births

    9 April: S Club 7 singer Rachel Stevens
    21 April: Cricketer Carl Greenidge
    24 April: Field hockey goalkeeper Beth Storry

    Deaths

    9 April: Architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis
    21 April: Fairport Convention singer Sandy Denny

    Meanwhile…

    23 April: Nottingham Forest won the Football League First Division title for the first time. Their manager Brian Clough, who guided their East Midlands rivals Derby County to the title six years previous. He became only the third manager in history to lead two different clubs to top division title glory.

    417. Althia & Donna – Up Town Top Ranking (1978)

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    The Intro

    It was starting to look like Wings would be at number 1 forever in those first few freezing weeks of 1978. It took two Jamaican teenagers to knock Mull of Kintyre/Girls School from the top.

    Before

    17-year-old Althea Forrest and Donna Reid, 18, started out singing on the sidewalks of Kingston, Jamaica. They were spotted by the singer Jacob Miller, who introduced them to producer Joe Gibbs. The duo recorded Up Town Top Ranking as a lighthearted answer song, with origins dating back to 1967.

    That year, ‘Godfather of Rocksteady’ Alton Ellis released the track I’m Still in Love, a sweet slice of lovers rock. In the mid-70s, circa 1975, Marcia Aitken recorded her own version, produced by Gibbs. He and sound engineer Errol Thompson were known as The Mighty Two and they cut many reggae hits in Jamaica.

    In 1977, deejay and producer Trinity took the backing track of Aitken’s version and toasted over the top, bragging about how sharp he looked in his Three Piece Suit. Althea & Donna, together with Thompson, wrote their reply to Trinity. With tons of tongue-in-cheek, frisky attitude, Up Town Top Ranking answered back, using the rhythm track of Aitken’s version.

    Upon its original release, Althea’s name was spelt incorrectly as ‘Althia’, hence the weird spelling in the title here. Even worse, Gibbs was credited as ‘Joe Gibson’. It’s one thing to get an unknown teenager’s name wrong, but an acclaimed producer?! I’m also going with the original title – ‘Up Town’ rather than ‘Uptown’.

    As fun and catchy as Up Town Top Ranking is, it’s unlikely it would have made it to number 1 had it not been for Radio 1 DJ John Peel. Allegedly he began playing it as a joke. I find that a little hard to believe, I’d imagine he just really liked it, like most people. Eventually other Radio 1 DJs began to spin it too and the rest is history.

    Review

    Up Town Top Ranking is a great start to the chart-toppers of 1978 and the best number 1 since I Feel Love in July 1977. In an era of often staid chart hits, it cuts through the crap by being full to the brim with the joy of being young and alive.

    Althea & Donna aren’t note perfect and are outright flat at times but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that sometimes the patois is impenetrable to a 42-year-old from East Yorkshire, there’s enough that is decipherable to know that these girls are out on the town, dressed to kill and won’t take any shit from the likes of Trinity and his ego, three-piece suit or no three-piece suit:

    ‘True you see me in me pants and ting,
    See me in me halter back,
    Say, me give you heart attack’.

    When they sing ‘Love is all I bring/Inna me khaki suit and ting’, they’re not coming on to the men they meet. The ‘love’ they sing of is likely a more innocent kind. The love of being alive and on the dancefloor. ‘Give me little bass make me whine out mi waist’ is all they care about. More power to them.

    After

    Althea & Donna cheered up a gloomy February with an appearance on Top of the Pops where they looked like they couldn’t believe their luck. The album Uptown Top Ranking followed, with backing from The Revolutionaries and produced by Karl Pitterson. It couldn’t match the magic of their one hit and nor could three singles – Puppy Dog Song, Going to Negril and Love One Another, all released in the same year.

    Althea & Donna disappeared as so many one-hit wonders do but they did record more material separately, Althea occasionally under the name Althea Ranks. Both recorded covers during the 80s and then left the business. Althea was last heard of working as an events planner and Donna works for the state of Florida. They performed together again in 2018 in Jamaica.

