Tag Archives: Seventies

Power Of Persuasion

March 17, 2023 onceuponatime70s 6 Comments

Paul Fitzpatrick: London, March 2023

Growing up in the 60s and early 70s we had it pretty good I reckon.

On our piece of the rock there were no wars, pandemics or civil unrest. True, there was the odd power cut in the early 70s due to the miners strikes, but I remember that being more an adventure-under-candle-light than any real form of hardship.

Apart from the normal growing pains and adolescent insecurities, life was pretty good, and yet, I always had the notion that we weren’t living our best life…. like our counterparts in America.

So, what was this grand social insight based on?
Academic studies? Penetrating documentaries? First hand experience?

Nope, it was based on the only lens I had of the world back then (outside of the National Geographic’s we used to thumb-through in Geography lessons, hoping to discover topless tribeswoman)….
American comics, or to be more specific American comic ads.

To a 10 year old raised on The Beano, the ads featured on the inside covers of American comics were as spellbinding as the comics themselves.

How lucky were those Kids of America (whoa oh), that they had access to the types of treasures we could only dream of owning…

Life size Monsters, Rocket Ships, Nuclear Subs. Sea Monkeys, X-ray specs, Electric engine’s, and Physique’s like Charles Atlas, there seemed no end to the toys, gadgets and goodies on offer across the pond.

I was fortunate to have a great aunt (in both senses of the word), who emigrated to the Big Apple in the early 60s.
My aunt Marj was a PA for a publishing company in Manhattan and a couple of times a year she would send me over a bundle of American comics… bless her heart.

Whenever I caught sight of that package with the airmail stamp I knew I was in for a treat, and they never disappointed – countless capers with Richie Rich, Casper and Archie & his friends (oh sugar sugar).
Adventures with the Justice League, the Green Lantern, the Hulk, Thor and Spiderman, I would devour those comic-books cover to cover until every word was consumed, including the adverts, especially the adverts.

This led to a mild obsession with all things Americana for a few years which to be fair was supported by other cultural happenings from the era.

Take television for example, my favourite 60s tv programmes were mostly American….
The Monkees, The Man from Uncle, The Munsters, The Adams Family, Lost in Space and the Tex Avery cartoon universe.

We weren’t exactly an underprivileged society, but it seemed that our American cousins were a step ahead in most aspects of life.

At a time when our cultural cheer-leaders were the pipe-smoking Harold Wilson and ‘Enry “splash it all over” Cooper, the US could point to the charismatic JFK and ‘The Greatest’, Muhammad Ali.

Our standout orator was Enoch Powell their’s was Martin Luther King.

When we were getting excited about the new Ford Escort they were pimping up Ford Grand Torino’s.

When denim became fashionable, we rolled out Falmers Jeans they already had the originals – Levis, Wrangler, Lee.

When it came to bench-mark resorts there was no debate, Blackpool Pleasure Beach versus The Magic Kingdom was simply no contest.

For balance, it’s fair to say that a case could be made for biased-reasoning on all of the above and of course for every JFK there was a ‘Tricky Dicky’ Nixon, for every MLK there was a KKK and for every Woodstock with its 3 Days of Peace, Love & Harmony there was an Altamont with murderous Hells Angels killing the vibe.

The grass ain’t always greener, but those ‘Mad Men’ of Madison Avenue sure made it look that way.

Pioneers in their field, the US advertising gurus of the 60s & 70s built brands and shifted products by selling dreams and fuelling aspirations.

They convinced at least one generation that smoking cigarettes would make them look cool and attractive to the opposite sex, and that eating sugary breakfast cereals would turn their kids into Olympic Champions, just like Bruce Jenner (if only they knew!).

There was nothing these guys couldn’t sell when they put their mind to it.
Need confirmation?

Check out the 7up ad below.

