The Silver Beetles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Stuart Sutcliffe) failed an audition as Billy Fury’s backing group but drew a consolation prize…
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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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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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…
Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) As the episode begins, Mary is talking excitedly on the phone at her office desk, planning her Christmas visit with…
Throughout its history, rock & roll has been inextricably linked with the English language – the first tongue, after all, of the nation of its…
Oliver Postgate – the creator and writer of some of Britain’s most popular children’s television programmes, including Bagpuss, The Pingwings, Noggin the Nog, Ivor the…
14 July 2019 Artwork by illustrators from the classic Ladybird Books is to be explored in an exhibition. The books, which started life in Loughborough…
23 December 2018 Anne Margot “Honey” Lantree, who has died aged 75, achieved the unique feat of being the first woman drummer in a pop…
Pub rock was a British musical genre which endured from the early 1970s to the early 80s. It’s a genre that is defined less by…
The partnership of British comedy scriptwriters Ray Galton and Alan Simpson lasted over 50 years. They met in 1948 whilst recuperating from tuberculosis at the…
The doorway was just south of Shaftesbury Avenue on the west side of Wardour Street. Walk along the echoey hall, down the stairs to the…
On Christmas Day 1995, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a short documentary on Oliver Postgate (pictured below) and Peter Firmin (pictured above), entitled Trumpton Riots. Presumably intended…
From 1968 to 1982, studio-based musicians in the employ of Pickwick Records in Britain mimicked everyone from The Sex Pistols to Roxy Music. Eight albums were issued…
Look at Life was a regular series of short documentary films produced in Britain between 1959 and 1969 by the Special Features Division of the…
John Simons Little did he know it, but in 1965 the clothes stylist John Simons was about to start the skinhead movement in Britain. Simons, a pure Mod at…
