Keeping alive the glorious spirit of 1976
Although there have been hotter summers in terms of temperatures reached, the great summer of 1976 remains the benchmark by which other heatwaves in the United Kingdom are measured. There are many good reasons for this. During the intense and unrelenting heat of that year reservoirs dried up, roads melted, crop yields were badly hit […]
Continue ReadingAs any self-respecting sexagenarian will tell you, things were so much better in our day. Sure there was no TikTok, no Facebook, no Instagram, no video games, no PlayStations. In fact there was no internet, no mobile phones, no laptops and no desktops. For many indeed there was still not even the luxury of a […]
Continue ReadingIf the mid 1970s could be said to have thrown up a hero who truly reflected the mood of the age, it may well have been one Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli, better known to those of us who were there as “The Fonz”. The Fonz was not a real-life person, but a TV character in a […]
Continue ReadingThere has probably never been a decade like the seventies for smart sleuths and cool cops. And whilst the Americans commanded the larger part of the market, there were some unforgettable British contributions too. Here we take a look at some of the most memorable crime-busters to grace our screens during the glorious 1970s: 1. […]
Continue ReadingFor those of us to whom amassing our own personal collection of 45s was the teenage pursuit of the 1970s, the Chinnichap moniker always served to lend the latest 7-inch vinyl cut the ultimate seal of authenticity. Whether it came packaged in the stark orange of RCA Records or the pale blue colours of RAK, […]
Continue ReadingNostalgia, defined by Merriam-Webster as “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period”, is one of the most powerful emotions there is. This is why so many great songs have been written which invoke a longing for the past, typically either ruing the loss of a treasured relationship or […]
Continue ReadingThe Irish radio presenter Henry Kelly once drily remarked that “1976 was a good year because we were so much younger then.” He was right, of course. And just possibly he was pushing back at the avalanche of nostalgic sentiment that would appear to surround that year in particular, with its sporting achievements and its […]
Continue Reading. To those of us who were yet to reach our teens back in the very early 1970s, bands like Humble Pie meant very little. Certainly we’d seen their names in the columns of the music papers, and the scribblings of the bigger kids on the school desks gave some hint that there was a […]
Continue ReadingTo understand the unique place that 1976 holds in the annals of popular music and culture, it is first necessary to reflect awhile on what had gone immediately before. As the Summer of Love passed into the realms of ever more distant memory and the seemingly interminable 1960s – with its mods and rockers, beats […]
Continue ReadingUs kids who’d started school in the 1960s had been raised on Monopoly, Cluedo, Old Maid and Happy Families – classics all, to be sure – but the 1970s saw an explosion of innovative new board games and toys the arrival of which in our Christmas stockings would be an eagerly anticipated event. Here are […]
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