Marking Time before everything changed.
In many ways, 1978 was a year where very little seemed to happen. After the drought in 76 and the Jubilee in 77, it was a year with no obvious focal points. As a student of politics, however, I can see it as laying the groundwork for the following year’s election.
After years of Post-War Consensus, where both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party agreed on Nationalisation of vital sectors, a large welfare state and high taxes, the speeches of Margaret Thatcher, the opposition leader indicated that she wasn’t interested in continuing with that approach. Most commentators, however, saw it as political positioning, prior to an election that could come at any time, so ingrained was the idea of that consensus. Thatcher’s position as Prime Minister in waiting grew in strength as the year continued and the Labour Party under Jim Callaghan became a minority government reliant on support from small parties to stay in power. The next election had to be no later than November 1979, and although Labour limped through to the end of 1978, it was clear that they were highly unlikely to get that far.
She was connecting with voters by being prepared to move outside the coded political language of the time. In February 1978 she used the word ‘swamped’ in relation to immigration which, deliberately or not, echoed the language of far right MPs such as Enoch Powell and reflected a number of prevailing attitudes in the UK at the time. For example, the first black footballer to play for England, Viv Anderson, made his debut in a European Championship qualifying game against Czechoslovakia in November 1978. Although he was hugely talented and there on merit, he faced volleys of abuse from his own fans. Every week in the league for Nottingham Forest he faced fans throwing bananas at him and shouting racial abuse at him in every game, as did the growing number of talented black footballers like Laurie Cunningham and Cyrille Regis. Although their talent laid the groundwork for the increasing profile of, and opportunities for, later generations, they had to face huge amounts of abuse in an era when football was an expression of attitudes that were even more hostile than those in wider society. The National Front, a fascist party who were close to winning seats on local councils at the time especially in London and the West Midlands, were still active and activists could be found handing out racist literature at Secondary schools in areas where it had some support, like Kent where I lived at the time.
The start of a children’s TV institution
in February 1978, the cosy middle class world of children’s television was shaken up by a new programme set in a North London Secondary school called Grange Hill. It tackled issues such as racism, poverty, bullying and domestic abuse. The topics had hardly ever been brought up in a mainstream children’s programme before, and it was extremely controversial right from the start. Parents hated it and kids loved it because it showed the reality of school beyond the gates and away from the carefully constructed image of parents’ evenings and the open evenings, where junior school children and their parents were given the picture of a supportive environment with kind teachers and well behaved students. The reality was, of course, bullying by staff and other students in a place where the law of the jungle ruled. Phil Redmond nailed the nastier side of school so well that those, who like me saw that side as their daily reality, but parents who were apparently suffering from amnesia after leaving their own schools 25 years earlier, were up in arms!
The cast of children were the polar opposite of the RP stage school types that otherwise dominated children’s TV. There was a reality about them that made Grange Hill more documentary than drama. The main characters for the first series were Tucker Jenkins (Todd Carty), Benny Green (Terry-Sue Patt), Alan Humphries (George Armstrong), Trisha Yates (Michelle Herbert) and Justin Bennett (Robert Craig-Morgan). These characters lasted for the full 5 years – no sixth form for Grange Hill at that time! – but it was Judy Preston (Abigail Brown) who I most identified with, even though she only appeared in the first series and the final episode of Series 2. She was shown on her first day being terrified of the school after the stories she’d been told, only to have those fears rubbished by her mother. She was considered to be ‘posh’ as indeed I was having been to a private school for three years and was worried that this would make her stand out. When she got there she found that the stories were absolutely true, and by Episode 3 she was involved in serious bullying both during and after school. Luckily for her, Trisha is around to help her, resulting in a major crush on Trisha on my part(!), but for many of us there was no Trisha to help so the bullying continued unchecked. The teaching staff were also realistic with the odd, nice teacher like Mr Hopwood (Brian Capron) and Mr Mitchell (Michael Percival) very much at odds with the old guard of unapproachable and occasionally bullying staff who saw children as the enemy.
It is impossible to overstate the effect that Grange Hill had on children at the time. There were finally people and situations recognisable in real life played out on our television. Todd Carty and Michelle Herbert in particular became household names because they were flawed, but essentially nice, kids who were looking for a way through school with as little damage, physical and emotional, as possible. The new reality that Phil Redmond brought to the series paved the way for series like Tracy Beaker in later years, which in many ways would make Grange Hill’s early series look quite cosy! It was very much our programme, an impression reinforced by adult hatred of this new series. Once your parents started complaining about a show you knew it had to be a good thing!
The home grown Starsky and Hutch!
During the first three months of1978, Friday nights were set aside for the most exciting UK series since The Sweeney made its debut. The Sweeney started its final series in 1978 so it was good timing. With an explosive theme tune and the close, but definitely blokey, professional and personal relationship between the two lead characters, Bodie and Doyle, the Starsky and Hutch influence was clear. However, being British TV, the storylines could be more controversial, the action more brutal and the language nearer to the knuckle. Martin Shaw, already an experienced actor with an appearance in Roman Polanski’s Macbeth playing Banquo under his belt, played Ray Doyle, a no-nonsense former policeman. Lewis Collins played the ex SAS hardman, William Bodie, although he was only ever known by his surname. The interesting aspect of Bodie’s character was the fact that he was actually allowed to be as intelligent as Doyle, but he kept it hidden from all but his close associates. Overseeing the two CI5 agents was Gordon Jackson, who had become a household name as Hudson in Upstairs Downstairs, as George Cowley. Tough and uncompromising, Cowley was prepared to accept that Bodie and Doyle would go to any lengths to get a result, but they knew that if they let him down or directly disobeyed him that he would waste no time in getting rid of them.
The Professionals threw its two heroes into a variety of situations that, in one case, was too much for even the more relaxed TV censors of the time. Klansmen was an episode based around a racist group in London, and the language, in an era where racial terms were used with a certain amount of freedom, was too much so the episode was never shown on terrestrial television. Of course, we knew nothing about that at the time and the 12 episodes that were shown made The Professionals a must watch series.