    The Outro

    Up Town Top Ranking has been covered by, among others, Black Box Recorder (1998). Occasionally it gets sampled and covered but ignore all that and stick on Ellis, Aitken, Trinity and this number 1 instead.

    The Info

    Written by

    Errol Thompson, Althea Forrest & Donna Reid

    Producer

    Joe Gibson

    Weeks at number 1

    1 (4-10 February)

    Meanwhile…

    9 February: 25-year-old Scotland central defender Gordon McQueen became Britain’s first £500,000 footballer in a transfer from Leeds United to Manchester United. 

    411. The Floaters – Float On (1977)

    / robbarker1979

    The Intro

    Hailing from Detroit, Michigan, soul quartet The Floaters achieved one-hit wonder status very early in their careers with this novelty number 1. If you’re British and reading this, try and forget what you’d normally associate the word ‘floaters’ with…

    Before

    The group were formed in the Sojourner Truth housing projects by James Mitchell. He had been a singer in the Detroit Emeralds, who had scored a few hits earlier in the 70s. The line-up consisted of his baritone brother Paul and Larry Cunningham, Charles Clark and Ralph Mitchell (no relation) as tenors. They signed with ABC Records in 1976 and released debut single I Am So Glad I Took My Time to little fanfare. It closed their eponymous LP, released the following year. Most of the album was written by James, with fellow Detroit Emerald Marvin Willis and Arnold Ingram.

    The version of Float On that opens the album is nearly 12 minutes long, with intros from each singer and their star signs. The music then, well, floats on languidly for half the track with the group singing the title. It’s the second half that was edited down to around four minutes that’s the much more well-known single.

    Review

    So Float On is understandably considered a bit of a joke. It’s very cheesy and camp, with each singer introducing themselves as if they’re taking part in video dating. It is considered all-important by The Floaters that all the ladies out there know their horoscope, which I assume was very popular in the 70s.

    First up is Ralph, an Aquarius. He loves women who love their freedom. How kind of him. But they must also be able to hold their own. Charles is a Libra. He’s into quiet women who resemble ‘Miss Universe’, who will take him in their strong arms and say ‘Charles’. I guess for Charles, actions speak louder than words. Paul is a Leo, and he’s not fussy. He likes ‘all women of the world’ because they’re like ‘wild flowers’, if you know what he’s saying. I’m not sure I do, Paul? Last of the Lotharios is Larry, a Cancer. He likes women that love ‘everything and everybody’, because he loves ‘everybody and everything’. Can you try and elaborate further, Larry?

    I’m ridiculing the lyrics to Float On, as most people do. But the fact is, it’s set to really beautiful music, particularly on the full version, where it gets chance to breathe properly. Take away the video dating and star signs, and it’s actually pretty cool and sexy. As a single though, the silliness smothers it, which is a shame. The music here is crying out to be sampled.

    After

    The Floaters only hit went to the top in the UK and New Zealand and two in the US. Nobody took them seriously after Float On though, and they never charted again properly. They did reach 28 on the Billboard R&B chart with their follow-up, a cover of Dusty Springfield’s You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me though. The Floaters had the dubious honour of being spoofed by British comedy troupe The Barron Knights on their hit Live In Trouble.

    Our romantic heroes recorded another album for ABC, Magic, in 1978. They then moved to MCA for 1979’s Float into the Future. Their final album was Get Ready for the Floaters & Shu-Ga, released on Fee/WP in 1981.

    The Outro

    Like all good novelty hits, the song was used in an advert in the UK. Float On was rewritten for a memorable early-90s advert for Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. Produced by (I think) Aardman Animations, clay versions of the star signs tell us how they eat theirs. Taken the wrong way, it’s actually pretty filthy at times.

    Cunningham died in 2019.