So when it came to marketing toys to impressionable kids, it was lambs to the slaughter.
What chance did we have when our parents were already entrapped?
And if they weren’t entrapped why the hell did we have a K-tel Veg-o-matic and a Ronco Hair-Trimmer sitting redundant in the cupboard?

My first brush with marketing came with the Jet Rocket Ship below.
As soon as I saw the ad for that bad-boy I was obsessed, I had to have one.
I had the equivalent of 5 bucks in my piggy bank and we had a garden, what else did I need?

I asked my Mum, if I could send money to auntie Marj so she could ship one over. Or maybe she could fly across in one on her next visit? (I wasn’t the brightest kid!).

Not giving her a minutes rest, I gradually wore my mum down to the point of submission, but ever the realist, my dad who was the real gate-keeper, saw through the glossy, targeted advertising with all its features and benefits, still reeling no-doubt from the Veg-o-matic debacle, he predicted it would be a piece of crap… in turn, jettisoning the jet.

As it turned out my dad was right, of course he was right, and although I was pissed-off at the time, he was trying to teach this gullible 10 year old a valuable life-lesson…. ‘if it’s too good to be true, it probably is‘

I’m guessing they received plenty of orders for that five dollar interplanetary rocket with ‘enough room for two air cadets‘ and ‘control levers that work!’

I’m also guessing that 95% of people who received one probably wanted to send it back once they opened the box.

Based on what I know now, I’d predict that only about 20% of purchasers would actually have sent anything back.

Net result?
Lots of sales but very few satisfied customers.

And that my friends is the power of advertising!

Btw, don’t worry about the 7up kid he turned out just fine….

Lifestyle, Life, 70s life

THE WAITING GAME.

March 15, 2023 onceuponatime70s 13 Comments

“What are you doing, dear?” my Mum asked upon seeing me sat on the living room floor while my pals played out on the street.

“I’m going to watch Thunderbirds.”

“You’re a bit early – it’s not on for another ten minutes.”

“I know – but I’m waiting for the television to warm up.”

This would have been the mid to late Sixties, and our temperamental 14” black and white TV set behaved like a reluctant old dog being forced out for a walk on a windy and wet winter’s day. Grudgingly, it would eventually do what was asked of it, but not without putting up an obstinate fight.

At nine or ten years old, I just went with it. This was the way things were. ‘Instant’ was a word only just creeping into my vocabulary – mainly because my Mum persisted in serving up the disgusting, powdered, butterscotch or strawberry ‘Instant Whip’ for our evening meal dessert.

That television experience, though, taught me the virtue of patience at a very early age. You know: ‘good things come to those that wait,’ and all that. It stood me in good stead for my early teen years in the Seventies.

For instance, when I first started going to gigs (1973) I‘d turn up at the venue, usually The Apollo, a few weeks before the show and queue up for tickets. Concerts by the popular bands of the day, invariably meant queues for tickets would form well before the Box Office opened. Like hundreds of other kids, I’d happily wait in the rain (it was always raining in Glasgow in the Seventies) my loons becoming progressively more saturated from the top of my platform shoes up to my crotch. But the shared anticipation of seeing our heroes perform and the communal spirit that engendered made the waiting worthwhile. The wait heightened anticipation.

***Overnight queue at The Apollo, Glasgow.***

Not like today when any prospective gig-goer logs in to some online Ticket Agency from the comfort of their home and then makes a contactless card payment for some inordinate amount of money for a show in perhaps eleven months’ time.

Letters. We were quite happy to wait a couple of weeks for replies. Maybe, as an alternative to queuing up at The Apollo, we’d send a postal order and S.A.E. to the Ticket Office and hope upon hope we were successful in our application. Again, the wait heightened the anticipation.

***Airmail envelopes for our pen pals.***

Remember ‘pen-friends?’ Cub Scout and Brownie packs readily promoted the concept; comics and magazines also carried adverts from kids living in what were to us, strange and exotic places the world over. They would ask we write to them, and if Kenji from Tokyo hadn’t outgrown the notion of having a ‘pen friend’ from the UK by the time your letter arrived, then you might receive a reply some many weeks down the line.