The Scottish star of Saturday nights
The BBC was still the channel to watch on Saturday night, and in September of 1978 they made the decision to continue The Generation Game despite Bruce Forsyth’s defection to ITV. Forsyth had made the show, where two pairs of related couples like Mother and Son, Father and Daughter, Uncle and Niece or Aunt and Nephew, competed against each other for the chance to win prizes from a conveyor belt at the end of the game. Quite honestly though, I wasn’t tuning in for the show or the new host Larry Grayson, brilliant though he was. I was tuning in week after week for Isla St Clair, his Scottish co-host, and another huge crush, who was the first celebrity to send me a signed photo! As you can imagine that was a picture that took pride of place on my wall for a good few years!
Grease is the word – pretty much all year!
The biggest film at the UK Box Office in 1978 was Grease, so it isn’t too surprising if the film soundtrack for the film had spawned a hit or two. Except, it didn’t just do well, it dominated the charts. Although it felt like a whole year when you couldn’t escape from it, it seems that my memory was playing tricks on me. The first single to hit the charts was You’re the One That I Want by John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. It stayed at Number 1 for 9 weeks from the beginning of June and is the fifth bestselling single of all time in the UK, having exceeded the 2 million mark.
Even if you weren’t a big fan of it, you had to admit it did everyone a favour by keeping one of the worst novelty songs ever off of the top spot. The Smurf Song by Father Abraham and the Smurfs was at Number 2 for a frankly baffling 6 weeks. At the time I wondered who was buying it, and the radio was turned off every time it came on. Even Top of the Pops was muted it was that bad!!
After a five week breather, the second mega single from the film, Summer Nights, (definitely my favourite of the two) hit the charts in September and spent 7 weeks at Number 1 selling a ‘mere’ 1.6 million copies. As well as this, Sandy by John Travolta and Hopelessly Devoted to You by Olivia Newton John both hit Number 2 in November, Grease by Frankie Valli got to Number 3 in September and Greased Lightning again by John Travolta got to Number 11 just before Christmas 1978. Between those six singles they shifted nearly 5 million copies and Travolta racked up nearly nine months in the Top 10 on his own! I never saw the film until years later and I never bought any of the singles, but in 1978 Grease was inescapable!
L S Lowry has a brush with musical fame
One of the most unusual Number One records of 1978 was also my favourite. Like Vincent, 6 years earlier, the subject was an artist who became famous for his individual style. L S Lowry was a painter from Salford near Manchester who painted scenes featuring the industrial landscape of the city. It was his instantly recognisable matchstalk figures that gave Brian and Michael (actually Kevin Parrott and Michael Coleman) a very unexpected hit. The song’s chorus that became so familiar was in some ways as apparently simple as the art that inspired it, but as with the art it hid a real talent in plain sight. The song appealed to record buyers of all ages and was Number 1 for 3 weeks. When I bought the single I started to listen more carefully to the words of the verses which told the story of Lowry’s life with economy and understanding, and which are true masterpieces of the songwriter’s art. The third verse probably demonstrates their brilliance most effectively as they are written with wry humour and a certain dismissiveness of ‘experts’.
Now canvas and brushes were wearing thin
When London started calling him
To come on down and wear the old flat cap
They said tell us all about your ways
And all about them Salford days
Is it true you’re just an ordinary chap?
The hidden gem on the B Side is ‘The Old Rocking Chair’, a song that made me very misty eyed when I first listened to it, and indeed every time since. It wasn’t just me who was left emotional. The Ivor Novello award for best lyric went to this incredibly beautiful B Side. I will just leave you to consider the chorus, sang by an old man about his wife.
She was bonny, she was fair
And we made a lovely pair
I’d give half the world to see her
In the old rocking chair.
The best of the rest
Showaddywaddy, in their last really successful year, had three more Top 5 hits. At the time, my least favourite of the three was A Little Bit of Soap. That wasn’t to say that I didn’t like it, but it didn’t appeal to me. I changed my mind after my first trip to see them in concert at the Chatham Central Hall. Listening to Dave Bartram singing that song live gave it a whole new feel and it became a firm favourite from then on. Obviously, I couldn’t admit to kids at school that I had gone because they were as uncool as you could get by then, but I know that everyone else missed out seeing one of the finest live acts of the time!
Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty was one of the most recognisable and classy hits of the year with an incredible saxophone solo that blew me away and gave me a lifelong affection for that song and made me a fan of any song that made use of a saxophone solo! When I was preparing for this blog I wanted to see how long it was Number 1 for. I had a feeling it was 3 or 4 weeks. The answer? It never got to Number 1! It spent two weeks at its highest position of Number 3. Despite this it has to be one of the greatest records of the decade.
The Christmas Number 1 of 1978 was the third Top 10 hit of the year for Boney M, who couldn’t put a foot wrong in 1978. Rivers of Babylon got to Number 1 for 5 weeks in May, outselling You’re the One That I Want, the third biggest selling single of the decade, to become the best-selling single of the year! A fairly accurate historical account of the life and death of Rasputin was a relative failure peaking at Number 2 behind Summer Nights. Their Christmas Number 1, Mary’s Boy Child became the fourth biggest seller of the entire decade. In a year of Grease dominance they were the one act who more than held their own.
Next time
A new occupant in 10 Downing Street and a New Wave carries me away!
The Queen celebrating and the King leaving the building.
In 1977 the focus of the UK was on an event that, for many, would give a welcome respite from the trials and tribulations of a country that was still recovering from one of the worst economic periods in living memory at that time. The Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II was the first major royal celebration since the Coronation, and it involved a large number of events culminating in an extra Bank Holiday on June 7 where people up and down the country held street parties. Not everyone was happy to celebrate, however, as there was a small but vociferous minority of Republicans who felt that the institution should be abolished. Punk rock made the news that month when the Sex Pistols released God Save the Queen. I didn’t hear the song until a few years later, but at the time I was able to guess that it wasn’t the National Anthem! All I remember is that on the Top 20 on a Sunday night and Top of the Pops announced that it was in the charts – reaching Number 2 on Jubilee week itself – but that neither was allowed to play it. That, in itself, gave the record a popularity, and an air of danger, which would probably have escaped it had the BBC not banned it. The actual Number 1 that week was I Don’t Want to Talk About It by Rod Stewart, although rumours persist that it sold fewer copies and was kept at Number 1 to avoid embarrassing Queen Elizabeth.
