1983: Some Magazine Fashion And Food Ads For The Ladies...

It's 1983 and we're all getting into exercise and some of the girlies are also getting into aerobics. And it's time to get into deodorant. And wear legwarmers when you work out. They're no longer just practical articles for draughty places. No, they're an essential fashion item. And you can always put deodorant on your shins and ankles to stop 'em getting all hot and niffy.

Don't imbibe loads of sugar - drink fizzy diet drinks in your leg warmers. And then do some aerobics.

This is 1983, we have new hair styling products, so ditch the hairspray (you'll ruin the ozone layer) and scrunch in the gel or the mousse instead.

Enjoy a drop of alcohol (as part of a calorie controlled diet, of course) and get some trendy gear to advertise your favourite tipple. It saves people asking what you're having down at the local boozer. The outfit in this picture is sooo 1980s. Off the shoulder. Grey, with red piping and matching sports bag.

A pal of mine had a grey sofa with red piping in the mid-to-late '80s. I wanted one, but people kept spilling things like baked beans and Stella Artois at my flat. So there was no point. The effect would have been quite ruined.

L'ORÉAL FREE STYLE MOUSSE.

Because today's hairstyles need hold and a natural touch.

And when you've got loads of gunk - gel or mousse - in your hair, worry not. Timotei shampoo has just arrived so you can wash your hair as often as you like.

Exotic perfumes like Choc de Cardin could suddenly waft you away to a foreign beach. Hopefully, it would also bring you home again.

Eat sensibly. Keep an eye on your waistline with Waistline chicken and celery soup. Because you and Crosse & Blackwell make tastier meals.

This is 1983, so the big booming doshy '80s are not properly underway yet, but if your old man or latest squeeze does have a bit of dosh around you might get lucky. If you can keep him out of the bookies, that is.

More 1980s magazine ads soon.

1980: Pam St Clement, Pat Of EastEnders, Cuts Her Soap Teeth In Emmerdale Farm...

Pam St Clement, the wonderful Pat Wicks/Butcher/Evans in EastEnders since 1986, once played a Mrs Eckersley in Emmerdale Farm. Making her debut in episode 561 on 10 March 1980, she appeared in the Yorkshire farming saga for five episodes, bowing out in episode 565 on 25 March 1980.

Mrs Eckersley was a Beckindale local, and was called into help at Emmerdale Farm when Annie Sugden (Sheila Mercier) and her father, Sam Pearson (Toke Townley), went on a competition-won holiday to Ireland.

She was a capable woman, well able to step into Annie's shoes at the Aga.

Mrs Eckersley's family consisted of her husband, Harold (Roger Hammond), and teenage daughter, Esmarelda (Debbie Farrington). Esmarelda had written a book and was distressed when her manuscript was rejected by the publishers she'd sent it to.

The newly returned (and recast) Jack Sugden (Clive Hornby), himself a published author, helped Esmarelda through her disappointment.

Locals though they were supposed to be, once this story-line was complete, the Eckersleys were never seen or heard of in the show again.

Thora Hird - The 1980s: Never Too Late, Praise Be! A Cream Cracker Under The Settee, Hallelujah!

It wasn't alternative, but it was realistic and optimistic - it was Never Too Late, a 1980-1981 BBC Radio 4 comedy by Terry Gregson, starring the brilliant English character actors Thora Hird, Megs Jenkins, Avis Bunnage and Joe Gladwin.

Thora, who was a member of my own wonderful grandmother's generation and shared many of her qualities, played the highly capable Hilda Springett - a pensioner organising a holiday for her friends and neighbours, including man-mad Mildred Emmett, played by Avis Bunnage. Of Mildred, Hilda said: "Anybody who thinks promiscuity started in the 'sixties should have known Mildred in her twenties!"

Megs Jenkins was feather-headed Emily Holroyd (Mildred: "Remember when they dropped that bomb on the gasworks?" Emily: "That'd be during the war.")

Joe Gladwin was the oft morose Tommy Preston, who discovered that even the marmalade wasn't as good as it was when he was a lad.

Oddly enough, the show had the same theme tune as Terry & June!

A second series followed late in 1981, running into 1982, with Hilda and her pals raising funds to keep the local day centre for the elderly open.

Never Too Late = fondly remembered.

Thora Hird kept a very special appointment in 1983 - to collect her OBE. In the early 1990s, she became a Dame of the British Empire. We were pleased for her, my family, friends and I, but she was always just "Thora" to us. Not that we'd ever met her, but we felt as if we had. Thora had such a natural way about her on-screen, she seemed like one of us.

My gran never referred to Thora's Sunday evening hymn request show by its titles; when it began in 1977 it was a studio-based show called Your Songs of Praise Choice. In 1984 it became Praise Be! But Gran simply called the show "Thora":

"Thora's on tonight, so we'll make a cuppa beforehand, and then we can settle down."

I often used to visit Gran on Sundays (I was usually nursing a hangover!), so often saw Thora then. In the '80s there was some wonderful location filming with ducks, dogs and glorious countryside.