On the other hand with no reply forthcoming, you eventually realised Kenji was just a timewaster. At least though, you’d had twelve weeks of excitedly greeting the postman at your door in the hope he brought news from the Far East. If nothing else, at least the wait heightened anticipation for a while.

We’d also happily wait till the following Saturday teatime for the latest episode of Batman – same Bat time ; same Bat channel. Not like today, when we can binge on series Box Sets streamed instantaneously into our homes or mobile device.

***Best tv show of The Sixties*** ***/ Seventies***

We’d wait keenly on the sound of the ice cream van chimes – mentally salivating at the thought of a couple Bazooka Joes, a bag of Salt ’n ’Vinegar crisps and if the ‘icey’ was in benevolent mood, some free broken biscuits.

In those days, Time was not pressing; the wait was expected and accepted.

Now, everything is pretty much instant – or close to. We want something? It’s available at the flick of a switch or press of a button.

There are though, some instances where the trend is completely skewed; instances where what used to be quick and efficient are now unnecessarily burdened by delay. Rather than the wait building anticipation, it has now become a source of angst.

In The Seventies, getting an appointment with your doctor was pretty quick. Now …?

In The Seventies, if your favourite top division football team scored a peach of a goal, you could celebrate instantly as the ball crossed the line. Now …?

In The Seventies, if you were stood at a bar behind some bloke ordering five pints of ‘Heavy’ for his mates, you knew, with confidence, you’d be served within the next few minutes. Now …?

Now, you’re stood behind some geezer ordering five Porn Star Cocktails for his mates. Comprising vanilla-flavoured vodka, Passoã, passion fruit juice, and lime juice, they each take five minutes to prepare and must be mixed by bar-staff with a degree in Chemical Engineering and an eye for artistic detail.

Now, that particular wait heightens agitation!

Maybe though, the technological advancements of the past five decades have spoilt us somewhat? Perhaps our expectations of ‘instant’ are unreasonable? Will Future’s youth appreciate the concept of patience?

You know, I have many things for which to be thankful about my life. Who’d have considered though, that for instilling an acceptance of The Wait all those years ago, a small, battered, old black and white tv set would be one of them?

(Post by Colin ‘Jackie’ Jackson from Glasgow – March 2023)

(Only three songs beginning with either the word ‘Wait,’ or ‘Waiting’ entered the UK charts in the 1970s. Here’s two of them – the third, ‘Wait Until Midnight’ by Yellow Dog, is pretty crap, I’m sad to say.)

Family life, Life

Knock! Knock! Who’s there …?

March 9, 2023 onceuponatime70s 3 Comments

***Door-to-door salesman.*** ***Photo credit: ClassicStock***

I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, everyone reading this post detests the intrusion on their privacy by the various unsolicited phone-calls received each day from any number of spurious sources.

Grants for cavity wall insulation or loft insulation; claim for damage to your car in an accident that you’re totally unaware of; claim against car manufacturers for selling you a diesel model many years ago; claim against a Bank for incorrectly selling you Payment Protection Insurance in the dim and distant past – all that kind of malarky.

It does my head in, really!

It’s a regrettable consequence of progress in the field of Communication, I fear, but it was never like this back in the day.

Or was it?

Certainly, any attempt at tele-sales would have been pretty futile. Not every household had access to a telephone for a start, and those that did were interminably engaged while Mrs Jones from #10 chatted about her Bert’s lumbago to her sister on the ‘party line.’

No – in those days, the best chance of maximising sales was to get in front of the ~~intended victim~~ prospective customer.

‘Knock! Knock! Knock!

Oh, give me peace – who the heck is it now?

The most common, persistent and determined visitor would have been the Door-to-Door Salesman. Unlike the tele-sales staff of today, these guys were not always quite so easy to get rid of. They were not easily discouraged by a simple, “Not today, thank you,” and had a reputation for preventing the door being shut on them by sticking their foot in the way.