August 16 1977 saw the death of the biggest star of the 50s and 60s. Although Elvis Presley was already a figure of concern to some, and derision to others, as a result of his ballooning weight it was still a massive shock when his death was announced. It is one of those moments that I can remember exactly where I was. Elvis was only 42 when he died and the outpouring of grief from his grieving fans was a testament to his enduring popularity. There is a tendency to split Elvis’ career into the success of the 50s & early 60s followed by increasing artistic failure thereafter. This isn’t the place to analyse that, but I first got into his music with the previous year’s ballad My Boy and Moody Blue from March. Way Down which was released just after his death stormed to the top of the charts and demonstrated the heights that his voice could still reach. After his death I discovered his early records and his place in my musical affections was secure.
The Grand National and upheaval for cricket
In 1977, the Grand National was at the peak of its popularity. This was due entirely to one horse, Red Rum. He was a sporting star in his own right, and huge numbers of people tuned in to the race to see if he could finally win his third Grand National. After wins in 73 and 74, followed by 2 second places in 75 and 76, it was widely seen as his last chance to write himself into the record books. I was one of the millions glued to the TV on 2 April 1977. As well as watching it, I also recorded it on my cassette player and listened to the race so much in the months afterwards that I became almost word perfect! It was almost as if Red Rum himself knew that it was his last chance. Initially a horse named Boom Docker blew the field away, arriving at the start of the second circuit with the biggest lead ever at that stage of the race, at which point he refused to jump the next fence. This put Red Rum into second place. He hit the front after the leader Andy Pandy fell at Becher’s Brook, and from there on there was only one winner. He came home 25 lengths clear of Churchtown Boy and history had been made. Red Rum retired the day before the following year’s Grand National and had a long retirement before his death at the grand age of 30. Fittingly, he was buried at the winning post at Aintree after becoming the most famous horse in British sporting history.
The beginning of the year saw me glued to the radio in the early mornings as Test Match Special brought news of England’s rare victory over India in a test series played there, thanks chiefly to Tony Greig’s inspirational leadership and tactical brilliance. Then in March we actually saw highlights of the Centenary Test Match in Melbourne, a rare treat for all UK based cricket fans at the time. It was there, unbeknown to us that the preparations for World Series Cricket clicked into gear, with Tony Greig himself as a leading figure. Once the news broke, Greig became public enemy Number 1, with the cricket establishment and the traditional supporters piling in to denounce him. I was immediately a huge supporter of World Series Cricket because if he believed in it then so did I. The way he was treated by the MCC and by some sections of the public was appalling. He stuck to his guns throughout and never wavered in his belief that he was doing this for the good of cricketers everywhere. The years have proven him right, and the highly paid players of today owe him and Kerry Packer a huge debt of gratitude. At the time, it was the county players who saw an immediate improvement. Before World Series Cricket, players were employed by the counties for 6 months a year and left to fend for themselves for the other 6. Cricketers would be drawing the dole from October to April in some cases and selling Christmas trees to make ends meet in others! This was a thing of the past for most as the players started to be paid wages that would last them throughout the year. Mike Brearley, who took over as England captain, insisted on having Greig in the side, who were looking to regain the Ashes, throughout that series, and although the impending court case he was involved in distracted him and left him a reduced figure he still managed to chip in with important runs, vital wickets, and brilliant catches. He might have been a hate figure in some people’s eyes, but he remained my hero and I am pleased that he lived long enough to see that he was right and that the MCC, and the rest of his detractors, were wrong!
American cops and anarchic puppets on the box and in the charts
Television in 1976 went up a gear with the arrival of two wise cracking US cops with charisma to burn and an iconic car, the bright red Ford Torino with white stripes. Starsky and Hutch, played by Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul became the biggest stars on UK TV as their series ran rings round the bucolic British detectives with the exception of the ever brilliant Sweeney. I was very quickly a member of the Starsky and Hutch fandom and Saturday nights were much more exciting as soon as you heard the iconic theme tune. Not content with his success on prime time TV, David Soul showed another side to his talents as a rather brilliant singer of ballads. His first Number 1, and the first new Number 1 of the year, the dreamy and soulful Don’t Give Up on Us was the biggest hit of 1977 until Wings blasted into the Christmas charts with Mull of Kintyre. It sold over a million copies and set Soul up for a year of continuous chart success with follow up singles, Going in with my Eyes Open reaching Number 2 behind Abba’s huge anthem Knowing Me, Knowing You in March, and Silver Lady giving him a second Number 1 in October. This wasn’t a case of a successful programme giving a would be singer a boost, because he had been a singer in the late 60s where he became famous as the ‘Covered Man’ wearing a mask to avoid being marketed for his looks! For most of 1977, Starsky and Hutch pictures joined Julie Dawn Cole on my wall as I became obsessed with the show!
The other crossover success of 1977 came in the form of The Muppets. The Muppet Show had started in 1976 and was shown on Sunday nights by ITV. It quickly became a huge favourite of children, who loved the anarchic puppets, and adults who enjoyed the knowing humour and the A list guest stars. Singers such as Elton John and Debbie Harry, actors like Dudley Moore and Peter Sellers and even ballet star Rudolph Nureyev appeared on a show that quickly became a sensation. The great and the good queued up to be subjected to the Muppet treatment and the charts were not immune from the influence of this groundbreaking show. In May, the ultimate earworm, Mah Na Mah Na was featured in the show and the original record by Piero Umiliani was rushed out, reaching Number 8 in the charts. I can only imagine how parents up and down the country felt as it quickly became a song that most children had in their repertoire for months on end! Even now, the mere sight of those words on a page will have those of us of a certain age singing along in our heads! The other Muppet single to reach the charts was sung by Kermit’s nephew Robin and featured an old A. A. Milne poem set to music. Halfway Down the Stairs was a gorgeous song with a wistful air and lyrics that were easy to learn. For me, it was a single that was probably the last ‘children’s record’ I bought, but it was a record that allowed me to escape to a time when life was simpler and I wasn’t being bullied every day at school. In that sense it allowed me a respite from real life, and for that I will always be grateful. That Christmas, the Number 1 album was The Muppet Show and I was overjoyed to find it under the Christmas Tree. As you might expect I was pretty much word perfect on it before New Year’s Day 1978!!
