The Little Book of the 1960s E-Book

Dee Gordon

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Based on quirky facts and fascinating data, with a discerning eye on the bizarre, the frivolous and the funny, The Little Book of the 1960s is nostalgia with a difference. The sights, the sounds, the lifestyle, the whole 1960s experience can be relived through the pages of this book, but be warned – you'll need a sense of humour. It's a book that can be dipped in to time and time again to reveal something new about the people, the fashions, the scandals and the enduring fascination of a decade that was truly the most colourful of all. Did You Know? When the Beatles played at the Birkenhead YMCA in 1962 for just £30 (the same year Decca famously turned them down because 'groups with guitars were on their way out'), they were booed off stage. When Barbara Windsor and the cast of Sparrers Can't Sing were filming in the East End in the early 1960s, the Krays were hired to provide security on the set. When Princess Margaret married photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones in May 1960, she became the first royal to marry a commoner for 450 years.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Title

Introduction

1 Music & Musicians

2 Fashion & Style

3 Crime & Punishment

4 Food & Drink

5 Film & Television

6 Science & Technology

7 Travel & Transport

8 This Sporting Life

9 Literature, Art & the Stage

10 In the News

11 On this Day

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

Britain may have lost much of her Empire by the 1960s, but she discovered the mini-skirt, boutiques, discos, the Beatles, and unprecedented conflict between the generations. It was the best time for being young, and yes, I was there, and yes, I do remember it! I remember the Summer of Love and the assassination of President Kennedy. I remember Hare Krishna and Vietnam. I remember Minis and feminist protests. I remember the men on the moon, England’s World Cup victory and the Moors Murders. I remember the first Notting Hill Carnival and the skirmishes between Mods and Rockers. This was an age of contrasts, when teenagers, the working class and Northerners gained a voice, and the poor arrived in literature and on film. The New York Times put it rather differently – in May 1966, London was described as ‘the new Sodom and Gomorrah’.

What follows is an insight into the real 1960s, its movers and shakers, its ups and downs, the emphasis on a country that had thrown off the drabness of the post-war 1950s and was determined to enjoy itself. Hopefully, you will find a few surprises along the way.

For instance, the growth in universities – twenty-two were established during the 1960s – was offset by the anti-University in Rivington Street, Shoreditch (London), which charged the teachers and paid the students! It opened in February 1968, and Yoko Ono was a visiting lecturer here, but the concept only lasted for two years in spite of courses that included revolution, black power, joint-rolling and ‘how to stay alive’.

To get you in the mood, here are some of the words that were introduced during this fascinating decade:

Cool

Far Out

Karma

Uptight

Vibe

Rip-off

Crash out

Dig

Groovy

Gas (as in fun)

A bibliography would fill far too many pages, as would a list of websites, as all the information that follows has more than one source – an essential requirement for researchers. Special mention, however, goes to Nick Skinner (www.southendtimeline.com) and Peter Brown(www.thesoutheastecho.co.uk). Illustrations are mainly provided by Clipart with thanks also due to Ashley Ferguson for some particularly apposite additional material. Thanks, too, are due to Michelle Tilling at The History Press for having faith in the decade and its power to inspire and entertain. This project has been a labour of love.

1

MUSIC & MUSICIANS

STARTING WITH THE BEATLES – OF COURSE

Having been The Quarrymen in the 1950s, the early (1960) band evolved into The Beetals (sources offer various spellings) who failed an audition to back Billy Fury on tour, and who were then known as The Silver Beetals (or Beetles or Beatles). One story suggests that Billy Fury in fact offered them the job but only on condition they fired then-guitarist Stuart Sutcliffe, but they refused. Recorded in Hamburg, their first release as The Beatles (or, as per the label on the record, The Beat Brothers, adapted for the German audience) was ‘My Bonnie’ in 1961, with Tony Sheridan then lead vocal. They were not the first Liverpool act to play the Hamburg clubs (1960) – the first were rather less well-known: Derry and the Seniors.

