The traditional “gateway to the north”, the Watford Gap motorway service area on the M1 in Northamptonshire, was originally known as The Blue Boar. The…
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Why, when the rest of Britain in the late ’50s and early “60s was back-pedalling away from solid rock & roll into a goo of…
In the late 1950s, the American pop industry stumbled upon a new and startling hit-making formula: the ‘Death Disc’. Jody Reynolds started the ball rolling…
The overnight success of The Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers in early 1963 sent the London managers, agents and record company men scurrying not…
Trying to define the Midlands is like trying to define “the underground”, and so it can be appreciated that defining the Midlands underground is extremely…
This “Bird’s Eye View of Magpie” appeared in the TV Times for the week commencing 3 January 1973. The aerial photograph shows the areas the Teddington Studios used…
No. 22 The first resident at #22 Ramsay Street was stripper Daphne Lawrence (Elaine Smith, pictured at right), and when she moved in with Des…
Seventy pounds of gelignite ripped through the apartment block at No. 96 Lindsay Street on 8 September 1975 in an attempt to win back viewers…
Dudley Butterfield (Chard Hayward) High-camp caterer and lifelong movie buff Dudley was involved in a long-running gay relationship with Don Finlayson before he realised he…
My earliest recollections of school are from the mid-1960s when I began going to the local Infant School in South Yorkshire, where I grew up.…
A selection of behinds-the scenes photographs from the golden days of Coronation Street – the official Guinness World Record holder of the title for the longest-running…
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A pretty girl singer sat smiling as her record was played. Feet owned by teenage fans tapped peppily throughout the television studio as the cheery,…
In the 1970s and 80s, a panel beater’s council house in Sheffied (South Yorkshire) doubled as “Studio Electrophonique”, a recording studio that was the launchpad…
Members of The Beatles’ fan club were rewarded with a special seasonal gift each Christmas between 1963 and 1969 – their very own 7″ Beatles…
In 2020, with COVID-19 raging and much of the world locked down, working from home and communicating via Zoom and other online video conferencing platforms,…
During the summer of 1967, The Beatles’ Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club album had shot straight to the top of the UK and US album charts. A…
All Playlists are hosted and streamed via Spotify
Since the advent of commercial television, ratings represented a matter of life and death on the air for virtually every television star and series. As…
“John, please don’t go. They’ll kill you,” screamed one of the 500 young Beatlemaniacs who braved the London rain to watch John, Paul, George and…