Keeping alive the glorious spirit of 1976
. Us children of the 1970s may bore our kids into slumber with our tales of how great life was back in “our day”, but what was it that made our adolescence so special? There are literally hundreds of things that made that decade stand out amongst all the times in which to be growing […]
Continue ReadingOne of my fondest televisual memories of the 1970s was the Saturday evening treat that was Candid Camera. Not the American version which (unknown to me at the time) had been running since 1948, but the one which, despite having borrowed the name and the format from our transatlantic cousins, revelled in a style of […]
Continue ReadingToday the process of acquiring milk, from the grocer’s or the supermarket, is fairly routine. Just as with any other food item, we take the requisite number of cartons from the shelf, place them in our shopping baskets and pay for them at the till – or self-service checkout, or whatever. But it wasn’t always […]
Continue ReadingIt cannot be denied, 1970s comedy can be a sticky subject. Society’s values have changed, and what was considered funny once may now be frowned upon as unacceptable and even downright offensive. Our perpetual quest for subtlety and nuance has also undoubtedly rendered much of it embarrassingly predictable. And yet in our desire always to […]
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 ReadingTo those of us whose day it was, for so many years all human existence revolved around Thursday evenings and the thirty-minute broadcast on BBC1 which brought us news of all the latest movements from the UK singles’ charts. Whichever football team one supported, which school one went to – Top of the Pops was […]
Continue ReadingIt is pretty much unthinkable that anyone who remembers the 1970s would not recall the determined interventions of Mrs. Constance Mary Whitehouse, CBE, guardian of the nation’s conscience, which were frequent and resolute. An evangelical Christian and former sex education teacher, for the best part of three decades Mary Whitehouse and her much-feared letters of […]
Continue Reading1. Concorde enters service On January 21st 1976 a British Airways Concorde took off from London Heathrow airport with a full compliment of passengers destined for Bahrain, while at the exact same time Air France’s maiden Concorde flight left the runway at Paris’ Orly airport for Rio de Janeiro. After initially having been refused permission […]
Continue Reading. Few institutions have aroused fascination and mockery in such equal measure as the Eurovision Song Contest. Staged by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1956, it is easily the longest-running televised competitive annual musical event. Each year most of the nations of Europe, plus one or two others besides, vie for the prize of […]
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