In 1983, Thora starred in the Dick Sharples telly comedy Hallelujah!

She was, of course, already appearing in Mr Sharples' other telly comedy, In Loving Memory, which had premiered (with a different cast) in 1969 and became a series from 1979 to 1986.

In Hallelujah! Thora played disaster-prone Captain Emily Ridley of the Salvation Army, trying to make a success of running a citadel in a small northern town, and avoid being put out to grass. She was assisted by her widowed niece Alice Meredith (Patsy Rowlands), who would much rather have found a nice man and settled down again.

A serial bigamist, who had only done it because he couldn't face "living in sin", formed one of the storylines in the first series. A young Richard Whiteley turned up, playing himself, in another episode in which Captain Emily nearly fell off the roof at Yorkshire Television, trying to prevent a stoat keeper from committing suicide!

A second series followed in 1984.

The 1980s were truly a wondrous time for Thora fans. Remember her in Last Of The Summer Wine, and Alan Bennett's absolutely brilliant Talking Heads instalment A Cream Cracker Under The Settee?

No offence meant, but I was never a great fan of Last Of The Summer Wine. However, when Thora Hird arrived as Edie Pegden (she joined the cast in 1985, and made her screen debut on New Year's Day, 1986, in an episode entitled Uncle Of The Bride), I had a lot more time for the show - even began to enjoy it. The character, complete with Thora's tried and trusted "phone voice" routine ("Hoh how har you?"), was a delight, bolstering the monstrous regiment of women with her coffee mornings - and balancing out the men (with their long-running juvenile antics) a little more.

1980s newcomer Edie Pegden (Thora Hird) with Last Of The Summer Wine stalwarts Nora Batty (Kathy Staff) and Ivy (Jane Freeman).

Thora wasn't only like a favourite relative or good friend visiting us via the telly screen - she was an absolutely top-notch actress.

And that didn't just mean comedy, either.

1987's A Cream Cracker Under The Settee was a tremendous revelation to me - it was the first time a performance by Thora ever made me cry. I was working as a care assistant at a Social Services home for the elderly at the time, so thought that the show would be of interest. But I was completely bowled over. I wept, and wept - and wept some more. And thoughts of the show kept me awake well into the early hours.

I don't ever recall reacting to a dramatic performance like that - before or since.

And at other times during this era, when Thora was making me laugh and making me cry as various fictitious characters, I was glad to see her, via the tube, popping in for a natter as herself.

There was a wonderful simplicity and integrity about "our Thora".

She was utterly convincing when acting a role. And always seemed utterly genuine when appearing as herself.

In fact, she was a bit of a one-off.

And she's sadly missed.

In 1987, Doris took a tumble and discovered that Zulema had left a cream cracker under the settee. Thora Hird's portrayal of Doris earned her a BAFTA award for best actress.

1980: The Axing Of Waggoners' Walk...

Walking the walk... Mike and Claire Nash (Edward Cast and Ellen McIntosh) owned No 1, Waggoners' Walk, centre of a lot of the serial's action, from 1969 to 1980.

BBC Radio 2's sometimes controversial soap opera Waggoners' Walk, which had been on air since April 1969, was last broadcast in 1980 - it ended as part of the BBC's economy cutbacks. Bizarrely, Waggoners' Walk was, at the time of its enforced demise, the highest rated show of BBC Radio's drama output - this was pointed out back then. I couldn't help wondering just what the logic was in cutting this particular show, and wondered if the BBC, piqued at being made to pull in its belt, had decided to take it out on the audience?

And "Auntie" was very snobbish about soap opera at that time anyway. EastEnders was still years away.

The Beeb firmly turned down Capital Radio's request to take over Waggoners' Walk. Boo to the BBC!

Waggoners' Walk had often been fearless and controversial, covering story-lines like cancer, hypothermia and homosexuality.

The first homosexuality story-line had actually been a bit of a cop-out, with the gay man being a peripheral character who later "reformed", married and lived happily ever after. But never mind.

The show had its roots in a one-off radio play broadcast in early 1969, called The Ropewalk. It featured a lonely young woman - newly arrived in the capital from the north of England - prepared to offer her virginity to a stranger in a squalid bedsit, an anti-Vietnam demo, and a bouncer from a Soho clip-joint - where a young prostitute died of a heroin overdose.

And yes, this was in 1969.

Major characters in the Waggoners' saga included Mike and Claire Nash (Edward Cast and Ellen McIntosh) - he the editor of the Hampstead Herald, she a former model. Mike and Claire owned No 1 Waggoners' Walk; Lynn and Matt Prior (Judy Franklin and Michael Spice) - lady-like southerner Lynn and fiery northerner Matt were my two favourite characters. "Bloody wars, Lynn!" Matt would cry as news of the latest sophisticated goings-on in Hampstead reached him. "Matt! Behave yourself!" Lynn would reply. Matt and Lynn owned a restaurant and lived at the Old Bakery in Haverstock Hill. And then there was Liz and Peter Tyson (Ann Morrish and Basil Moss) - Peter was Lynn Prior's first husband. He and Liz lived in Minden Road and Liz worked on the Women's Page at the Hampstead Herald.