    The Info

    Written by

    Marvin Willis, Arnold Ingram & James Mitchell

    Producer

    Woody Wilson

    Weeks at number 1

    1 (27 August-2 September)

    Trivia

    Deaths

    29 August: Actor Edward Sinclair

    389. J.J. Barrie – No Charge (1976)

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    The Intro

    In a year with a distinct lack of quality number 1s so far, Canadian one-hit wonder JJ Barrie’s cover of the song No Charge is exceptionally awful. It is dreck. It is mawkish. It is the drizzling shits.

    Before

    Research on Barrie, born Barry Authors on 7 July 1933 in Oshawa, Ontario, doesn’t bring up a great deal. He must have lived in the UK as in the 60s he became the manager of legendary comedian Norman Wisdom and then later Blue Mink, the pop group behind 1969 hit Melting Pot. He also dabbled in stand-up comedy too. Then in 1976 he decided to turn his hand to songwriting, penning Where’s the Reason with Terry Britten for Glen Campbell.

    Barrie and Britten sent a demo to Campbell’s producer but he turned it down and suggested Barrie perform it himself. This he did, but it made no impact. However, with his own label Power Station to release records on, Barrie decided to try again and this time he went with a tried and tested country hit, No Charge.

    Written by veteran country songwriter Harlan Howard, No Charge is a slushy ballad in which a boy hands his mother a list of charges for completed chores. He’s mowed the lawn, made his bed, gone to the store, played with his little brother while she went shopping, took out the trash, had a good report card from school and raked the yard. After being asked to give him $14.75 she takes the receipt, turns it over and writes a list of things she has done for him. She lays it on very thick, pointing out how she carried him for nine months, has worried through sleepless nights, prayed, cried, imparted wisdom, bought toys, food and clothes, and wiped snot from his nose. And, like every mother, all done for nothing, because it was all done for love, so no charge. The boy learns his lesson and with tears in his eyes, he takes the pen and receipt and adds PAID IN FULL. Awwwwww. Pass me a bucket.

    The original version was performed by Melba Montgomery, who was known in the 60s for her duets with George Jones, Gene Pitney and Charlie Louvin. She went solo in the 70s but wasn’t faring too well until Howard suggested No Charge. Country music fans loved this sentimental life lesson and took it to number 1 on the Billboard country chart in the US and Canada.

    Review

    It is well documented on this site that I’m not much of a fan of country music and I’m not a fan of spoken word moments in songs. There are of course exceptions to these rules, but definitely not in this case, which combines the two to disgusting effect. Barrie drawls his way through the song, playing the father watching the soppy scene unfold before him. He does so over a standard MOR country backing produced by Canadian philanthropist, singer-songwriter and film-maker Bill (later Barbra) Amesbury, with Clem Cattini playing the drums on one of his 45 chart-toppers.

    Wailing away in the background is an uncredited Vicki Brown, wife of 60s cockney pop star Joe Brown. It’s mixed strangely, with Barrie way too high in the mix, and Brown too low. Although in this case it’s actually a blessing, as, no offence to the late singer, as she was only doing a job, but my God her performance is laid on thick.

    Why? Just why? I cannot get my head around this being a hit, let alone a number 1. Barrie wasn’t a celebrity, which is what I assumed when I first saw this on Top of the Pops. I noticed while researching that Mother’s Day was a month before it topped the charts, so perhaps dads were buying it for their wives in a gesture of solidarity, or were the mums buying it to lord it over their kids and save money on paying them for doing jobs? Whatever the reason, ‘when you add it all up’, to quote the song, No Charge is really, really bad. I can’t criticise it enough.

    After

    Billy Connolly saw something worth spoofing and later that year his version, No Chance (No Charge) was a hit. Though considering how poor his number 1, D.I.V.O.R.C.E. was, it’s a bit rich. Barrie released a handful of further singles that all bombed and in late 1977 Power Station closed down. He returned to Canada to get involved with music publishing and management once more. Then in 1980 he came back to the UK to make a football-themed single, You Can’t Win ‘Em All. This is strange and unnecessary in itself, but it gets weirder. For some reason controversial Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough was roped in to occasionally interject, at times sounding like he’s about to hit someone. Very odd. And his career got even weirder. In 1984 he released the LP Sings Songs from Fraggle Rock. On which he did exactly what it says on the tin. No idea why, other than to cash in on a popular children’s show at the time.

