Latest Blog Posts
Between 1951 and 1982 this unique institution made films exclusively for those attending the hundreds of Saturday morning children’s matinees hosted in Britain’s cinemas each week. Now a long-forgotten tradition, the first matinee was held in 1927. They…
In February 1954, actress Marilyn Monroe travelled to Korea to entertain the American troops stationed over there. Marilyn was asked if she wanted to do a solo show or entertain as part of a ten-man package show which…
The Rovers Return Inn (formerly The Rover’s Return Inn and often referred to as The Rovers Return or The Rovers) is located on Coronation Street, Weatherfield and is arguably the most famous public house in Britain. Here are…
Ursula Andress walked from the sea in Dr No in 1962 and became the first of many beautiful women who found fame in James Bond films. Some of the Bond girls such as Andress and Honor Blackman stayed…
31 December 2020 In a year of such jarring change, it is perhaps no surprise that many of us have longed to turn the clocks back – but is there more to nostalgia than just a desire to…
Latest Television Posts
Penda’s Fen follows pompous and priggish young vicar’s son Stephen Franklin through a summer in which he reacts to the forthcoming pressures of adulthood, his moral confusion, and the dark forces of nature around him.
1 9 6 4 – 1 9 6 6 (UK). In little more than a year, the attractive blonde from Ilford in Essex made a big name as a recording artist, with two hit records – Dance On and Secret Love – selling almost a million copies.
1 9 9 9 (UK). The Last Train debuted on ITV in April 1999 and was promoted at the time by Granada as one of the most expensive drama productions they had ever made.
1 9 8 2 (UK) 6 x 60 minute episodes Although these slices of “future” life seem quaint when viewed today, this BBC anthology of science fiction plays offered audiences in 1982 a speculative glimpse into the near future.…
1 9 7 3 (UK) 12 x 15 minute episodes Cyril Fletcher played the writer and storyteller Lewis Carroll (real name, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) as he read to Alice (Carol Hollands, pictured above with Fletcher as Carroll) and Lorina…
Latest Music Posts
Barbara Rosemary Ruskin was born in East Ham, London, in 1948, and moved to Stoke Newington before starting secondary school. Her father died when she was still young and her mother – who worked for music publisher Lawrence…
Hailing from Los Angeles, The Long Ryders formed in November 1981 and based their sound on a blend of psychedelia, country and garage rock. Original guitarist Steve Wynn was replaced by Stephen McCarthy when he left to form…
In 1962 the most popular group on Merseyside with other musicians was possibly not The Beatles but The Big Three, and yet they couldn’t transform their local success into national fame. Johnny Hutchinson could have been a millionaire but ended…
Stephen Patrick Morrissey was 13 when he fell in love for the first time – with The New York Dolls. He saw the band on television in the early 70s and immediately flipped for those five glitter-rock hoodlums from…
Serenade Radio (UK) In our fast-paced modern world it’s important to have an escape. Serenade Radio is just that. Sometimes, it’s an escape into the past with a wealth of great songs written at a time when quality…
Latest Movies Posts
In a small town in Germany which is relatively untouched by the war despite the fact that Allied troops have broken into Germany in the closing days of April 1945, a group of boys in the little school wait to be called up for service.
Adapted from Kurt Vonnegut’s 1970 Off-Broadway hit by Vonnegut himself, this eccentric black comedy-drama sharply divided critical and audience opinion when it was released in December 1971. Arrogant and macho adventurer and big game hunter Harold Ryan (Rod…
America has launched an orbiting laboratory into space and three astronauts – Pruett (Richard Crenna), Stone (James Franciscus) and Lloyd (Gene Hackman) – are sent up to live and work in it for seven months. However, Chief of…
Young Edinburgh lads Will (Vincent Friell) and Ronnie (Joe Mullaney) are perpetually down on their luck – Ronnie works in a joke shop and lives in a bedsit with his pet hamster while Will – who still lives…
Goodbye Pork Pie introduces us to John (Tony Barry) who lives in the north of New Zealand. At the moment we meet him, John has two problems on his mind: First, he has no job and consequently no…
Latest Pop Culture Posts
Ora and Theo Coster created this guessing game for Milton Bradley that had each player pick a face from the 24 cards in their set while the other tried to work out whose face it might be, by…
The Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab was a toy lab set produced by Alfred Carlton Gilbert, an American athlete, magician, toymaker, businessman and inventor of the well-known Erector Set. The Atomic Energy Lab was released by the AC…
Funny Face is Fun To Drink! Funny Face was an American brand of powdered drink mix originally made by the Pillsbury Company from 1964 to 1994 (and in the Mid West and New England to 2001). The brand was…