To end our round-up of memorable Walk characters, I'm sure fellow fans will remember Peter's father, the horribly grumpy Arthur Tyson (Lockwood West), and his genial friend George Underdown (Alan Dudley), who seemed to have found happiness with a late-in-life marriage, only to have that happiness cruelly snatched from him.

In 1980, Waggoners' Walk got an omnibus edition at last - beginning on Sunday, 20 January. Also in early 1980, the show opted to go down the gay route again, this time properly it seemed, when one of the characters - a restaurant waiter by the name of Rob Pengelly - announced: "Girls don't turn me on at all." This scene was actually rebroadcast as part of one of the first omnibus editions. At SUNDAY teatime, hallowed home of the classic Sunday serial on TV and Stars On Sunday! 

Cynical teen that I was, brought up on a '70s diet of The Sweeney, The Wheeltappers And Shunters Social Club, Bernard Manning and George And Mildred, I muttered, "The BBC won't stand for this. They'll have this programme off in quick sticks."

"Queers", "benders", "poofs" or "woolly-woofters" as gay men were called around my district in the 1970s (not that any actually lived there as far as I knew but everybody had an opinion on them and, it seemed, everybody was a bigot) were definitely not the sort of thing you expected to hear about at tea time on Radio 2 - not even in 1980. Particularly at SUNDAY teatime!

I've no idea if the gay story-line actually did have any bearing on the matter, but, very shortly after it began, the axing was announced.

There was uproar, including a debate in Parliament, but the BBC was having none of it.

A friend of mine suggested that Margaret Thatcher's Government was responsible for the show's demise, as the BBC was being forced to make cutbacks. But this simply made me laugh. What company in its right mind decides to ditch one of its most successful products when looking at areas where savings can be made?

The show's forthcoming demise was actually mentioned in the plot by a character called Jessie Brewer to an aforementioned character called George Underdown some time before the final episode. Jessie was having a moan and ended a list of woes with: "BBC cutbacks - have you heard about them taking off Waggoners' Walk?"

"Um, yes," said George, who actually wasn't paying much attention as his mind was occupied by other problems. But George was a character in Waggoners' Walk, and his problems were simply Waggoners' Walk story-lines!

Highly weird.

The scene fused my brain for weeks afterwards.

TV soap opera moved on in the 1980s, gritty social issues were examined, some soaps developed a hefty left-wing subtext, and, in 1987, BBC Radio Four produced a brand new soap called Citizens, revolving around a group of friends sharing a house in London.

I tuned in eagerly, but quickly tuned out again. The show seemed, to my mind, almost desperately topical, and I felt it was tarnished by the then emerging political correctness.

Citizens soon went down the dumper.

What a shame Auntie hadn't stuck with Waggoners' Walk, I thought at the time.

And it was a shame.

The BBC had two widely differing serials on radio - Waggoners' Walk, set in 'appy 'ampstead, and The Archers, set in sleepy Ambridge. Both worked beautifully. One complemented the other. And I loved the way these serials spurred my imagination to form pictures of characters and settings.

I still listen to and enjoy The Archers.

And I still bemoan the loss of Waggoners' Walk, nearly thirty years on. When nostalgia takes me, I have several episodes I taped from the radio back then that I can listen to.

Oh well. The 1980s took away but they also gave us soaps - Brookside, EastEnders, Take The High Road and, of course, the brilliant spoof Acorn Antiques.

Here's what Victoria Wood had to say about her most celebrated creation:

"It was a homage to Crossroads but also to a terrible radio series called Waggoners' Walk which was on then."

"Terrible"? Flippin' 'eck!

Still, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

And I loved Acorn Antiques, too!

After Waggoners' Walk ended, a novel was published, Waggoners Walk - The Story Continues..., written by Terry James, one of the show's scriptwriters.

The final episode was heard at the end of May 1980, and it went out with a cliffhanger: middle-aged George Underdown, whose wife had died of a heart attack the year before, asked a girl thirty years younger than himself to marry him - Sophie Richmond, victim of a rape in 1979.

In the final scene, a shocked Sophie told George she needed time to think about it.

The novel took the saga on to September 1980, when Sophie married George. Sophie had decided that marriage to middle-aged George was right for her. The rape had left her afraid of sex, and George had told her that a "platonic marriage", based on companionship, would be all right with him. Sex had never played a large part in his life anyway.

On the last page of the book, Sophie discovered George crying over a photograph of his dead wife and telling it that he'd only married Sophie because he missed her so much.

"I think I may have made the biggest mistake of my life," Sophie told herself.

The End.

Another cliffhanger, this time never to be resolved!

Readers of the "Story Continues..." left Waggoners' Walk for the very last time in September 1980.