It seems they had their first trademark haircuts in Paris in 1961, copied from French actor Jean Marais in French film The Testament of Orpheus.

SOME BEATLES ‘FIRSTS’

· debuted at the Cavern Club (Liverpool) in April 1961.

· Brian Epstein, their eventual manager, saw his first Beatles concert at the Cavern in November 1961.

· their first recording session at Abbey Road (for EMI) was in September 1962, with ‘Love Me Do’.

· their first national television appearance was 11 January 1963 on Thank Your Lucky Stars, performing ‘Please Please Me’ although they had appeared a few times in 1962 on Granada’s People and Places.

· first UK No. 1 (in all the charts) was ‘From Me To You’ in 1963.

· February 1963 was their first British tour, headlined by Helen Shapiro, and starting out at the Gaumont in Bradford.

· Lennon and McCartney wrote Cilla Black’s first hit (1963) ‘Love of the Loved’.

· ‘She Loves You’ (1963) was their first single to sell over a million copies – Ozzy Osbourne is among those who claim this was their first record purchase.

· the first Beatles track played in the US was by DJ ‘Murray the K’ in September 1963 – also ‘She Loves You’.

· their first appearance at the Royal Variety Performance in 1963 (at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London) was said to attract over 40 per cent of the British public as viewers – it is when John Lennon famously told the part of the audience in the expensive seats to ‘rattle yer jewellery’ as a form of applause.

· some 25,000 fans were waiting to see The Beatles at John F. Kennedy Airport when they arrived for their first US visit on 7 February 1964. It seems that the pilot on this flight wore a Beatles wig to mark the occasion.

· a record 73 million viewers tuned in to the Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964 for The Beatles’ first appearance on US television – with a reputed result of a drop in the US crime rate.

· ‘I Want to Hold your Hand’ (1964) was their first US hit, selling 12 million copies (in New York alone they were selling 10,000 copies per hour at one stage).

· in March 1964, they became the first ‘rock stars’ to appear in Madame Tussaud’s in London – and went on to use the wax images on the cover of the Sergeant Pepper album.

· they debuted on Top of the Pops on 25 March 1964.

· they met Elvis for the first time on 27 August 1965 in Beverly Hills and were reputedly so in awe that they were tongue-tied (yep, even John).

· when the Beatles received their MBEs at Buckingham Palace in October 1965 they were the first music band to achieve the accolade, which could have been prompted by Harold Wilson’s desire for popularity in the polls. However, it prompted others – such as military personnel – to return their hard-earned MBEs in disgust. In turn, John returned his in 1969 in protest against what was happening in Vietnam and against British involvement in the Nigerian Civil War.

… AND SOME BEATLES LASTS

· the Beatles’ last appearance at the Cavern Club was in August 1963.

· their last official concert in the US was in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, in August 1966, which could have gone better as they had by now incurred the wrath of the Bible Belt (owing to John’s comment about being more popular than Jesus) and even the Klu Klux Klan.

· their last live ‘performance’ was on the roof of the Apple building in London, singing ‘Get Back’ on 30 January 1969 –nearby office workers complained to the police about the noise!

· the last album they recorded was ‘Abbey Road’ in 1969, although ‘Let it Be’ was the last released.

FOXY FACTS ABOUT EACH OF THE FAB FOUR

John Lennon – told the Evening Standard in 1966 that, prophetically, he was ‘afraid of growing old’. He appeared on the launch cover of Rolling Stone magazine in November 1967. With Yoko Ono at his side, he began their bed-in for world peace in March 1969 at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam.

Paul McCartney – met Jane Asher (who became his fiancée) in April 1963 at the Royal Albert Hall, where The Beatles were appearing in Swingin’ Sound for the BBC. He apparently wrote ‘Lovely Rita’ (introducing the term Meter Maid to the Brits) after getting a parking ticket from a female warden on Abbey Road in 1967. Although Paul was the last of the Beatles to try LSD, he was the first ‘out of the closet’ in 1967, declaring the drug a ‘universal cure-all’.