Plays and Films hit the charts.
In 1977, my favourite James Bond film of the series was released, and I went to the cinema to see it with my Dad and my cousin. The Spy Who Loved Me had everything, a top performance from Roger Moore, an iconic new villain in Richard Kiel’s Jaws, a brilliant opening scene ending with the Union Flag parachute and then to top it all, the best James Bond theme of the lot! Nobody Does it Better was just perfect, capturing the appeal of Bond and boasting a marvellous vocal from the great Carly Simon. It was a song that captivated me as soon as it blasted from the speakers in the Odeon Cinema in Rochester and one I never tire of hearing. The trailers for that film included one for an American sci-fi film that looked pretty exciting. By the time Star Wars reached the Odeon in January 1978 the expectation had built to fever pitch and I was sixth in a very long queue to see the first performance. It didn’t disappoint and I saw it a further 5 times that year. The release of Star Wars/ Cantina Band by Meco in October saw me rush to the record shop. It was a definite appetiser for the main course and an incredibly catchy tune in its own right. Compared to the TV sci-fi of programmes like Doctor Who it looked impossibly futuristic and exciting. Although Doctor Who struggled on against falling ratings for another decade, the big screen phenomenon of Star Wars showed up its lack of money and, as much as Tom Baker continued to make it an essential part of Saturday nights, the writing was on the wall.
In January, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber released the first track from Evita, their forthcoming musical. Don’t Cry for Me Argentina was an instant smash, and the first single I bought that year. I couldn’t tell you why it captivated me so completely, but at the age of 11 I knew that I had never heard anything so dramatic and powerful before. Although the hint of a much bigger story that intrigued me, it was the incredible performance from Julie Covington that made me buy it with some of my Christmas money. It is one of those tunes that raise the hairs up on the back of your neck no matter how often you hear it. It was many years later that I saw my first stage musical, but that track gave me the musicals ‘bug’ and it continues to infect me to this day!
The charts show little sign of the upheaval to come
In the first year of punk, only No More Heroes by The Stranglers really came on to my radar, and although I didn’t buy it I was struck by the power of the vocals and it sent me to the encyclopedia (in the days before Google) to find out about Leon Trotsky and whether he really had had ‘an ice pick that made his ears burn’! Although punk lay largely dormant after that for a while the seed of future listening was there as was my lifelong fascination with the USSR.
Other than that, though, my tastes were still fairly middle of the road and everything that punk was fighting against! It was also the year when instrumental music showed me its power. The prog rock reworking of Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man by Emerson, Lake and Palmer was an exhilarating piece of music that took the power of the classical original and turned it up to 11! Another iconic track gave me my first taste of the electronic, synthesiser based music that was to become the soundtrack to my later teens with Jean Michel Jarre’s Oxygene Part IV. It was like a message from the future that took the listener into another world where technology made anything possible.
Showaddywaddy were still churning out the hits with three more cover versions that reached the Top 5, but I was learning that my continued affection for the band needed to be kept quiet inside the school grounds! However, When and, in particular, the marvellous You Got What it Takes proved that in 1977 at least that Leicester’s finest still had what it took! It’s interesting how your memory sometimes plays tricks on you. I had thought that the sensual vocals of Baccara with their only hit, the Number 1 smash Yes Sir I can Boogie, was the soundtrack to that summer. It turns out that it hit the top just before Halloween! Whenever it was, it was a fantastic song that introduced me to the more European influenced pop that would appear in my record collection from time to time.
The year of punk’s arrival ended with Wings halfway through a 9 week stay at Number 1 and sales of 2 million for Mull of Kintyre, the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band at Number 2 for 6 weeks with The Floral Dance, and Bing Crosby who had died in September, during a round of golf, back in the Top 5 with White Christmas, a song first released in 1942! The old guard were clearly in no mood to move over for the young upstarts quite yet!
Next Time
Grease is the word as the film and the soundtrack dominates the year 1978!
The Programme
New Tricks started in 2003 with a pilot episode that featured Alun Armstrong as Brian Lane, James Bolam as Jack Halford, Amanda Redman as Sandra Pullman and Dennis Waterman as Gerry Standing. The team of 4 made up the Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad (UCOS), although as one suspect pointed out, the correct acronym would be UCOCS! By the time it finished its final series in 2015, UCOS comprised Larry Lamb as Ted Case, Dennis Lawson as Steve McAndrew, Nicholas Lyndhurst as Dan Griffin and Tamzin Outhwaite as Sasha Miller. Throughout that time the Deputy Assistant Commissioner Robert Strickland, played by Anthony Calf, trod the line between admiring their clear up rate and dealing with noses that UCOS had put out of joint! By the end though, he was the most loyal of supporters. In between the pilot and the final episode there were over 100 cases to investigate and guest stars that are pretty much a who’s who of British television. The invitation to join the ‘Old Dogs’ of UCOS was pretty sought after with TV institutions like June Whitfield, Richard Briers, Bernard Cribbins, Roy Hudd and George Cole all accepting roles of varying degrees of villainy!