And this particular reader was tearing his hair out!

1986: Anti-Thatcher Propaganda In Coronation Street...

Bet looks bilious and talks baloney in 1986.

Eee, the 1980s! The decade when we split into two camps - LOVE THATCHER or HATE THATCHER and our soaps developed a Left Wing bias. I fell into the "HATE" camp, very firmly, and a glimpse of Margaret on my TV screen would have me screeching for the remote control.

Brookside bravely showed us its views on what a rotten country it was under Thatcher, and EastEnders followed suit.

The realities were far more jumbled (I hope one day somebody writes an unbiased study of the turbulent, multi-faceted '80s) but it was a shame when Corrie stooped to silly anti-Thatcher propaganda, and put absolute nonsense into the mouth of Rovers Return landlady Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear), briefly making a mockery of the character.

It happened in 1986. The legendary Hilda Ogden (Jean Alexander) asked Bet to reinstate Sally Seddon (Sally Whittaker) to her full-time post as Rovers barmaid, as Bet had just employed Betty Turpin (Betty Driver) to make the pub food, and cut Sally's hours.

Said Bet: "We're not living in the '60s and '70s now, Hilda, when the problem weren't getting the jobs, it were persuading folk to turn up and do them. Nobody were a bigger skiver than me - never worked Mondays and Fridays for years. But them days have gone, Hilda - and nobody can fetch them back..."

Say WHAT?

Firstly, whilst Bet was known to skive off under Annie Walker's regime at times, she didn't often get away with it, often ended up shouldering more work than she thought she should, and sometimes worked when she wasn't scheduled to - to suit Lady Walker's whims.

So, it seemed the scriptwriter didn't know Bet's history very well.

But worse was the absurd notion that the 1970s were a time of full employment.

Let's trek back briefly. In the 1970s, unemployment passed the million mark before we were midway through the decade, and stood at around one-and-a-half million by the end of the decade.

And Coronation Street fully reflected the fact. The thorny issue of unemployment visited The Street a number of times.

In the mid-1970s, there was much publicity about graduates leaving universities and being unable to find work. Coronation Street featured this issue in 1975, when Annie Walker (Doris Speed) was threatened by two young men in her bedroom, seeking to rob her. She was informed by one of them that he had been through college, but there was no job for him.

In 1976, teenagers Gail Potter (Helen Worth) and Tricia Hopkins (Kathy Jones) faced losing their jobs at the Corner Shop. They tossed a coin for the chance of a job at Sylvia's Separates clothes shop, and Gail won. Trisha could not find employment, and left the Street to live with her parents.

Also that year, Alf Roberts (Bryan Mosley) was terrified at the possibility of redundancy at the sorting office where he worked.

And 1976 brought us the grim tale of local pillar of the community Ernest Bishop's photographic business going bankrupt and his and wife Emily's desperate searches for work. Emily was forced to take a job as an orderly at the infirmary, Ernest spent several months in the wilderness before being employed by Mike Baldwin.

Another epic tale from '76 involved a dastardly plan devised by Annie Walker to cut Betty Turpin (Betty Driver) and Bet Lynch's wages, rather than give them a pay rise! Both walked out, but walked back in again, glad to have their jobs back, when Annie dropped her plan. The pay cut would not go ahead, but they wouldn't get any pay rise that year either, Annie decided!

Betty Turpin was surprised in 1976 when the local factory girls went on strike. With a million and a half unemployed, she couldn't understand the girls walking out of their workplace for any reason, she said.

Fred Gee (Fred Feast) told Annie Walker that he was well aware he was lucky having two jobs when a lot of folk didn't have one!

Not long before Christmas 1976, Terry Bradshaw (Bob Mason), brother of Corner Shop owner Renee (Madge Hindle) lost his job with Fairclough and Langton, builders and plumbers. Despairing of finding another job in the district, and romantically rebuffed by Gail Potter, he went back into the Army.

In 1977, Steve Fisher (Lawrence Mullin) decided to go abroad to find work when he was sacked by Mike Baldwin (Johnny Briggs), saying he was going "because there's no jobs here." Fortunately, Mike reinstated him.

In early 1978, Ernest Bishop (Stephen Hancock) was accidentally shot and killed by two unemployed young men in a wages snatch at the denim factory.

In late 1978, unemployed Gail Potter and Suzie Birchall (Cheryl Murray) decided to seek work in London, although they were warned that it might not be easy. In the end, Gail chickened out, and Suzie set off for the bright lights alone, only to return in early 1979, disillusioned. Her failure to find permanent work, and her drift into a tacky relationship with a wealthy older man, note wealthy (Suzie did!), made fascinating viewing.

If Bet Lynch had been a real person she would have never have made such a barmy comment about full-employment in the '70s. The Bet we saw on-screen in '70s Corrie knew the realities.

But there she was, in 1986, basically stating: before Margaret Thatcher, we had full employment!

Maggie was obviously to blame. Before her, everything in the UK employment garden was peachy.