They would arrive, bringing all manner of items for sale, from the expensive, but miraculous, new vacuum cleaner to shoe-brushes and polish!

Perhaps unfairly, and possibly influenced by the image portrayed in ‘70s TV sitcoms, I recall them as sort of ‘spiv’ type characters, full of themselves … as well as an inordinate amount of BS!

In a similar vein, there was also the Insurance Salesman. He’d offer life and household insurance and would collect policy money which would be recorded in a small receipt book. A forerunner of today’s Financial Planning Consultant, his products would not be so regulated, but they were certainly a lot less complicated and confusing.

***Insurance Salesman – (photo credit ClassicStock***)

At the opposite end of the ‘hard sell’ scale was a visitor more eagerly welcomed by women around the country – The Avon Lady. Though it was dropped some time in The Seventies, Avon is to this day still associated with the tagline of its 1960s TV advert – ‘Ding Dong! Avon calling.’

Similarly greeted with enthusiasm and eternal hope, was the Pools Agent.

My dad and I would sit by the dining table each week, agonising whether Arbroath were likely to get an away win at Stranraer that following weekend; would Stockport County manage a draw with Workington? Get these and a few other results right, and we’d be off to sunny Spain on a family holiday next week!

This was way before the days of The National Lottery and contactless card payments and the agents would walk door to door, even through the dark winter evenings, collecting cash from numerous households. In isolation, the stake monies weren’t vast, but by the end of the evening, the collectors would be weighed down with decent sums, and I’m sure presented easy targets for the neighbourhood’s ne’er-do-wells.

‘Knock! Knock! Knock!’

“What now? It’s dinner time, for goodness sake!”

I could have put my pocket money on it – an interruption at meal times invariably meant a visit by a Jehovah’s Witness or The Salvation Army. This was often a tricky one to handle for my parents. They wouldn’t want to cause any offence by sharply telling the visitors to sling their hook, but at the same time, their corned beef hash was getting cold. Sometimes, it was worth a few coppers donation just to get rid of them.

It wasn’t just hawkers and scroungers that sought our attention though. There were also those providing a service. Remember the Knife Sharpener? Here in Glasgow, the late ‘60s and early ‘70s saw a rise in knife crime, with ‘razor gangs’ terrorizing many areas of the city. Business must have been booming!

I do recall the Knife Sharpener coming down our sedate, suburban street. He always attracted a crowd of us kids watching on, fascinated.

“Look how sharp this is Mum,” we’d say after gleefully running back home with the now sparkling and shiny breadknife in our sweaty and slippery grip.

Chimney sweeps were anther essential service provider, at least in the early Sixties, but with cities in the UK moving to smokeless fuel towards the end of the decade, their visits became less and less frequent.

Others touting for business wouldn’t necessarily knock on residents’ doors. Instead, their presence would be announced by the heavy ‘clip clop’ sound of a horse’s hooves, accompanied by the blowing of whistles, the crashing noise of pots and pans being banged together, and the clarion call of:

“ANY OLD I-I-I-I-R-R-O-O-O-N?!”

Those were the days! The days of ‘The Scrappy.’ No need to complete an online form and pay the council fifty quid or whatever to come and take away your scrap metal some two or three weeks in the future. Just keep it by the house and every week or so, some bloke would come round and take it off your hands for free. Sometimes, he’d even pay you.

Then there was also the good old ‘Rag and Bone Man.’ He too would be assisted on his rounds by an old working horse, and would take away any old tat you had not previously foisted off on the local Boy Scouts Jumble Sale.

Add weekly / daily visits from the fish van; the baker van; the general supplies van; the ‘pop’ van; the ice cream van and the mobile library, and I have to wonder how Jeff Bezos ever managed to get his Amazon business off the ground.