It became a sure fire ratings winner, with audiences that peaked at over 10 million in its heyday and even regularly attracted 5 million for prime time repeats. It was pretty much unchallenged in its 9pm timeslot for the 12 years it was on the air, and the final series was still pulling in over 7 million viewers in the days before iPlayer artificially inflated such figures. It is one of those shows loved by the public and derided by the critics who constantly sniped from the side lines at its perceived lack of quality. Occasionally, even the actors were none too complimentary about the series as an infamous Radio Times interview, that made feathers fly all over the place, proved! However, that interview came from a genuine desire to see quality maintained and was well meant, despite the actors proving as direct as their screen alter egos! As the original cast started to leave, Bolam in Series 9, Armstrong and Redman in Series 10 and Dennis Waterman in the final series there was the understandable settling in period for the new cast members. By the end of the run, the new team showed huge potential as they brought a different dynamic to the programme whilst still making it recognisably New Tricks. Indeed, it is more than likely that one or two more series would have seen them as well regarded as their predecessors. Sadly they weren’t to get that chance, but they were definitely worthy inheritors of the UCOS banner.
The Guv’nors
Sandra Pullman
Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman was the first current police officer to try to control the headstrong and wayward old dogs. In the pilot she was asked to form UCOS and set out its approach. A recurring theme was set up from the start of few resources and a constant battle against the Deputy Assistant Commissioner, originally Donald Bevan, who wasn’t really sure about the wisdom of letting three maverick pensioners look at old cases that often showed up the incompetence or corruption of the original investigation. Sandra was determined to make the unit work and through the 10 years she was in charge she constantly fought for her ‘boys’ but was never afraid to tear them off a strip when they were out of line. Her initial reluctance to accept their always unconventional, and sometimes borderline illicit, approaches to their jobs mellowed into a tacit acceptance and eventually a complicit encouragement that went far beyond turning a blind eye. Sandra’s loyalty to Jack Halford, her old mentor, was never in doubt, even when it was shaken by revelations over her Dad’s death, and over time that loyalty became just as firm when looking after Brian Lane and Gerry Standing.
Over time Sandra learnt to read the signs of trouble with all three of her charges. If Brian was acting more strangely than usual she invariably went to his no-nonsense wife Esther for help in dealing with it. Given Brian’s alcoholism, she was always very careful not to let him get into harm’s way, but when Brian slipped up, after a case involving a hypnotist, Esther blamed Sandra and UCOS for it and it led to something of an estrangement. Gerry’s problems tended to be related to women or gambling, but once she made it clear that he would be called out on it if they affected his work he became more careful even if he didn’t entirely stay on the straight and narrow. The obvious affection she had for Gerry, which had a frisson of attraction on his side at least (!), meant that he was far more likely to be cheeky to her, but it was always clear that she was in charge especially when he broke the rules. The most complex relationship was with Jack, who had been her boss and occasionally still took it upon himself to lead the team in a different direction if he didn’t agree with her approach. Their deep friendship meant that any blow ups between them tended to be spectacular and deeply upsetting to both parties, but even after Jack disappeared from the office he never fully disappeared from her life as she tended to wonder what he would do in different situations, particularly when she was agonising over her future. At those points she could conjure up his presence in her mind’s eye.
Amanda Redman was fantastic as Sandra over the 10 years and presented viewers with a complex character who continued to develop throughout the series. She was an inveterate romantic who never really wanted to settle down, or, more likely, valued her job more highly given the battle she had faced as a female detective. Quick witted and ready to give as good as she got from her old dogs, she could also be surprisingly sensitive to some of their jibes, particularly when aimed at her by Jack. She was empathetic and disarming to some suspects and confrontational to others, but she invariably got results whichever method she chose. All of these aspects became familiar to us, but Amanda Redman’s skill was to constantly wrongfoot the viewer and keep us guessing. My only thought is that she deserved more of a send off like her three co-stars got, but perhaps that was the way that Sandra was always going to go out, on her own terms with little fuss. She enjoyed making the programme and loved her co-stars, and that shone through.
Over many years, Amanda Redman has become a fixture on our TV screens with brilliant central performances in At Home with the Braithwaites, the marvellous Hope and Glory and her current ratings winner The Good Karma Hospital. in all of those series she has never been anything other than excellent. her range from comedy, at which she displays such a lightness of touch to drama where she can convey a multitude of emotions with just an expression. However, I don’t think any role has suited her more than Detective Superintendent Sandra Pullman.
Sasha Miller
Detective Chief Inspector Sasha Miller had a rocky start as Sandra’s replacement, mainly because of Gerry, who made it clear that he wasn’t going to accept this new boss without a fight. He was disrespectful and did everything he could to destabilise her, whilst trying to bring Danny and Steve along with him. Mind you, they were not entirely eager to follow along as Gerry had form in that respect. Danny had been given a hard time by Gerry when he replaced Brian and even Steve found it difficult when he replaced Jack despite the fact that Gerry liked him personally, although his main difficulties were with Brian. Eventually, through sheer determination, and through showing him how good she was at the job, she won Gerry round and the end of Series 10 finished with Gerry calling her ‘Guv’nor’ to confirm that he had finally accepted her as his boss.
Sasha was different to Sandra in one very important way. Sandra had been brought up in the old fashioned days of policing. She had learnt her trade through following Jack and those of his era for whom the result was the main thing. Sasha, on the other hand was a new style by the book police officer who followed protocols. This was brilliantly brought into focus with Sasha’s second case, Wild Justice, where she investigated the killing of a renowned oncologist. She was sure that Edward Monroe, convicted for that murder was responsible for the murder of a former colleague, but she puts that to one side to build the case against him. Eventually, she finds out the truth. Monroe offers a full confession in return for her not arresting the real culprit. She has a sleepless night fighting with her conscience and then decides that the law must take its course. It is beautifully played and in just a couple of episodes you know that Sasha is going to lead UCOS very much her own way.
Early on, Sasha has problems with her unfaithful husband, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ned Hancock. They cross swords professionally, largely as a proxy for their personal animosity, which puts Strickland into an awkward situation which he resolves by backing Sasha on the case then tearing her off a strip for insubordination to a superior officer! It is noticeable that the UCOS team take her side and make things very difficult for Hancock, a further sign of their growing affection for her.
The final series sees Sasha completely in charge of the team, although a hiatus caused by an injury in the line of duty means that she isn’t around when Ted Case starts making waves with his unorthodox approach to policing. This causes her some problems, particularly when he shows no hesitation in going off piste and approaching 2010s policing with 1980s tactics. Despite her justified concerns as to the trouble UCOS could get in to as a result of Case’s unorthodox methods, she realises that sometimes it gets the results she can’t.