It was a shame. The illusion briefly fizzled. It wasn't Bet speaking, it was some well paid scriptwriter, spouting Left Wing propaganda on his/her soapbox.

Now, if Bet had said: "Things haven't been easy for a long time, but they've got a damn sight worse since Thatcher came to power - unemployment's more than doubled!" I'd have risen from my armchair and cheered.

But in 1986, when the grim realities of the '70s were far too recent in memory to have been hyped and rewritten, her comment simply brought a puzzled "EH?!!" from yours truly.

I well remembered my step-father's time on the dole back in the '70s. And still do.

Bet's boob qualifies as one of the battiest comments in Corrie history.

But it's an interesting manifestation of the "EVERYTHING WAS FINE BEFORE THATCHER" propaganda churned out by many TV scriptwriters in the soaps and drama series of the 1980s.

Below are some screen captures (courtesy of the Back On The Street blog) from just a few of the 1970s Coronation Street story-lines which reflected the difficult times when it came to seeking employment...

Intruder: "I've worked very hard, been to college, but there's no job for me, nowhere. So I've decided that what I can't get legally, I'm prepared to take.."

Emily: "What's wrong with us, Ernest, why CAN'T we find work? I mean we're reasonably well-educated, responsible adults..."

Tricia: "I've 'ad a sickener round 'ere just lately - no money, no job..."

Alf: " 'New Staffing Levels', they called it. I never thought it'd work out like this."

1978 - Ernie was accidentally shot and killed when two unemployed youths tried to snatch the wages at the denim factory.

1983 Fashion: Pink And Grey, Stonewashed, Bespectacled, With Pushed-Up Sleeves...

From the John Myers autumn and winter catalogue, 1983: "Just like the Kids from Fame!"

The little girl on the far left is wearing leg warmers on her arms. Oh, silly me, they're elbow warmers. How daft am I?

From the spring and summer 1983 Brian Mills catalogue. I always liked a girl in a ra ra. But, with the mini ra ra skirts which were so popular in 1982 and '83, the effect was often ruined by black lycra leggings, ending at the knee, worn under the skirt. These longer ra ra's gave room for extra flounces. And no need for leggings. Not that this fact halted the trend for leggings. But then '80s fashion was usually anything but logical.

Nice.

I wish these colourful styles would come back into fashion, don't you?

Never in a million years?!

Oh well, suit yourself...

Let's have another quick look at the John Myers Autumn & Winter 1983 mail order catalogue... Nice jackets. What does the blurb say?

Our linen look jackets give you the texture and comfort of linen without the creasing and crumpling you get with the real thing. £1.06 a week is all we're asking. Dry clean. 85% viscose, 15% nylon.

Grey Light blue Burgundy

Half a doz, please - three in blue, three in burgundy. Ta.

What a cool dude! Those "mirror" glasses were popular with robotic dancers and body poppers. I remember wearing denim with a far more pronounced stonewashed effect a year or two later.

Pink and grey stripes... hmmm...

The '80s thought that mixing grey and bright colours was a very lovely thing to do.

1984: Sir Alec Jeffreys And A "Eureka!" Moment - The Discovery Of DNA Fingerprinting...

Alec Jeffreys at work in his Leicester University lab in 1985.

Scientist Alec Jeffreys (now Sir Alec Jeffreys) was at work in his lab at Leicester University, England, in September 1984, when something astounding happened - he accidentally discovered what he called "DNA fingerprinting", and a whole new world was opened up.

This was a one-off, stand alone, out-of-the-blue discovery which was to have an amazing impact on the world. It was totally unexpected and unsought for.

In the late summer of 1984, Jeffreys was working on a project to study how inherited illnesses pass through families. The project failed.

But the result, although not what Jeffreys had envisaged or even imagined in his wildest dreams, was absolutely stunning.

Says Jeffreys: "I was on my own in the darkroom at 9.05 on September 10, 1984, when that pattern came up and I twigged what we had stumbled upon. Just that single bit of X-ray film threw open a door we didn't even know was there. It opened the whole science of forensic DNA.

"My first reaction was that the results were really yucky-looking and complicated. It took about thirty seconds for the penny to drop. I came rushing out of the darkroom. The first person I saw was Vicky Wilson, my technician. 'Hey, we are on to something exciting here,' I told her. We started coming on to all sorts of crazy ideas. I was running round the lab with a needle, pricking myself and spotting blood drops around, because at that point we didn't even know if DNA would survive in a forensic-type specimen.

"It was a 100 per cent accident. Science tends to be a slow, plodding discipline: two steps forward, one step back. To get a 'Eureka!' moment like that, when suddenly an entire new field opens up, is really rare. Most scientists will go their whole lives never experiencing it.

"In those early days you wouldn't have hung a dog on the quality of the DNA fingerprints we were able to produce, but within a few months we were getting much richer patterns. The most sensible thing I did was to call it 'DNA fingerprinting', if we'd given it a more technical or scientific name I'm sure it would have taken much longer for anyone to take any notice.