    The Outro

    Barrie lives in Canada, working as film writer and producer. Only two more albums have been released since 1984 – No Charge in 1999 and My Canada in 2017.

    The Info

    Written by

    Harlan Howard

    Producer

    Bill Amesbury

    Weeks at number 1

    1 (5-11 June)

    Trivia

    Births

    6 June: Comedian Ross Noble/Skateboarder Geoff Rowley

    Deaths

    6 June: Athlete David Jacobs
    9 June: Actress Sybil Thorndike
    11 June: Rower Amy Gentry

    375. Typically Tropical – Barbados (1975)

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    The Intro

    Here’s a number 1 that is very 1975. Typically Tropical’s Barbados combines two of the decade’s crazes in the UK – the package holiday, and political incorrectness – earning itself the status of a summer smash. Holidays overseas were getting ever cheaper, resulting in songs like Y Viva Espana by Sylvia Vrethammar becoming huge, and controversial sitcom Love Thy Neighbour, about a black couple moving next door to a racist, was an ITV mainstay.

    Before

    Typically Tropical were two Welsh audio engineers, Jeff Calvert and Max West, who worked at Morgan Studios. Based in Willesden Green, London, Morgan was used by some of the biggest stars of the 70s, including Paul McCartney and Pink Floyd. In 1974 Calvert had returned from a holiday in Jamaica, and felt inspired. He and Hughes penned Barbados in two hours, sitting down with a piano and a guitar before heading to Morgan to put a demo together. On the strength of that demo they signed a three-single deal with Gull Records, and Barbados was to be the first.

    Now known as Typically Tropical, they recorded a proper version, and used a fine roll call of session musicians, including guitarists Chris Spedding and Vic Flick, legendary drummer Clem Cattini (been a while since we’ve heard of him) and Blue Mink’s Max West and Roger Coulam on keyboards.

    Review

    Oh dear. If you’re equipped with the knowledge that the men behind this are two white Welshmen pretending to be black, it makes it pretty hard to stomach. Talk about racial stereotyping… the intro begins with ‘Captain Tobias Willcock welcoming you aboard Coconut Airways Flight 372’… The song is sung from the point of view of a Brixton bus driver who can’t wait to be back on the island, reunited with his girlfriend ‘Mary Jane’. It’s a joke about ganja, get it? You know, because he’s black? Awful.

    What can I say in its favour? Well it’s a decent tune, so much so, it went to number 1 again when the Dutch Eurodance outfit Vengaboys reworked it into We’re Going to Ibiza! in 1999. I expect you’re more likely to hear that than Barbados on the radio anymore as it’s more PC, and that’s certainly fair enough. If it wasn’t for the stereotyping, I’d actually prefer Barbados, as I couldn’t stand the Vengaboys at the time.

    After

    On the strength of reaching number 1, Typically Tropical made the album Barbados Sky. Two singles came from it, Rocket Now and Everybody Plays the Fool but they failed to chart. They also released songs as Captain Zero, Calvert & West and Black Rod between 1975 and 1979, but they sank too. They did however score a hit when they wrote Sarah Brightman’s I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper in 1978.

    The Info

    Written & produced by

    Jeffrey Calvert & Max West

    Weeks at number 1

    1 (9-15 August)

    Meanwhile…

    14 August: Hampstead entered the UK weather records with the highest 155-min total rainfall at 169mm.

    15 August: Olive Smelt, a 46-year-old woman from Halifax, is severely injured in a hammer attack in an alleyway.

    307. Benny Hill (Arranged & Conducted by Harry Robinson, with The Ladybirds) – Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) (1971)

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    The Intro

    1971 was a real mixed bag of a year for number 1s. There was early glam, reggae, pop, a former Beatle, and bookending the year were novelty songs by two popular TV comedy stars. The Christmas number 1 belonged to Benny Hill, a once much-loved comedian who became incredibly unfashionable before his death in the 80s. But in 1971, people wanted saucy innuendo in their comedy, and Hill was one of the best at that.