George Harrison – was deported from Germany in 1960 because he was too young to be working there (followed home by the other three). He was the first Beatle to visit the USA when he went to see his aunt in Illinois in 1963. His use of a sitar on ‘Norwegian Wood’ in 1965 was several years before The Beatles visited India. Two years later, on New Year’s Day 1967, he was banned from Annabel’s in Berkeley Square, London, for not wearing a tie, even though the doorman recognised him.

Ringo Starr – is a lifelong vegetarian. He was the one to come up with the name A Hard Day’s Night for The Beatles’ first film in 1964 (rather than the working title, the more predictable ‘Beatlemania’). His song ‘Octopus’s Garden’ (on the Abbey Road album in 1969) was composed while on holiday on Peter Sellers’ yacht.

… AND SOME NON-FAN STORIES

When the Beatles played at the Birkenhead YMCA in 1962 for just £30 (the same year Decca famously turned them down because groups with guitars were on their way out), they were booed off stage. Now you know what Birkenhead and Decca have in common.

In 1966, the Beatles were forced to flee Manila in the Philippines after they were said to have refused to have tea with the President’s wife, Imelda Marcos. They denied all knowledge of the invitation – but in any case, would she have wanted them to drink it out of one of her 3,000 pairs of shoes?

MOVING ON TO THE ROLLING STONES

The Stones had a different following to the cuddly, scrubbed-up Beatles – scruffier perhaps? Or raunchier? More rebellious? Their very first single in 1963, ‘Come On’, reached the charts, and their second was also a hit: ‘I Wanna be Your Man’ written by … Lennon and McCartney. Their first UK No. 1 was ‘It’s All Over Now’ in July 1964.

The Stones’ manager, Andrew Oldham, was more rock ’n’ roll than the suited-and-booted Brian Epstein, and had an early run-in with the BBC when one radio producer suggested he ‘get rid of the singer with the tyre tread lips’.

The first Stones cartoon in a national newspaper appeared in the Daily Mirror in December 1963, by Stanley ‘Franklin’ – effectively announcing their arrival as a pop force to be reckoned with. This was especially the case when Jagger and Richards started writing their own material, the first time being, a tad confusingly, ‘The Last Time’ (1965).

The group were paid £157 10s for forming the panel on Juke Box Jury in June 1964. A few months later, they turned up on the Ed Sullivan Show in the USA but there were so many complaints that Ed Sullivan vowed he would never have them back – although he did, several times. In January 1967, for instance, when they had to change the lyrics of ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’ replacing ‘the night’ with ‘some time’.

In November 1964, they were banned from BBC Radio after turning up late for Top Gear and Saturday Club.

The 1967 album cover for Their Satanic Majesties Request featured pictures of The Beatles hidden in the undergrowth (returning the compliment of the ‘Welcome The Rolling Stones’ shirt on a doll featured on the cover of the Sergeant Pepper album).

After appearing on The London Palladium Show in January 1967, they were the first – and probably the only – stars to refuse to stand on the revolving stage for the programme’s finale. Bet they don’t like roller coasters, either.

In 1968, they did not get their wish for a graffiti-covered loo to appear on the cover of their Beggars’ Banquet album, but vented their frustration to some extent by turning the launch (at the Queensgate Hotel in London) into a custard-pie-throwing extravaganza.

1969 was their annus horribilis. Brian Jones died in his swimming pool in July (verdict: death by misadventure), having already been replaced by Mick Taylor. There was something ironic about the releasing of clouds of white butterflies at the free concert given in Hyde Park a few days later, butterflies which were quickly trampled underfoot by Mick Jagger’s trademark posturing. While filming Ned Kelly in Australia that same year, Jagger was accidentally shot in the hand by a back-firing pistol. The year culminated in their final US performance in California in December, when Hell’s Angels bikers stabbed a youth who had pulled a gun, the subsequent chaos resulting in the band having to escape in a helicopter.