In recent years, Sir Alec Jeffreys has called himself 'a bit of a beardy-weirdy in the mid-80s'. But, even if it were true, he was so much more than that!

"The following year a lawyer read a piece on our research and contacted us because he thought we might be able to help with an immigration case. The son of a family living in London had gone back to Ghana and when he tried to return ten years later his British passport had expired and the authorities were convinced that another family member was trying to get in under his name.

"Through his DNA analysis we proved that he was telling the truth and to this day it is my proudest case."

Colin Pitchfork was arrested for the rape and murder of two teenage girls after the first "DNA manhunt" in 1987.

In the 21st Century, forensic DNA is an accepted and trusted tool - it has revolutionised crime scene investigations, led to the convictions of murderers and rapists, and transformed immigration disputes and paternity cases.

And just think - it all began, totally unexpectedly, in Sir Alec Jeffreys' Leicester lab on that fateful morning in 1984...

"Eureka" indeed!

Albert Tatlock (Jack Howarth) - On The Honours List!

From the Daily Mirror, December 31, 1982:

Grumpy old Albert Tatlock of Coronation Street makes a special guest appearance in the Honours List.

He receives an M.B.E. in the person of actor Jack Howarth, 86.

Jack, a great fan of the Queen and Mrs Thatcher, has played the part of cadging, cantankerous Albert for 22 years and appeared in the first episode.

In real life he has a heart of gold. He is vice-president of the Stars Organisation for Spastics and a tireless fund raiser.

Of his acting role, he says: "I'll never retire. The Street will go on forever."

A deserved honour for Jack Howarth in my opinion, one of the Street's original greats. But it's interesting to note that the article states:

Jack... has played the part of cadging, cantankerous Albert for 22 years and appeared in the first episode.

But, in the very early episodes, Albert was portrayed as being quite a jolly bloke, and Elsie Tanner commented on what a lovely old gentleman he was!

Of course, it wasn't long before The Rovers regulars were hearing little gems of heartwarming patter from Mr Tatlock - like these:

"Bloomin' 'eck! You young folk don't know you're born!"

"I fought for you in't first lot!"

"I'll 'ave a rum if you're payin'."

Jack Howarth died in 1984 and Albert died too.

Sadly missed.

Anglia Television: BC Of Birthday Club

B.C. - Terror of Anglia Television's Birthday Club in the 1980s...

You had to keep your wits about you with BC on the scene...

B.C. will be well known to younger viewers of ITV regional station Anglia in the 1980s. The puppet was introduced early in the decade to "help" the on-screen continuity person read out young viewers' birthday cards in the popular daily "Birthday Club" sessions, and inspired by the long-running ITV regional puppet character Gus Honeybun - a rabbit.

Helen McDermott worked with Gus at Westward.  

As the 1980s began, Helen was just months into a new role as a continuity announcer with Anglia Television. She put forward the idea to the Powers That Be of the time that an Anglia version of Mr Honeybun would be ideal for that channel's birthday club slots. Anglia was initially unimpressed with the idea, but Helen persevered. It would be good, she said, to have something in the Birthday Club feature that would amuse children who were not waiting for a birthday mention. Eventually, Anglia agreed. Interviewed years later, Helen recalled that the original puppet was then made by somebody called "Vera, from down the road." B.C. made his debut in late 1980.

B.C. - allowed to stay up to welcome in the New Year of 1985.

B.C. looked rather like a leopard, although many thought his ears were more bear-like! Before his launch, there was a competition to name the character. The winning entrant came up with "B.C." (for "Big Cat" and also "Birthday Club") and the little git proceeded to wreak absolute havoc in the years that followed.

-

An angelic wave for a young viewer from BC - but Helen isn't convinced...

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B.C. liked lollipops, and was absolutely charming to the presenter-on-duty. Helen McDermott, the woman who brought him about, was a favourite presenter of mine. She was highly competent at serious reporting/presenting, but also evidently possessed of a sense of humour. She often appeared to be about to get her own back on B.C. as the screen faded to black after a Birthday Club session.

-

All the daytime presenters, including Katie Glass, Patrick Anthony, Caroline Oldrey and Michael Speake, did battle with B.C. in the '80s. In 1986, Michael Speake wrote a book about the character, B.C. And The Magic Book.

The Anglia TV presenters were very much part of our lives, almost like family. "Ooh, Michael's still got that cold," we'd say, or, "What's Patrick cooking tonight?" B.C. was a personality in his own right (as far as I was concerned), a somewhat anarchic addition to the team. But what made him tick? What (or who) was his motivating force?

David Clayton was a presenter at Anglia throughout 1982, and recalls:

"The continuity studio was by necessity small and had the usual collection of discarded announcer presents and letters, the odd pile of face powder compacts, hairbrushes and B.C., the birthday club puppet. My debut as an announcer was with my hand up B.C. operating it for the on-duty day announcer. If you did an evening shift you came in to relieve the day announcer so he or she could get some lunch and a break. You also became the unofficial puppeteer around tea-time for the children's birthday club.