    Before

    Alfred Hawthorne Hill was born 21 January 1924 in Southampton. His father and grandfather had both been circus clowns. After Hill left school he worked at Woolworths, a bridge operator and a milkman. It is unknown whether he drove the fastest milkcart or not.

    In 1942 Hill was called up for World War Two, and trained as a mechanic in the British Army. He also served as a mechanic and searchlight operator in Normandy before being transferred to the Combined Services Entertainment division before the war ended. Having decided a career in showbusiness was for him, he changed his name to Benny Hill in honour of his favourite comic, Jack Benny.

    Hill struggled on the radio and stage, but found his home on TV, achieving his big break after sending scripts to the BBC in 1952. The Benny Hill Show of the 50s wasn’t that different from its 80s version, a mix of music hall, parody and bawdiness. Bar a few brief spells with ATV between 1957 and 1960 and again in 1967, he remained with the BBC until 1968.

    Jackie Wright, the little bald man who Hill liked to slap on the head, joined his troupe in the 60s. I hope his head was insured for all those decades of slaps.

    Within that time he also appeared in films, most notably Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and The Italian Job (1969).

    The Benny Hill Show became a Thames Television show in 1969 and ran intermittently for 20 years. It is this version he is mostly remembered for, gurning and saluting away next to scantily clad girls, running around to Boots Randolph’s Yakety Sax. This very British show became popular overseas too, with Hill acting as an ambassador for the famous British seaside postcard brand of humour.

    Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) began life as a song on a 1970 edition, as you can see here. Most of the double entendres are in place, with only small differences like Ernie’s age being 68 rather than 52. Releasing records was nothing new for Hill, who had been releasing comedy singles sporadically since Who Done It in 1956, and Ernie was just one of the tracks that made up his Words and Music album, released earlier that year. It’s unlikely he had an inkling as to how popular it would become.

    Inspired by Hill’s time as a milkman for Hann’s Dairies in Eastleigh, Hampshire, the song is written as a Wild West-style ballad about the adventures of Ernie Price, whose milk cart is pulled by horses, sung by Hill in a comedy Cornish accent and joined by his regular backing group, The Ladybirds. Ernie and bread delivery man ‘Two Ton’ Ted from Teddington are feuding for the heart of Sue, a widow at number 22 Linley Lane. Cue the smut.

    Review

    I can remember Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) being played to me at school when I was pretty young, and most of the innuendo was lost on me, despite growing up watching Carry On films. Looking at the lyrics now, I can see that’s because it’s not actually very rude at all. Granted, there’s reference to crumpet, and these lines are a bit saucy:

    ‘He said you wanted pasturised
    Coz pasturised is best
    She says Ernie I’ll be happy
    If it comes up to me chest’

    But other than that, Hill manages to skirt anything too risqué. And that might be why it became so big. If anything, it’s more a song for children in the style of 1968 Christmas number 1 Lily the Pink, so timing had a lot to do with it. I can’t imagine adults sat around listening to this and laughing hysterically in 1971… perhaps 1961, but I may well be wrong. And it certainly doesn’t make me laugh in 2020, yet it still has a certain charm… a relic of a bygone age, perhaps helped by the promo film above, co-starring Henry McGee and Jan Butlin.

    What doesn’t make me laugh is the fact that one of our worst ever Prime Ministers, David Cameron, has declared this one of his favourite songs ever on more than one occasion. But you can’t blame Benny Hill for Brexit.