So yes, it was different back in the day, but maybe not as different as we really consider. We were still bombarded by others seeking to make a living.

Certainly, it’s easier to abruptly end any unwanted discourse with those intrusive tele-sales teams of today.

But given the choice of talking to some geezer purporting to be called ‘Andrew’ from a call centre in Mumbai about extending my mobile phone contract, or feeding a sugar lump to a tired looking, flea bitten, poor old nag as its owner loads more weight to the cart it’s expected to pull, and … well I know which I prefer.

(Post by Colin ‘Jackie’ Jackson from Glasgow – March 2023.)

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*MUSIC, GENERAL '70s MUSIC ARTICLES, Musician

Apollo Mission

March 5, 2023 onceuponatime70s 5 Comments

Did I ever tell you about the time I was on stage at the legendary Apollo Theatre in Glasgow, the Mecca for all serious touring bands ? The Second City’s leading live music venue from the early seventies until the mid eighties as reviewed by our own Colin Jackson in his No Apologies – Apollo’s The Best article.

It was the 16^th of February, 1979 on a quiet afternoon in McCormack’s Music Store where I worked. My boss Freddy was looking for a volunteer to help deliver a Fender Rhodes to the theatre. I was certainly up for it because I knew The Jacksons were coming to town. Not the Jackson Five or Michael Jackson, The Jacksons ! It’s easy as 1,2,3 !

A Fender Rhodes is an electric piano popular in the seventies. Unlike a standard piano it has tines instead of strings which resonate next to a pickup where the sonic goblins carry it to the ample flyer who ……………………look, I’m a saxophone player. I don’t know all that technical stuff ! All I know is, it has a warm pleasing bell like tone and it takes two people to carry it.

These days you don’t have to sell your car or your grandmother to get a decent electronic keyboard with hundreds upon hundreds of sounds and samples, bells and whistles that you can easily carry under your arm. You can bet that the first presets people search for are the vintage sounds of the seventies – grand and honky tonk pianos, Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos, Hammond organ, clavinet, moog and mellotron.

I digress.

Freddy and I carried the piano, gingerly stepping over electric cables trying to avoid knocking cymbal stands over on one of the most hallowed stages in the world. There was a rabble of roadies frantically moving stuff about, plugging things in. One two, one two. Some scampering up lighting rigs like frightened baboons. There were a couple of guys on bass and drums laying down a killer funky groove. I don’t know if they were backing band members or some frustrated technicians but it sounded sweet to me.

The din around me started to fade as I looked into the empty auditorium from my elevated spot on that stage. Yes, it was high up there.

Johnny, Johnny.

The chants were getting louder.

We love you Johnny.

As I bent down to pick up the scattered flowers and discarded panties an enormous explosion shook me out of my reverie. Some unfortunate stagehand had unwittingly stepped on the trigger that detonated a firework display. It would have been mightily impressive in a dimly lit packed theatre at the end of a noisy gig but in an empty auditorium in the afternoon it was like a sonic boom. I don’t think I was the only one adjusting my underpants fearing the worst.

It turned out the gig was cancelled as the band were apparently snowed in in Geneva. At least they didn’t blame it on the boogie !

So I can’t even say I was testing out the stage for Michael and his brothers Jesse, Action, Glenda and…………………Colin.

(Post by John Allan from Bridgetown, Western Australia – March 2023)

Driving, Lifestyle, School

car in the community

February 8, 2023 onceuponatime70s 7 Comments

Header image, credit James Taylor)

Growing up in The Sixties and through the early to mid-Seventies, having a family car was more of a luxury than the virtual necessity it’s become these days. Can you imagine, then, the excitement I felt as a seven-year old, when my dad shelled out (he reckons) no more than forty pounds for a second hand Hillman Californian, back in 1965?

I’m no Jeremy Clarkson, or James May or even that other bloke – all I know is it was two-tone green, had five wheels (yes it did – I’m counting the steering wheel) and having now looked it up, was technically a 1953 Hillman Minx Mk VIII Californian. (Like the one above.)