"I think I was B.C. first to Katie Glass and had to crouch down at her side out of shot and try and make B.C. animated and cheeky. Michael Speake used to be quite ruthless with the puppet but Katie was the most frightening to work with. One of B.C.'s features was that one of your hands held a stick coming out of the base of him, the other hand was inside one of his paws. If you were announcing with Katie doing the puppet she had the habit of making B.C. grab your tie just at the last second and yanking downwards with some degree of violence.

"This then made your tie knot extremely small and tight to the point it was virtually impossible to undo it. So for the entire programme you had just linked to, you were struggling to actually undo and re-tie your tie. Short of cutting it off with scissors it was touch and go whether you could make yourself presentable for the next link. Sadly there wasn't an equivalent female garment with which to exact your revenge when roles were reversed."

David also recalls the deelyboppers craze of 1982, and taking a pair in for B.C. to wear on-screen. B.C. was very active that day, lots of head waggling, and one of the boppers fell off. David almost said: "Oh, B.C., you've lost one of your balls!" but managed to substitute the word "baubles" at the last minute! True professionalism!

If anybody has any Birthday Club footage, I would love to see it. It's time to start a B.C. archive! You can E-mail me at: actual80s@btinternet.com

I must confess, I was about sixteen when B.C. made his debut and his target audience was tiny tots and primary school children. But I thought he was great.

Why?

"You were, and are, naturally childish," says my loving wife.

Not at all. B.C. was... er... well... he was... um... cult... yes, that's it, he was cult!!

That makes him respectable.

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The celebrity at home in 1986. The former co-presenter of Birthday Club celebrates his own birthday on April 1st. In 1986, B.C. was living in this desirable residence at the bottom of Uncle Michael's garden. Where is he now?

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Helen in more recent years. That's not the REAL B.C. with her, just a puppet.

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Courtesy of YouTube - inspired 1980s lunacy with BC and his companions.

Eurovision 1981: Bucks Fizz - Making Your Mind Up...

Bucks Fizz, seen here before Eurovision, knew they were on to something with their "whipping the girls' skirts off" routine...

It was all in the best possible taste!

Happy and victorious...

Comparisons were made between Bucks Fizz and the 1974 Eurovision winners, Abba. The two groups were not only similar in looks: musically, "Making Your Mind Up" and "Waterloo" both owed more than a little to 1950s rock n' roll.

From the Daily Mirror, 6/4/1981:

Jubilant Bucks Fizz returned in triumph to London yesterday vowing: "Now we're out to do an Abba."

The four delighted singers were dubbed lookalikes of the Swedish group even before their nail-biting victory in Saturday night's Eurovision Song Contest.

Now, with their winning song "Making Your Mind Up" soaring towards the top of the charts, they're hoping to emulate the world-wide success of Abba.

The group, who have already landed a lucrative recording contract, thought they had fluffed their chance of winning through a poor performance in Dublin.

Another man delighted with the result was Norwegian TV boss Harald Tuesberg. He said: "We are proud to be the only country to finish bottom twice with no votes.

"If someone had voted for us we might have lost our place in the Guinness Book of Records."

Not only did they win Eurovision for us, they also gave us this lovely piece of '80s clatter pop. Good old Bucks Fizz!

Vince St Clair Helps Jack Duckworth Into Coronation Street....

Here we are, in the summer of 1983, and William Tarmey (Jack Duckworth) is still not a permanent Coronation Street regular...

Daily Mirror, June 15, 1983:

As Bill Tarmey walks towards the TV studios, an army of autograph-hunters surround him.

Surprisingly, they're not middle-age women, but teenagers and schoolkids.

And it's not the name of Bill Tarmey they want in their books. Or even Jack Duckworth. "Sign it from Vince," they scream.

For the past couple of years, Bill has had to get used to being called Jack Duckworth - the Jack-the-lad character he plays in Coronation Street. But since he got into trouble with his wife Vera for signing on at an escort agency as Vince St. Clair, the new name has suddenly caught on.

Bill says: "Everywhere I go, people call me Vince. It was all meant as a bit of fun in the scripts. But I'm not going to be able to live down Vince St. Clair in a hurry."

Tarmey has no long-term contract. But he pops up for a spell every few months in The Street - usually for a slanging match with wife Vera, Elsie Tanner's factory-mate.

"It's amazing the way the characters of Jack and Vera Duckworth have caught the public imagination," Bill says.

"The trouble is, every one thinks I really am like Jack Duckworth, who spends his life ducking and diving. And I'm quite the opposite."

Bill says: "I love the character. He's a bit of a head banger is Jack. I suppose you'd call him a lovable rascal."

So, no long-term contract for William Tarmey at the time of the Daily Mirror report on June 15th, although the viewers' interest in Jack Duckworth - and his 1983 alter ego Vince St Clair - appeared to be booming.

But, move on a few days and...