THE STONES, AS INDIVIDUALS

Brian Jones bought Crotchford Farm, or ‘The House at Pooh Corner’ – where the Winnie the Pooh stories were written – in 1968. Its 10 acres and woodland cost him £38,000.

Charlie Watts’ uncle is Lennie Peters, the blind half of Peters and Lee who came to success in the 1970s – in the ’60s, Peters was a pub pianist, and legend has it that he once dismissed Charlie from one of his pub bands for playing too much jazz.

Mick Jagger’s first celebrity girlfriend (pre-Marianne Faithfull) was Chrissie Shrimpton, sister of model Jean Shrimpton.

Keith Richards was known in the 1960s as Keith Richard, because the Stones’ Manager (Andrew Oldham) liked the comparison with Cliff Richard (!).

Bill Wyman was the first Rolling Stone to get divorced – in 1969, after ten years of marriage. (He was also, of course, the first to marry.)

Ian Stewart on keyboard was a member of the group from 1962 to 1963, being then effectively demoted to road manager and session pianist ‘because his face didn’t fit’.

IT WASN’T ALL POP AND ROCK …

There was folk singing, personified by American Joan Baez, the best-known female of the genre during the decade. She only had one top ten hit in the UK in the 1960s, however – ‘There But For Fortune’ in 1965. Home-grown (well, Welsh) winner of Opportunity Knocks, Mary Hopkin, managed a No. 1 in 1968 with ‘Those Were the Days’, with the help of Paul McCartney who produced it for the new Apple record label. Switching gender, Bob Dylan (icon of the anti-Vietnam movement) had his first British hit with ‘Times they are a-Changing’ in 1965 – but he never had a No. 1 single. He did have the first British No. 1 album by a folk singer a year or so earlier, though: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan but in 1966 he was booed off the stage of the Royal Albert Hall in London with cries of ‘Judas’ after using an electric guitar instead of the traditional acoustic. His British equivalent was, arguably, Donovan, who debuted at No. 4 the same year with ‘Catch The Wind’ – Donovan was the first of a series of British pop stars to be arrested in 1966 for possession of marijuana, and he was as a result refused entry to the USA in time for the first annual Monterey Festival in 1967. The Seekers were an Australian folk group who had two British number ones in 1965 but had a short-lived career together (1964–8). Frederik Jan Gustav Floris, Baron Van Pallandt (!), son of a Dutch ambassador to Denmark, was one half of the Nina and Frederik duo who were also short-lived but successful enough (‘Little Donkey’, etc.) to merit their own British television series in 1961.

Jazz in the UK meant two names in hit record terms – traditionalists Kenny Ball and Acker Bilk. Kenny Ball had his biggest hit with ‘Midnight in Moscow’ in 1961 (reached No. 2) and became the first British jazzman to be honoured with citizenship of New Orleans. Acker Bilk had learned clarinet while serving a three-month sentence in an army prison (for falling asleep while on guard). His 1961 hit ‘Stranger on the Shore’ also reached No. 2 but spent an impressive 55 consecutive weeks in the charts – this was not its original title but was changed (from Jenny, his daughter’s name) when the tune was used for a children’s television series of this name. This melody has become the all-time best-selling instrumental in the UK and was the first UK record to reach No. 1 in the USA. In 1969, this was one of the tapes taken to the moon by the Apollo 10 crew!