    After

    Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) held firm for four weeks, even stopping T. Rex from having three number 1s in a row with Jeepster. Hill only released one more single, Fad Eyed Fal in 1972. Meanwhile The Benny Hill Show rattled on, with a film compilation of highlights from 1969-73 called The Best of Benny Hill released in cinemas in 1974. Despite some old-fashioned racism poking fun at the Chinese, this was unbelievably still being shown every now and then until recently.

    As the 80s dawned, the show began to feature the ‘Hill’s Angels’, sexy ladies who would dance and appear as comic foils for Hill. But this was the decade in which such ideas looked increasingly outdated as alternative comedy grew ever more popular, and acts like Ben Elton led the way as the media began to disown him.

    Looking back, the campaign against him seems too aggressive. Yes, he had enjoyed a good innings and it was high time he made way for more PC, sophisticated comedy by the end of the 80s, but the likes of Elton suggesting he was to blame for people being raped and violence against was unfair. More often than not, Hill was being chased by the girls, not the other way round… ok, all their clothes fell off… but still…

    The Outro

    The Benny Hill Show was finally taken off air in 1989. A quiet, private man when the cameras were off, he disappeared from the public eye completely.

    It looked like he might be due a comeback in 1992. Thames began airing edited compilations of repeats due to public demand, and he was on the verge of signing with Central Television, but his health failed him. He had a mild heart attack that February, and on 22 April he was found dead in his armchair in front of the TV. Hill had died aged 68, two days previous, and one day after another old-school comedy giant, Frankie Howerd.

    The Info

    Written by

    Benny Hill

    Producer

    Walter J Ridley

    Weeks at number 1

    4 (11 December 1971-7 January 1972)

    Trivia

    Births

    23 December 1971: Socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson
    25 December: Singer Dido
    5 January     1972: Conservative MP Philip Davies

    Deaths

    12 December: Footballer Torry Gillick/Scottish footballer Alan Morton
    21 December:     Pilot Charles C Banks

    Meanwhile…

    29 December 1971: The United Kingdom gave up its military bases in Malta.

    30 December: The seventh James Bond film – Diamonds Are Forever – was released. It saw Sean Connery return to the role after George Lazenby declined to come back.

    4 January 1972: Rose Heilbron became the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey.

    295. Clive Dunn – Grandad (1971)

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    The Intro

    The first number 1 of 1971 had narrowly missed out on the 1970 Christmas number 1 spot, and although it’s not fit for much, it would have made a more fitting yuletide chart-topper than I Hear You Knocking. Grandad, by comedy actor Clive Dunn, was a canny grab at the purse-strings of pensioners and children, and in that sense was an early pioneer of the novelty Christmas song market. Factor in Dunn’s popularity as doddery old Lance Corporal Jones in BBC One sitcom Dad’s Army, and there’s little surprise it spent three weeks at number 1.

    Before

    Clive Robert Benjamin Dunn was born in Brixton, South London on 9 January 1920, meaning he had only turned 51 on the day his one-hit wonder about life as an OAP hit pole position. Both his parents were actors, and his cousin was Gretchen Franklin – better known as Ethel in BBC One soap opera EastEnders. Dunn had small roles in films while at school in the 30s, appearing alongside comedy actor Will Hay in Boys Will Be Boys in 1935.

    Dunn’s acting ambitions were swept to one side when he served in World War Two for real, joining the British Army in 1940. He served in the Middle East until 1941 when he and hundreds of others were forced to surrender. Dunn was held as a POW in Austria for four years, but stayed with the Army upon his release, until 1947, when he returned to acting.

    Fast forward to the mid-50s, and Dunn had found his calling in comedy roles, making several appearances alongside Tony Hancock on ITV and his classic radio series Hancock’s Half-Hour. In the early 60s he took on a role that would define the rest of his career, playing a comical 83-year-old man in ITV sitcom Bootsie and Snudge. He was only 38 at the time.