Tamzin Outhwaite had an incredibly difficult job following Amanda Redman, but she passed with flying colours. Her previous television work in Eastenders and the brilliant Red Cap prepared her perfectly for New Tricks, as did her guest appearance in New Tricks in Season 9 for the classic episode Love Means Nothing in Tennis. Her performance in that was subtle and very clever, with an underlying and unsettling brittleness that you couldn’t really put your finger on, and no doubt alerted the writers and producers, if indeed they needed it, that Outhwaite was someone who could definitely step into the role of Amanda Redman’s replacement. Finally, I must just mention her role as Di in Amelia Bullimore’s exceptional Di and Viv and Rose which I saw when Season 11 had finished. She played a Phys Ed student whose physical confidence was offset by an emotional vulnerability and was exceptional in portraying her character across nearly 20 years. Without New Tricks I wouldn’t have seen that play and I would have missed out on one of the best nights I have had at the theatre.
Next Time: The Old Dogs and Favourite Episodes
The Long Hot Summer
1976 was famous for one thing, the drought! It became the summer that those of us who could remember it have judged every summer against ever since. In the years before climate change it was a true outlier of a summer. It is true that the previous summer had also been very good, but there had been rain and cooler days interspersed with the higher temperatures. 1976 saw a hot, dry spell lasting from the start of June to the last week of August where temperatures routinely peaked above 85 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees centigrade) including a run of two weeks where temperatures reached 90 degrees in at least one place in the UK.
A Summer of Cricket
For me it was memorable for two other things. It was the summer after I left Junior School and, unbeknown to me at the time, it marked the start of 7 years of Secondary school where I was to hate every single minute of every single day. It was also the summer where the West Indies came over for what became one of the most extraordinary Test series in history. Tony Greig had promised to make them ‘grovel’, a remark that would have been ill-judged from any England captain but from an England captain brought up in South Africa at the height of Apartheid, it was incendiary. Greig subsequently, and often, apologised for the use of the phrase in later years, but the damage was done and one of the best Test match sides ever were determined to make him pay for those words. Across 5 Test matches they battered English batsmen with a barrage of fast bowling that was unrelenting, and their batsmen made hay on the hard flat pitches with outfields that were yellow instead of green. One batsman in particular stood above all others, the magisterial Viv Richards. His batting was otherworldly throughout the 5 tests and he eventually amassed 829 runs, including two double hundreds. By contrast, England’s best batsman, the redoubtable David Steele once again, managed just 308 runs including his one and only Test match century. He was dropped after the series and was never picked again, in an era when old men who hadn’t played cricket in decades chose the team. The first two matches were actually quite close and produced two hard fought draws, before the West Indies blitzed their way through the next three matches. In the Fourth test Tony Greig and Alan Knott both scored 116 in the England first innings and Greig scored 76* in a valiant rear guard in the second innings but the match was lost. The final Test saw Richards score 291 in the first innings in a total of 687! Dennis Amiss replied with 203 but in a match where all the other bowlers struggled Michael Holding took 8 wickets in the first innings followed by 6 in the second. Towards the end of the match Greig decided it was time to make amends with the West Indies crowd if not the players, who disliked him for many years afterwards, as he got on his knees and grovelled in front of them! https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/0224092243/?coliid=I79PDPGQBMS5I&colid=24PLAUGYEG7O3&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
Three Children’s TV Classics – in my opinion at least!
The TV year got off to a fast start for children with two very different programmes making their debuts on BBC1. Paddington, which replaced The Wombles in the 5 minute slot before the news, was an adaptation of my favourite childhood books. Paddington himself was a 3 dimensional bear while the backgrounds and the other characters were 2 dimensional. It was a very clever approach which put Paddington literally front and centre of every scene. The marvellous narration by Michael Hordern and the instantly recognisable theme tune made it must watch viewing in our household. The way that the adaptations managed to distil the essence of a one chapter story into 5 minutes was close to genius, but of course the real genius was the incredible Michael Bond himself who wrote stories that still resonate with children, and adults, to this day. https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Paddington-Bear-DVD/dp/B0017SBDYG/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=paddington+bear+tv+series&qid=1621251047&s=dvd&sr=1-2
The next programme that captured my imagination and those of my classmates was Rentaghost. With a great theme tune sung by Michael Staniforth, who played the jester Timothy Claypole and, initially at least, very funny scripts it seems on the surface to be just a knockabout TV show. However, underneath there was a melancholier side to the programme. Fred Mumford, played by Anthony Jackson, a ghost who was only recently deceased, set up Rentaghost with Claypole and Hubert Davenport, a Victorian ghost permanently shocked by the modern world, played with an air of pathos by Michael Darbyshire. He set up the firm because they had all been failures in their lives and they finally wanted to succeed even if it was after their deaths. The first few series were underpinned by this idea of exorcising their failures, but after Series 4 had aired, Darbyshire died, and Jackson decided he couldn’t return. With just Michael Staniforth of the original trio still going the decision was made to turn it into a pantomime style romp complete with a pantomime horse called Dobbin. The magic of the first four series was never recaptured, but a children’s show that managed to fit in ruminations about mortality and purpose can be seen as quite a groundbreaking piece of television.
Later in the year came the frankly unmissable Multi Coloured Swap Shop. Well, unmissable for those who couldn’t stand Tiswas at least! There was a clear divide between the two shows with the smoothly professional Swap Shop being very much a BBC show for the ‘well behaved children’ and the anarchic Tiswas being ITV’s pitch for the ‘tearaway youngsters’! That is of course a simplistic reading, but there was definitely an air of playing up to the stereotypes of the core audience, once they had been identified. However, at their heart, both programmes were giving children something they wanted, not what adults thought they should have. From September 1976 onwards every single Saturday morning I was at home saw me glued to the screen for three hours of fun courtesy of Noel Edmonds, Keith Chegwin, Maggie Philbin and John Craven. For me, the combination of presenters, music, chat and cartoons was often imitated but never equalled. Swap Shop was the original and the best. On occasions, over the years, a song played by an artist on Swap Shop would send me on a Saturday afternoon expedition to my local record store, a place I would frequent more and more over the years.