“Computacar – the amazing car with a ‘memory’ you control!” The revolutionary battery-powered Computacar from Mettoy was driven by an electric motor which was activated by calibrated cards. There were 17 with every Computacar – 4 pre-cut and…
1 8 9 3 – 1 9 8 9 The development of television for children in the United Kingdom owes much to the foresight of Freda Lingstrom, the BBCs first Head of Children’s Television programmes (between 1951 and…
Latest Social History Posts
Beginning in 1949, for one week a year in April, all Scout groups across Britain ‘hired out’ their Scouts and Cubs for “Bob-a-Job week”, issuing them with job cards and instructions to go round to local homes, knock…
Squatters had been taking over derelict properties in central London for years, but when a group of hippies took over 144 Piccadilly – an empty five-storey Georgian mansion at Hyde Park Corner in Mayfair – in September 1969,…
‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, one of the most turbulent episodes in modern British history, had political and religious roots that were centuries old – Some people in Northern Ireland, especially the mainly Protestant Unionist community, believed it should…
The Mandela Day Concert staged on 11 June 1988 at London’s Wembley Stadium was organised by Special AKA main man Jerry Dammers and Britain’s Artists Against Apartheid. The 70th birthday tribute to imprisoned anti-apartheid African National Congress leader…
The recession of 1990, after the boom of the 1980s, provided a rather inauspicious beginning to the new decade. By the end of the year, unemployment was up, sales of new homes were down by a whopping 17.5…
Latest News
9 October 2021Canadian-born Rick Jones began his TV career in Britain as part of the Play School team before starring as “Yoffy” in Fingerbobs, presenting stories featuring paper finger-puppet characters…
26 September 2021. Alan Lancaster, founding bassist of rock greats Status Quo, has died in Australia, aged 72. He had been suffering from Multiple Sclerosis for some time.
16 September 2021. Sir Clive Sinclair, the inventor and entrepreneur who was instrumental in bringing home computers to the masses, has died at the age of 81.
6 September 2021 Get Some In! star Tony Selby has died aged 83. His management, LCM Limited, shared a statement on Twitter announcing he had died in London on Sunday (5th…
29 August 2021 Seven-time Emmy-winning actor Ed Asner, who starred as tough-talking TV newsroom head Lou Grant on the long-running sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the spin-off drama…
24 August 2021 The Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has died at the age of 80. It had been announced earlier this month that Watts would miss the band’s American…
21 August 2021 Don Everly (pictured above left), one half of the rock’n’roll duo the Everly Brothers, has died at his home in Nashville at the age of 84. A spokesperson…
28 July 2021 The son of comedian Eric Morecambe has found a missing episode of The Morecambe and Wise Show in the family home’s attic. While searching for paperwork in…
28 July 2021 Dusty Hill, the bass player of US blues-rock band ZZ Top, has died at the age of 72. Bandmates Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard said that Hill…
29 May 2021 Gavin MacLeod, famed as the news writer Murray Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Captain Merrill Stubing on The Love Boat, died on Saturday 29…
3 May 2021 A nondescript brick house at 1 Pinoak Court, Vermont South – a suburb of Melbourne, Australia – has just sold for $1.6m AUD, the first time it…
8 February 2021 Mary Wilson was born in Greenville, Mississippi, on 6 March 1944. Her parents separated when she was young and she was raised by family members until she…
Latest Aussie Posts
1 9 5 7 – 1 9 6 9 (Australia) 60 minute episodes This early Australian children’s TV series from GTV-9 in Melbourne was originally titled The Happy Show and hosted by…
1 9 5 9 – 1 9 6 2 (Australia) 5 minute episodes The first regular live children’s television show from Channel Nine in Melbourne was originally broadcast as The…
1 9 5 8 – 1 9 6 3 (Australia) 30 minute episodes This weekly television panel discussion show from the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) had a four-person panel chaired in…
1 9 6 9 (Australia) 26 x 30 minute episodes This Australian comedy series featured Robinson Doubleday (New Zeland-born Gerry Gallagher), the bumbling science teacher at Kannabri High School, a co-ed…
1 9 7 8 (Australia) 6 x 30 minute episodes This superior effort from the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) was reminiscent of high-quality British television dramas but dealt with a fairly…
Dorrie Evans, the scatty and interfering self-appointed concierge at 96 Lindsay Street, Paddington, was the absolute queen of malapropism on the series Number 96. Proving extremely popular with the viewing…
1 9 7 0 – 1 9 7 1 (Australia) 23 x 60 minute episodes Not to be confused with the glossy 1980s American soap opera, this Dynasty was an Australian series…