    This made Dunn a natural choice to star in Dad’s Army as the nervy butcher Jones in 1968. As one of the youngest members of cast he could take the brunt of any physical comedy. The role in Jimmy Perry and David Croft’s sitcom made Dunn one of the most popular comedy stars of the era.

    In 1970 Dunn met top session bassist Herbie Flowers at a BBC party. Flowers was a founding member of Melting Pot hitmakers Blue Mink and played bass on David Bowie’s Space Oddity (number 1 on its re-release in 1975). Upon discovering his occupation, Dunn allegedly challenged Flowers to write him a hit song.

    So Flowers went away and with Dunn’s Dad’s Army character clearly in mind, he wrote a novelty song written from the point of view of an old man looking back at his youth. However, he was stuck for a chorus, until his friend Kenny Pickett (singer with 60s rock band The Creation) called round. Ringing the doorbell, a standard ‘ding dong’ chimed, and Flowers had the simple but scarily effective hook he was looking for.

    Review

    Over a leaden backing featuring ukelele, Flowers’ bass (I assume), and parping brass, Dunn recalls penny farthings, penny dreadfuls, ‘talking things’, and best of all, how ‘Motorcars were funny things, frightening’, when he was a lad. At the exact point you’re hoping his nurse will interject and give him his medication or clean him up, in comes a sickly kiddie choir, thankfully kept to a minimum, singing ‘Grandad, grandad you’re lovely/That’s what we all think of you’. Let’s be grateful they didn’t overdo it, unlike the similar Christmas number 1 of 1980, There’s No One Quite Like Grandma. Incidentally, co-producer Ray Cameron, is comedian Michael McIntyre’s dad.

    It’s rotten, cynical stuff, but at least Flowers made up for it. He’s played on hundreds of hits over the years, and among other things, was a member of CSS, T. Rex and Sky. He also performed on Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, but most notably, he was the man behind the bass line on Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side. So we can forgive him.

    We can forgive Dunn too, such was his charm. He was a staunch socialist too, who would argue with Conservative voter Arthur Lowe over politics, so he’s alright by me (although he did have a brief flirtation with Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists in his youth, which he regretted). He was also known for his friendliness towards autograph seekers.

    After

    Dad’s Army ended in 1977, and two years later Dunn found work playing – what else? – an old man in BBC children’s series Grandad. Despite the obvious similarities, it was unrelated to his number 1. When his role as Charlie Quick ended in 1984, Dunn retired and moved to Portugal.

    The Outro

    It blew my young mind, growing up on repeats of Dad’s Army in the 80s, to know that Dunn was one of the youngest cast members and one of the few still alive. But even he got old for real eventually, and he died as a result of operation complications on 6 November 2012, aged 92.

    The Info

    Written by

    Herbie Flowers & Kenny Pickett

    Producers

    Peter Dulay & Ray Cameron

    Weeks at number 1

    3 (9-29 January)

    Trivia

    Births

    12 January: Artist Jay Burridge
    15 January: Actress Lara Cazalet
    20 January: Take That singer-songwriter Gary Barlow
    21 January: Scottish snooker player Alan McManus
    29 January: Sports broadcaster Clare Balding

    Deaths

    24 January: Northern Irish dramatist St John Greer Ervine
    28 January: Psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott

    Meanwhile…

    12 January: The Hertfordshire home of Robert Carr, Secretary of State for Employment, was bombed, but nobody was injured.

    14 January: Extremist group The Angry Brigade claimed responsibility for the bombing of Robert Carr’s house, in addition to planting a bomb at the Department of Employment offices at Westminster.

    20 January: UPW General Secretary Tom Jackson led the first ever postal workers’ strike took place. Workers were insisting on a 19.5% pay rise.

    21 January: After collapsing in March 1969, a newly reconstructed Emley Moor transmitter in West Yorkshire starts again. It became Britain’s tallest freestanding structure, a concrete tower standing at 1084ft.

    23 January: The first Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, in Singapore, gave Britain permission to sell weapons to South Africa.