So, it was possibly about twelve years old when we got it. Way to go, Dad!

Hey – I’m not complaining. It may have been a bit rickety and perhaps not the most dependable, but it did allow us to get away on holidays – rather surprisingly as far away as Littlehampton in Sussex, though that did entail at least one overnight stop, two doses of Avomine travel sickness tablets, four loaves of bread and three jars of Heinz Sandwich spread.

“Are we there yet?”

As I recall, we ran this car for a good few years – even when my sister and I were told not to put our feet on the rusted floor for fear of falling through. Dad eventually called time on the Californian when he parked up one evening, pulled on the handbrake, and it came away in his hand.

Our next two cars were also bought second hand. The first was a blue and white Ford Cortina (Mk 1, apparently) with the registration number, BYS 616C. A few years later, and we’d upgraded to a sort of beige coloured Ford Corsair – registration KUS 72E.

I think these particular ‘reggies’ stick in my mind because together with the other kids in my street, I used to keep a notebook with a record of all the plates I saw! Like sad little wannabe traffic wardens, we’d walk round by where we lived and fastidiously note down the registration numbers with the make and model of all the cars we saw.

Don’t laugh – it was a proper ‘thing’ back in the day. Granted, we maybe we took it a tad too far, but there were actually books that would help identify the makes and models we spotted.

Fortunately, I managed to kick that habit in the early Seventies before there was ever a chance of being dragged into the dark and murky world of plane spotting.

By now, my uncle was working as an accountant for Ford Motor Company and so could supply my parents with a steady stream of Cortinas, Granadas and the like, all at super-knocked down prices. We were very lucky.

Luckier still, when in the middle of the decade, my dad qualified for a company car. This meant the family budget could extend to a second car – one for my mum’s exclusive use. Ha Ha! Like it was ever going to work like that.

This was indeed an exciting development. I had just turned seventeen and was now of age to slap these big red, ‘L’ lettered plates on the bumpers of a car and take to the road. I’d seen those American ‘teen movies’ where to the soundtrack of late-Fifties Rock ‘n’ Roll, the local lads with big, flash cars were idolised by attractive girls in brightly coloured swing skirts.

Sadly there weren’t many ice-cream parlours in my area and even less Drive-In Movie lots, but I still I had visions of cruising the not-so-mean streets of suburban Bearsden in a fancy-dan, shiny, ‘chick-magnet.’ The trouble was, a classic T-Bird 1948 convertible far outreached my budget, and the car I had ready access to was …my mum’s red Fiat 126!

Hey! Check me out!

Of course, it wasn’t that simple. I had to pass my driving test first, and that proved a little problematic. I sat the exam at my local test centre – Anniesland, Glasgow. Typical of my luck, the examiner was the one with the reputation for failing young drivers as a matter of course. True to form, after giving way to a corporation bus which had encroached onto my side of the road, I bombed. (Apparently, I showed undue consideration and should have carried on. Oh yeah?)

It would be another few months before I could re-sit.

Not to worry. I was young for my school year (August birthday) and many of my pals had already passed their test and now drove around in their parents’ cars, or even their own. One had an unreliable Ford Capri and another in my close circle had a dark green, Morris 1100. It had more room in the back than the Capri and wasn’t quite so prone to petty malfunctions. Despite it looking decidedly less cool than the metallic-bronze coloured Ford, the owner was pleased that his ‘baby’ was preferred as the communal carrier.

This owner, who shall remain nameless, was not one famed for being outrageous or troublesome in any shape or form in school. Just a decent, ordinary geezer. But behind the wheel of his car, he was a raging lunatic! A real cretin, in fact!

For instance, one school lunch-hour, six of us piled into this four-seater of his. That was bad enough, but he then proudly announced he was going to take a high speed run through a crossroads without either slowing or looking.