My First Singles
It was a less than spectacular year for music in all honesty, at least looking at it in the cold light of day. At the time, though, it was a year where I bought my first singles for myself. True, they haven’t all exactly stood the test of time (!) but from my early trips to the record shops I realised that I felt at home! My first single was King of the Cops, a reworking of King of the Road that featured bad impersonations of American TV Policemen together with dreadful jokes. Looking back, it was an appalling record, but we all have to start somewhere! However, on the B Side was an absolute gem called Bond is a Four Letter Word with a Sean Connery impression that was actually fairly near the original and a very funny set of lyrics. My second single by The Wombles featured a much better A Side, Womble Shuffle, but once again the best track was on the other side of the single, and again it was Bond themed. To Wimbledon with Love featured a tune that would have been at home in any Bond movie – certainly more so than at least half a dozen more recent efforts – and an atmospheric vocal that conjured up an entire movie in my head in a way only Mike Batt can. Ok, full disclosure, Combine Harvester by The Wurzels was next so you can see that I was obsessed with novelty tracks! What can I say? Even adults liked The Wurzels as Terry Wogan’s show attested to.
Swedish Magic
1976 was the year that Abba really hit their stride. They released three singles that all reached Number 1 and a fourth that ‘only’ got to Number 3. The year started with them finally knocking Bohemian Rhapsody off the top spot with Mamma Mia in the middle of January, then Fernando, Number 1 for four weeks in May and finally the biggest hit of their career in September. In an otherwise run of the mill year, Dancing Queen just exploded into your ears with the opening glissando and the immediately euphoric sound of Agnetha and Frida blasting out the chorus. If music was mainly grey that year, this was a splash of much needed technicolour. For me, to add to the appeal, was the video featuring the young Swedish Dancing Queens, one of whom I developed a real crush on at the time! It was a real favourite then and remains so to this day. Oddly though, the Swedish quartet were considered to be pretty naff at the time, and it was going to be many years before they became recognised as the true geniuses they are. When their final single reached Number 3 it was behind a record that was the other one I bought that year and one that I was more excited to see at Number 1 than any before or since.
Leicester’s Finest and the Stolen Christmas Number 1!
A very quiet year for Showaddywaddy indicated to many observers that their brief moment in the spotlight was at an end. Trocadero was the latest of their self-penned singles to completely underwhelm the record buying public. Then, a cover of an obscure rock ‘n’ roll song from 1961 kick started a run of 7 Top 5 singles with 7 cover versions. Under the Moon of Love was looking set to be the Christmas Number 1, but that particular year their three weeks at the top was ended in the final Christmas chart by the veteran American Johnny Mathis, with his Christmas standard When a Child is Born. Dave Bartram, Showaddywaddy’s lead singer at the time is still frustrated that the track wasn’t Number 1 on Christmas Day, but it sold 950,000 copies on its initial release and eventually broke the one million barrier nearly 30 years later thanks to downloads. So, all in all, they couldn’t really complain too much! In fact, it was pure luck that it was released at all because Mud had already recorded it, unbeknown to Bartram and he said they would never have done their own version if they had known! As I have mentioned a couple of B Sides already, can I recommend the Showaddywaddy original, Lookin’ Back? It is a brilliant track that could easily be an Eddie Cochran original.
Next Time
So, the year of the long hot summer is at an end. What will 1977 bring us? Well, it was a year that started with Johnny Mathis at Number 1 and finished off with Wings selling 2 million. However, punk was starting to rear its ugly head and music would never be the same again, not that I realised at the time!
My Musical History Part 4
1975 – Marking Time
Looking back on 1975, it was a year where things finally settled down after a lot of upheaval in the UK. That said, the same problems were still there but just less obviously than before. Harold Wilson was the Prime Minister and most people seemed to like the avuncular Northerner whatever their politics. I liked him but mainly, I think, because of Mike Yarwood’s impression of him. Yarwood was one of the biggest stars of the time, and politicians like Ted Heath and Denis Healey were his stock in trade. His Saturday night show rivalled Morecambe and Wise in popularity, and his affectionate send ups of the major politicians of the day were something of a contrast to the far more satirical treatments of politicians in the 80s.
Cricket captures my imagination
Outside of politics 1975 was the first Ashes series I had ever seen, and I was instantly captivated. I had been a big fan of the 40 over Sunday League cricket that was shown every week on BBC2. These days most of the cricketers from the England team and pretty much every county cricketer in the country could walk past with no one recognising them. Back in 1975 I could have identified Brian Brain, Bradley Dredge, John Dye, Geoff Humpage and Eifion Jones, along with many other county stalwarts, instantly. That summer two England players captured my imagination. The tall, immensely talented and charismatic Tony Greig, one of the few all rounders to also captain England successfully, was my sporting hero of the time and remains so to this day. The BBC Sports Personality of the Year for that year, however, was a bespectacled, prematurely grey batsman from Northamptonshire called David Steele. I had never seen anyone with more determination than him. He kept the Aussies at bay far better than other, supposedly, more talented batsmen and my admiration for him knew no bounds. I clearly wasn’t the only person who took to him, and by the end of the summer he was a national hero despite England’s narrow loss to Australia.
TV Programmes for children – or perhaps not!
There were still only three channels in those days, although in some families I knew that effectively went down to two as the parents refused to watch ITV! As a latchkey kid I was able to choose for myself. Children’s TV at the time was dominated by the BBC, but I still had some favourite ITV series. One of them that I watched avidly was The Tomorrow People, about a group of young people with special powers, which had the creepiest title sequence in children’s TV at the time. It was groundbreaking in its treatment of ‘minority’ groups, and in Series 3 along with the talented Elizabeth Adare as Elizabeth M’Bondo, a rare black character on children’s TV, they added Dean Lawrence as gypsy character Tyso Boswell. This wasn’t done in a tokenistic way, and it was explained that The Tomorrow People, or Homo Superior were likely to come from either gender and any racial or cultural background. It was years ahead of its time, socially and culturally and is well worth checking out as long as you can allow for the 70s style ‘special effects’! As well as this programme, I loved the supernatural series Shadows, with an episode called ‘The Waiting Room’ with Jenny Agutter being a particular standout.