Exciting news - the Duckworths are going to be moving into Coronation Street!

Sunday People, June 19, 1983:

The move will arouse even more resentment against "the family the rest love to hate".

But for night-club singer Bill Tarmey, who plays Jack, it means a long-term contract in Britain's top soap opera - the chance of a lifetime.

That lifetime was almost cut short seven years ago when Bill, then 35, had a massive heart attack on the stage of a Manchester club.

"I thought it was the end, and that I'd never work again." he told me.

But helped by his wife Alma and showbiz friends, he returned to the club scene, and did some small walk-on parts in Coronation Street.

Then he played a tough-guy in The Strangers - the ITV thriller series - and really caught the eye of producers.

He was offered the part of dizzy Vera's husband and made an impact in the Street recently, posing as Vince St Clair at a video dating agency.

"Life has turned full circle for me, but that's showbiz," said Bill, who lives with Alma and their two children in Gorton, Manchester.

1983: Breakdancing And Body Popping - What A Feeling!

From the Daily Mirror, 4/6/1983:

The biggest dance craze since John Travolta set the discos alight in "Saturday Night Fever" is about to turn Britain head over heels.

It's called breaking. And it's a mixture of disco dancing, acrobatics, martial arts - and gut wrenching violence that makes a wrestling contest look like "Come Dancing".

Breaking, or hip-hop, started on the street corners and ended up stealing the show in a film called "Flashdance", which teenage America has turned into the surprise hit of the year.

The soundtrack single - America's No 1 - is already out in Britain, and the film opens later this month. It tells the story of a young girl, played by unknown student Jennifer Beales, who works as a welder and dreams of being a ballet star.

On the road to fame she brings her sexy, breaking-style routines to a nightclub audience, and these are the scenes that captured the imagination of teenagers and packed cinemas from coast to coast.

"Flashdance" made 20-year-old Jennifer a star overnight. But the real stars of breaking are the kids from the backstreets who created the craze.

They gather in America's big cities and launch into solo dances, or breaks, to a beat throbbing from a ghetto-blaster - a giant, portable stereo system.

They dash themselves to the ground, rolling and spinning on hands, necks and bottoms. Or they hurl themselves in the air turning back somersaults and freezing so that they land with a spine-jarring crash...

"Street dance can be just a form of aggression," said Jeff Kutash, who is touring Britain with Dancin' Machine, his troupe of street dancers.

"There's one move called the body slam, where two dancers hurl themselves against each other and bounce off on the rythm. That's popular in the punk clubs in America.

"I've seen cut eyebrows and broken bones. It's a bloodbath."

With the cult go names. In Jeff's group there is Mr X, a swaggering dancer in sequinned denim, Bad News, Sugarfoot and Ricochet Rabbit.

The street scenes in "Flashdance" are the work of the Rocksteady Crew, New York's first professional street dance gang.

Like Dancin' Machine, they perform stylised moves with names like the helicopter swipe, the coffee grinder and the frightening head roll, where a dancer stands on his head and gyrates using his neck muscles.

The milder forms of street dance are already taking off in Britain. There is Street Poppin', made up of jerky muscular spasms, and the gritty, hip-thrusting Nasty Girl and Gigolo.

As the craze spreads, the producers of "Flashdance" are dancing in the streets, too. Within two weeks of being released the 8.5 million dollar film has earned 11.3 million dollars.

The soundtrack LP - out in Britain at the end of this month - sold 700,000 copies in America in the first fortnight.

The single "Flashdance - What a Feeling", shot to the top of the charts there and went straight into the British charts at No 30 this week.

"Flashdance" opens at four London cinemas on June 30 and goes on general release a week later.

From the Daily Mirror, 21/6/1983:

Suddenly the afternoon bustle in Soho's Berwick Street market dies away. The traffic's at a standstill and a crowd has gathered.

They watch as an eccentrically dressed young black turns his body seemingly inside out. And upside down. Every movement is slow, precise and sinuous.

Jeffrey Daniel of Shalamar is Body Popping. Body popping is a Los Angeles street dance. It is the West Coast equivalent to the acrobatic "break dancing" that steals the new "Flashdance" movie.

Jeffrey gave Britain its first stunning taste of body popping when Shalamar appeared on "Top of the Pops" last June.

Until then they were just another faceless disco group. But Jeffrey's electrifying act helped push their single "A Night To Remember" into the charts.

By the end of the year Shalamar had notched up four hits in a row.

They sold out eight nights at London's Dominion Theatre and one at the Wembley Arena...

When Jeffrey is dancing it is hard to believe what he is doing with his body. One moment he glides backwards as if through quick-silver.

The next he shudders like a robot caught in the glare of a disco strobe light.

"Popping is slow and tightly conceived.

"But when it crossed over to the East Coast it became breaking - which is much more physical.

"Breaking is strictly acrobatic, spinning your body around your head or arms.

"Breakers are either gymnasts - or insane! With popping we never have to get on our heads or bounce off pavements."