The moron did it too.

I fair near wet myself. I wasn’t the only one, either.

He promised faithfully never to do anything so stupid ever again.

He lied.

Some weeks later, two others and I fancied dogging off Maths class went a spin in his car again – ‘spin’ being the operative word.’

Heading out into the countryside he sped over a blind hump / bend combination, only to see a large truck approach from the other direction. Taking urgent evasive action he swerved to the left, clipping the roadside embankment. The car spun violently round, fortunately missing the passing lorry, but catching the opposite verge, putting the car momentarily onto two wheels, before coming to a rocking rest spread across both sides of the road.

The truck driver didn’t stop, perhaps oblivious to the near catastrophe, though more likely not wanting to get caught up in matters entirely not his fault.

The four of us were a gibbering mess. Even our erstwhile stupidly bold and wreckless driver was shaking uncontrollably. He parked the car up at the side of the road and after several minutes’ partial recovery, we unanimously agreed that what was left of double Maths wasn’t such a bad option after all.

A much slower and sensible drive back to school afforded some time to cobble together a feeble excuse about the car breaking down, resulting in our being late to class. We thought the day couldn’t get much worse. We were wrong.

Our regular, soft-touch maths teacher was ill that day and the Deputy Head, who had a fearsome a reputation for discipline, was standing in.

“Where have you boys been? You’ve missed half the lesson. Are you all right? You look white as sheets.”

Mr Wilson? Compassionate?

Nah – it was only a momentary slip of his guard.

“Sir – we were just …”

“I’m not interested in excuses Jackson! The four of you – my office after class.”

All things considered, two of the belt was an infinitely better fate than the possible alternative we had face a couple of hours earlier.

***The tawse – we would get it along the hand, not across as in this image, which could lead to severe wrist bruising!***

I really had to pass my Driving Test and at least be in control of my own destiny.

I could get out and about ok – I had ‘wheels’ in the form of my Suzuki TS125 motorbike. However, asking a girl on a date, then requesting she pull a crash-helmet over her beautifully coiffured barnet is probably not going to lead to a long-term relationship. It also rains a lot in Glasgow. A motorbike ride in the rain is hardly going to impress.

I did, then eventually pass my Driving Test in 1977, sitting it this time at a different test centre. I was by now wearing reading glasses as a matter of course but didn’t want to declare this and be bound to carry them with me and wear them whenever driving. So, prior to the test, I memorised the number plates of the cars which I thought could form part of the eyesight test. (The New Seekers were spot on with their assertion of ‘All my life’s a circle.’)

In time, I would buy my own car, but the decade would be turned by then.

And I never did get that 1948 T-Bird convertible.

Fiat 126? Chick-magnet? I’ve seen more effective fridge-magnets.

(Post by Colin ‘Jackie’ Jackson from Glasgow, February 2023)

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*MUSIC, 18 With A Bullet

“Woodstock” by Matthews Southern Comfort

January 26, 2023 onceuponatime70s 4 Comments

Paul Fitzpatrick: January 2023

Every now and then we get invited to write articles for other blogs.

Recently we were asked to submit a piece on our ‘favourite number one single’, at which point I realised that very few good songs actually made it to the top of the UK charts in the 70s.

There were a few exceptions of course – “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, “Maggie May” and a few others, but in truth there wasn’t a lot to work with.

I think it’s true that most beloved songs are beloved because they evoke memories and there’s one particular number one from 1970 which takes me back, as a 12 year old, to the first social event of my own choosing, the youth club disco – a rites of passage if ever there was one.

At 12 you have to handle that unsettling transition from primary to high-school – in status terms you go from being a big fish to a teeny tadpole.
At the same time hormones are kicking-in and some of your friends have baritone’s and fuzzy facial hair whilst others squeak like Barry Gibb.

It is a trigger for change though and one of the big changes for me was getting interested in music, which was recognised by my lovely mum who came home one day with the *Top of the Pops volume 12 album, featuring hits from – Free, The Kinks, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Cat Stevens.