I was allowed to stay up one night a week until 10pm to watch a series that became my introduction to TV cop shows. It arrived without fanfare on January 2 1975 and quickly became a huge favourite across the UK. The Sweeney with John Thaw and Dennis Waterman was absolutely unlike anything else I had ever seen, and I loved it. The theme tune was exciting, the stories were fast moving for the time and the acting was top notch. A lot of the themes, perhaps fortunately, went over my head (!) but for the time it was impossibly exciting, and I loved the rough and ready humour of the two leads, even if my dad in particular laughed at comments that didn’t seem funny! Later in 1975, the BBC started a new series called Angels which starred Julie Dawn Cole, who I had a crush on when she played Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. My crush intensified when she appeared as student nurse Jo Longhurst and she became the first picture on my bedroom wall and every article I could find about her was cut out of the paper or the Radio Times as soon as it was allowed! I was a huge fan of Angels until she left at the end of Series 3, at which point my obsession with it mysteriously vanished!
Here come the Rollers!
Music and TV were brought together in Children’s TV by the single series of Shang-A-Lang which took its name from a single the previous year by the hosts the Bay City Rollers. It showcased two tracks a week from the Rollers themselves and a huge number of guest stars, who had singles to showcase, appeared on the show over the 20 week run. A spot on Shang-A-Lang was a guarantee of a new entry or a rise in the charts and everyone from Cliff Richard and The Scots Guards to Slade and Marc Bolan appeared on the show. The fact that I was a boy meant I had to keep my love for the Bay City Rollers secret, but it was one show I was determined not to miss. They had had 4 Top 10 singles in 1974, but 1975 was when Roller mania was everywhere. Two Number Ones and a further Top 3 entry were the tip of the iceberg as concerts became massive events and their albums sold in their hundreds of thousands. Tartan was all the rage and virtually every girl I knew was obsessed by them. Bye Bye Baby was Number 1 for six weeks and the biggest selling single of the year, but my favourite track of theirs was their other chart topper of 1975, Give a Little Love. It featured Les McKeown’s finest vocal performance, and it also had a tune that, to my 10 year old self, was as good as anything I had heard up to that point. The combination of that with the heartfelt lyrics made it a song that I stopped to listen to every time it was played on radio or TV. Their success couldn’t have carried on at the same height as it was in 1975, but it was still a shock when they virtually disappeared from the mainstream less than 12 months later.
Steps to chart success
One of the groups who appeared on the show were Showaddywaddy who were in the Top 5 in June with their remake of the Eddie Cochran number Three Steps to Heaven. It was a superb remake with a fantastic vocal performance from Dave Bartram and the booming tones of drummer Romeo Challenger calling out the ‘Steps’. Another remake, Heartbeat, also made it to the Top 10 in September. This proved to be a double edged sword for Leicester’s finest as their self-penned tracks around this time struggled to make an impact and the record company proclaimed that cover versions were the way to go. Given that December 1974 saw Hey Mr Christmas creep up to Number 13, to become their highest charting self-written song since their debut hit Hey Rock ‘n’ Roll reached Number 2, the record company had a point. However, they were savvy enough to write all of their B sides which guaranteed them 50% of the royalties on the sales! Unusually, the Showaddywaddy tracks were credited individually to every member of the band which meant an 8 way split and none of the issues caused by having songwriters in the band who were getting far richer than the musicians.
The Wombles continue to expand my horizons
The Wombles were still very high up in my affections in 1975, and the tape of Keep on Wombling was already having to be tightened up using an HB pencil to keep it from distorting! It is fair to say, however, that in terms of the singles they didn’t have the impact they deserved. Wombling White Tie and Tails, a tribute to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was a song I adored that didn’t make it into the Top 20. Lyrically it was superb, introducing me to the word ‘syncopation’ for instance, but the music could have been fitted in to the score of Top Hat and no one would have noticed the difference. SuperWomble just crept into the Top 20 whilst their final track of the year Let’s Womble to the Party Tonight was released in December and combined Big Band style verses with a Showaddywaddy style chorus, but bafflingly barely entered the Top 40 before it dropped out again. Yet again, this little snapshot of the music of The Wombles shows the dazzling array of styles that children were being introduced to by one of this country’s best and most underrated music artists. Mike Batt had far more success with his infectiously brilliant theme tune for 1975’s new Saturday night variety show Seaside Special. Summertime City became one of the songs of that summer and reached Number 4 in August.
Story Songs
I will finish this year with a roll call of songs that reintroduced me to the story based music I had first come across in 1972 through Don McLean. First of all was Streets of London by Ralph McTell, a Number 2 hit in January. It is a song that contrasts beautiful music and despairing lyrics in order to look at the plight of the homeless. Each verse is a vignette that created a flesh and blood character that you could see in your mind. It touched my heart and opened my eyes to the way that people could find themselves in a position like that, and even at the age of 9 I thought that something was wrong with a city that could see a situation like that on its streets. Nearly 50 years later I still do.
Then in the summer came The Last Farewell by Roger Whittaker, a singer-songwriter who had previously had a chart hit with Durham Town. The Last Farewell was the lament of a sailor who was going off to sea and was telling his wife how much he loved her. It immediately conjoured up the picture in my mind of a sailor in Drake’s Navy going off to fight the Spanish Armada. Why? I don’t really know, but I do know that the scene was vivid and unforgettable. It was a song that was popular around the world and is in a very exclusive list of around 50 singles that have sold 10 million physical copies worldwide!
1975 ended with Queen at Number 1 with Bohemian Rhapsody, a song I would grow to love years later. At the time? Let’s just say I was very unhappy that Laurel and Hardy failed to reach Number 1 with The Trail of the Lonesome Pine!! Childhood memories are a funny thing occasionally.
Next time, it’s the long hot summer of 1976!
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 