Other instrumental successes included ‘Telstar’ by the Tornados, Billy Fury’s on-off backing group (No. 1 in 1962 and the first single by a UK group to top the US chart), ‘Apache’ by The Shadows in 1960 (the first of their fourteen Top Ten hits in the ’60s, the first backing group to reach No. 1), and ‘Albatross’ by Fleetwood Mac (reached No. 1 in 1968). American soul band Booker T & the MGs had a huge club success with ‘Green Onions’, especially among the mod fraternity, but it was not a chart hit until the 1970s. Another American who made an impact was Herb Alpert with his Tijuana Brass – their ‘Spanish Flea’ made the top three in 1966 and they were the band behind the soundtrack on Casino Royale in 1967.

Classical music was not overlooked. Pavarotti made his operatic debut in La Bohème in April 1961 at the Teatro Municipale, Reggio Emilia, Italy, with his first performance in the same opera at Covent Garden two years later. In 1962, Benjamin Britten performed his ‘War Requiem’ in the reconsecrated Coventry Cathedral, with First World War poetry set to music. Maria Callas chose Covent Garden for her last operatic performance in July 1965 in Tosca. 1966 brought what was described as one of the great operatic disasters of all time: Antony and Cleopatra at the new, huge, and astronomically expensive Metropolitan Opera House in New York, complete with erratic lighting and malfunctioning props and scenery. 1967 brought the controversial Harrison Birtwhistle’s violent chamber opera of Punch and Judy to the Aldeburgh Festival.

THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF PIRATE RADIO

Until the arrival of offshore private radio, Radio Luxembourg was the only English-speaking commercial radio station that could be heard in the UK – unless you lived in the Isle of Man which had its own laws and its own commercial radio station from early 1964.

The most famous of the pirate stations was Radio Caroline – because it was the first (March 1964) and also because it famously ran aground in 1966 necessitating the rescue of five disc jockeys. Simon Dee was the first pirate DJ, real name Cyril Nicholas Henty-Dodd!

Other pre-1970 pirate radio stations:

Radio Atlanta (merged with Caroline)

Radio Pamela (short-range and short-lived)

Radio London

Radio Sutch*

Radio Essex

Radio Scotland

Radio England

Radio King

Radio City (used same site as Radio Sutch)

Radio 270

Radio 390

Britain Radio

* this was based on the Shivering Sands fort off Whitstable, and hosted by David Sutch who changed his name by deed poll to Screaming Lord Sutch (3rd Earl of Harrow) and later led the Monster Raving Loony Party.

The 1967 Marine Broadcasting Act made it illegal for British companies to advertise on pirate radio stations, starving them out of the water. The BBC quickly realised the potential and kicked off their new popular music channel, Radio 1, just days later. Ex-pirate Tony Blackburn (of Radio Caroline and Radio London) kicked off the station at the helm of their Breakfast Show. His first offering was ‘Flowers in the Rain’ by The Move. Blackburn was one of seventeen former pirates recruited by the BBC and went on to have a couple of minor hits of his own at the tail-end of the ’60s.

MUSICAL BIRTHS …

1960

Bono

Mick Hucknall

Kim Wilde

1961

Susan Boyle (yes, that one)

Alison Moyet

Martin Kemp (Spandau Ballet)

Boy George

1962

Jon Bon Jovi

1963

George Michael

Julian Lennon

1964

Lenny Kravitz

1965

Heather Small (ex-M People)

1966

Rick Astley

Marti Pellow

1967

Noel Gallagher

1968

Jason Donovan

Kylie Minogue

Luke and Matt Goss (Bros)

1969

Jay Kay (Jamiroquai)

… AND DEATHS

1960

Eddie Cochran (died in Chippenham, following a car crash in which Gene Vincent was also badly injured; ‘Three Steps to Heaven’ became a posthumous No. 1)

1961

George ‘When I’m Cleaning Windows’ Formby

Sir Thomas Beecham, composer

1962

Stuart Sutcliffe, original Beatles bassist

1963

Patsy Cline’s plane crashed when she was on her way back to Nashville after going to a funeral

1964

Jim Reeves, also killed in a plane crash

Cyril Davies, one of the first UK blues harmonica players

1965

Nat King Cole

1966

Johnny Kidd (of the Pirates) killed in a car crash

Alma Cogan, arguably the first British female pop star

Mike Millward of The Fourmost

1967

Otis Redding, another victim of a plane crash

1968

Bud ‘Underneath the Arches’ Flanagan

1969

Brian Jones

Billy Cotton of The Billy Cotton Band Show

BANNED!

