A Seventies Halloween

Yes, the time has come again for my customary gripe about how children nowadays have a much better deal of it than I did but how ironically this means that their lives are actually impoverished. I could give it a miss and you could take it as read, but no I’m not going to. Cue [...]

Zed Cars

Z-Cars or Zed Cars (yes, definitely Zed and not Zee) was a police drama which ran through the Sixties and Seventies. It was based in the gritty North of England and was the first hard-hitting realistic drama, as opposed to fantasy land ‘it’s a fair cop guv’ sort of drama.
Z-car was also the police codename [...]

Elkie Brooks

Elkie was a singer with a crooning husky voice, most famous or at least most remembered for Pearl’s A Singer from an album in 1977. Elkie sang Nights in White Satin in 1982. Originally recorded by The Moody Blues, another great band. I remember this as the Seventies, but have been corrected by Wikipedia.
I’m sure I [...]

Viva! – Vauxhall Viva

Kim P Moody revs things up a little
It was my pride and joy in the late 70s. The 1972 silver, Vauxhall Viva HC Estate, was a sleek and modern car, just right for the family man.
The Viva was introduced in 1963. The HA was produced until 1966 then replaced with the HB. The last version [...]

Panda Cars

Policemen in the Seventies tended to chase criminals on foot. They patrolled on foot, by bike or in a small blue car. We called these the panda car. This was because they often had a black and white checked pattern on them to make them visible as police cars.
If a criminal hopped in a fast [...]

Are You Being Served?

This very British sit-com was one of my favourite programmes as a child. It ran from 1972 to 1985 but it was the mid-to-late Seventies where it peaked, in my opinion anyway. The programme was set in a fictional department store, Grace Brothers, and the main characters were the staff of this store.
Mrs Slocombe was [...]

Silver’s Mum’s Memories Part Two

Silver’s Mum’s (Judith Hubble) memories continued…
In 1974 we also had a general election. Harold Wilson became PM – Labour – and the IRA bombed ‘Mainland’ Britain. London and Birmingham suffered the most. EEC membership was endorsed by referendum.
Sex Discrimination Act came in. Queen (the band) had their first number one – yay!! Equal Pay Act came [...]

Silver’s Mum’s Memories Part One

I had a handwritten epistle from Silver’s Mum, Judith Hubble, for Popandcrisps. What I like about this is the way that she talks about personal stuff like marriage and children in between world affairs and prices. I’ve edited only slightly.
In 1970 we had a general election and changed from Labour to Conservative. Edward Heath became PM [...]

M*A*S*H

M*A*S*H was a comedy show about a war which was screened in the Seventies and still runs now on the endless repeats channels. I never understood this as a child because all the war films I’d seen had been deadly serious.
I thought it was a bit much to have people making jokes with canned laughter [...]

Tony Hart and Vision On

Kim P Moody takes Hart
With the recent news that Tony Hart, artist and TV presenter, has recently suffered two strokes, my thoughts wandered back to a show he presented, with Pat Keysell, until 1977, Vision On.
The show was specifically for deaf children. Because the content was entertainment and not education there was no speech and [...]