These may seem tame by today’s standards, but, in spite of its claim to be the ‘permissive society’, the decade saw the following records banned by the BBC:

‘Tell Laura I Love Her’ by Ricky Valance in 1960 was about death, i.e. a no-no as a form of entertainment. The fuss resulted in a No. 1 for the unknown Welsh lad.

Adam Faith’s ‘Made You’ was one of the tracks from his 1960 film Beat Girl, but was banned for its sexual connotations.

In 1961, the song ‘One Hundred Pounds of Clay’ (by Gene McDaniels) was banned because it was considered blasphemous to suggest that women were constructed in the way that buildings were. Came as a bit of a shock to the ex-choir boy from the US but didn’t do his career any harm.

Joe Brown’s 1963 cover of George Formby’s ‘With My Little Ukulele in My Hand’ was regarded as risqué! Joe had also played guitar on ‘Made You’ so he was acquiring a bit of a reputation.

Twinkle had a top five hit in 1964 with ‘Tommy’, helped by its ban due to controversial lyrics about a biker killed in a road accident. This was a British ‘version’ of the Shangri-Las’ US hit ‘Leader of the Pack’, which was also banned.

‘A Day in The Life’ was a track from Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (by the Beatles of course) in 1967, but the BBC was unhappy about its supposed drug references, e.g. ‘turn you on’.

Another 1967 Beatles B-side, ‘I Am The Walrus’, did not go down too well with its use of the word ‘knickers’. Shocking.

Reg Presley and The Troggs were in trouble with the BBC in 1967 for their ‘lewdly suggestive sounds’ on ‘I Can’t Control Myself’ although there does not seem to have been an official ban, just restricted play. It still reached No. 2 though.

‘Je t’Aime … Moi Non Plus’ by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg joined the list in 1969, because of its sexual connotations.

‘Wet Dream’ by reggae artist Max Romeo in 1969 was too explicit for Auntie, but the ban sent it to No. 10 and it was a big hit in Jamaica.

A DIFFERENT LOOK AT OTHER GROUPS

Herman’s Hermits had only one No. 1 in the 1960s with ‘I’m Into Something Good’ but two in the USA – ‘Mrs Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter’ and ‘I’m Henry the Eighth I am’.

The Bachelors’ easy-listening approach to music resulted in eight top ten hits in the ’60s, with 1964 their most successful year when they were in the charts for more weeks than The Beatles.

‘Juliet’ by The Four Pennies was the only 1964 chart-topper not to achieve success in America.

The Animals’ ‘House of the Rising Sun’ in 1964 was the first record to hit No. 1 at over four minutes long.

Surprisingly, The Who, while epitomising the ’60s with ‘My Generation’, never had a No. 1 on either side of the Atlantic.

Manfred Mann wrote ‘5-4-3-2-1’ as the theme song for the ground-breaking TV show Ready Steady Go! in 1964.

Shane Fenton and the Fentones (whose highest chart entry was No. 19 in June 1962 with ‘Cindy’s Birthday’) lost their lead singer with rheumatic disease (Johnny Theakstone, aged just seventeen) and the roadie stepped into the breach before their first success, taking on the Shane Fenton mantle (and he later became Alvin Stardust).

Dave Dee of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich (peaking in 1968 with the No. 1 ‘Legend of Xanadu’ but with a dozen other chart successes) was a police cadet in 1960 and one of the first on the scene of the car crash in which Eddie Cochran died.

‘Long Tall Sally’ was the name of the debut 1964 single by The Kinks which ended up as the name of a chain of shops selling clothes for tall women.

Gerry and the Pacemakers were the first Liverpool group to top the charts in April 1963 (over a month before The Beatles) – with ‘How Do You Do It?’ They were also the first group to have three consecutive No. 1s with their first three releases.

When Led Zeppelin formed in August 1968 from the ashes of The New Yardbirds, the new name came from Keith Moon (the Who’s drummer) who thought they would go down ‘like a lead balloon’!

The first reggae record to top the UK charts was Desmond Dekker and the Aces in 1969, with ‘The Israelites’.

When The Dave Clark Five had a hit with ‘Glad All Over’ in 1963, it was banned from football grounds owing to the risk of potential damage of thousands of feet stamping along with the chorus.

Procol Harum is the misspelling of the name of a friend’s Burmese cat called Procul Harun (the Latin for ‘beyond these things’), but this error did not stop them from having a monster hit with ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ in 1967, partly inspired by Bach’s ‘Air on a G-String’.

The Hollies had an amazing 21 consecutive top twenty British hit singles from August 1963 onwards – but just one No. 1 in 1965 with ‘I’m Alive’.

Although Cream were around for less than three years – 1966 to 1969 – all six of their albums reached the top ten, with their final album (‘Farewell’ in 1969) reaching No. 1 – but, rather oddly, they didn’t chart above No. 11 with their singles.

MORE THAN JUST GROUPS

John Leyton had a No. 1 in 1961 with ‘Johnny Remember Me’, a song he had sung in his role as Johnny St Cyr (i.e. ‘sincere’!) in Harpers West One on ITV, kick-starting a new career for him in the pop world.

Someone else who crossed over from acting to singing was Petula Clark who had her first No. 1 in 1961 with ‘Sailor’ and another in 1967 with ‘This is My Song’, although she is better known for the song that just missed the top spot in 1962, reaching No. 2, namely ‘Downtown’.

Helen Shapiro was the youngest ever female singer to have a British No. 1, achieved before she even owned a record player. This was in 1961 when she was aged just 14: you don’t know the song? It was … ‘You Don’t Know’ closely followed by ‘Walking Back to Happiness’ making her the first female artist to have two consecutive No. 1 hits.

The first UK artist to achieve three consecutive No. 1 hits was Frank Ifield – ‘I Remember You’ and ‘Lovesick Blues’ in 1962, followed by ‘Wayward Wind’ in 1963.

1964 was the year that Cilla Black had her only two No. 1s – ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’ and ‘You’re My World’. It was also the year that the ‘Golden Girl of Pop’, Kathy Kirby, secured a deal making her the highest paid singer of her generation – reputedly over £1,000 per edition of the Kathy Kirby Show, which pulled in audiences around the 20 million mark.

Tom Jones reached No. 1 with a song that had been turned down by Sandie Shaw – this was ‘It’s Not Unusual’ in 1965, his first release ‘Chills and Fever’ in 1964 being long forgotten.

Sandie Shaw was probably not too worried, though, because she became the first female singer to have three British No. 1s with ‘Always Something There to Remind Me’ in 1964, ‘Long Live Love’ in 1965 and ‘Puppet on a String’ in 1967 which won her – the first UK singer to manage it – the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna.

Cliff Richard did have a No. 1 hit with his 1968 Eurovision entry (‘Congratulations’), but he ended up in second place at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the venue for the contest, matching the result of such luminaries as Kathy Kirby (1965) and Matt Monro (1964) who also achieved second place. He did however manage 33 Top 10 hits in the UK in the 1960s, compared with The Beatles’ 21.

Someone else who managed to outsell The Beatles – in 1965, anyway – was Ken Dodd, with ‘Tears’.

The only UK No. 1 for ‘The White Queen of Soul’, aka Dusty Springfield, was ‘You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me’ in 1966.