Captivated by the cover, (remember the hormones were kicking in) I proceeded to take control of the family gramophone, but after a few tracks my enthusiasm for this treasure-trove of hits began to wain.

Free’s Paul Rodgers’, or should I say the imposter who was trying to emulate him, sounded like a pub singer with laryngitis, John Fogarty’s Rickenbacker definitely needed re-tuning, and “Lady D’Arbanville” was more cats chorus than Cat Stevens.

The Pickwick Paul Rodgers murdering “All Right Now”

Of course, I had no idea at the time that the reason Pickwick could compile all the hits of the day for such good value, AND position a diversionary-tactic glamour puss on the cover, was because the original artists were nowhere to be seen.

It was a genius concept, aimed at two types of consumer – those who were quite happy to hear covers and those who wanted to peer at the COVERS.

Anyway, back to the youth club disco, it may have been 52 years ago but there are a couple of things that have always stuck with me….

First of all, despite the relatively small age-gap, the gulf between us young uns and the youth club veterans who were all of 14 or 15, was seismic. They were so much more mature and sophisticated – particularly the girls with their make-up, mini-skirts and tank-tops who looked like they’d jumped off the cover of the aforementioned Top of the Pops albums.

Secondly, the music….. apart from the Kelvin Hall carnival I’d never been anywhere where the music was so good… or played so ear-splittingly loud.
Every song the DJ played was a classic and to be fair we handled the volume pretty well until Sabbath’s “Paranoid” scattered us from our perch beside the speakers.

It was an all-out attack to the senses but we were quite happy sitting in the peripheries, drinking our fizzy-pop, taking everything in, and letting the epic soundtrack wash over us.

This was way more fun than watching Val Doonican with the family on a Saturday night.

Coming back to the music, it was a bit of a golden-age for singles and if you look down the list of 70s number one’s, you’ll struggle to see a hot streak of number one’s to match the following in 1970.

The sequence kicked off with two soul classics, compulsory picks on any decent jukebox – Smokey Robinson’s “Tears of a Clown” and Freda Payne’s “Band of Gold”.

“Woodstock” by Matthews Southern Comfort was next off the rank, followed by Jimi Hendrix’s posthumous “Voodoo Chile”.

The year was closed out by Dave Edmund’s “I hear You Knocking” which stayed at number one for 6 weeks before being replaced with Clive Dunn’s “Grandad”
The quirkiness of the UK record buying public, was never too far away.

I remember hearing all of those songs that night, along with Purple’s “Black Night”, McGuinness Flint’s “When I’m Dead and Gone” and T-Rex’s “Ride a White Swan”, but the track that takes me back to that church-hall every time I hear it is “Woodstock”, penned by Joni Mitchell and performed by Matthews Southern Comfort.

Joni’s an icon, but in 1970 I had no idea who she was, or who Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were. The fact that Matthews Southern Comfort’s rendition of “Woodstock” was the third version of the song to be released that year, was news to me.

All I knew was that it had a great melody and a very trippy vibe…..
“we are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves, back to the garden”.

I had zero awareness at the time that it was a hippy anthem about the Woodstock Festival, or that it had been composed by a pissed-off Joni Mitchell, confined to watching live coverage of the festival in her hotel room – coerced by her then manager to appear on the Dick Cavett show instead of performing at Woodstock.

Mitchell’s version had been released as the B side to “Big Yellow Taxi” and whilst CSN&Y’s version was mega in America and Canada, the version by Matthews Southern Comfort, fronted by former Fairport Convention vocalist Ian Matthews was the most successful internationally, giving them their one and only big hit.

A life-changing moment, which as it turns out, was a happy accident.

It all started when Matthews’ newly put together band were invited to record four live songs for a BBC session but with only three prepared they hurriedly put together an arrangement of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” on the spot.

As it turned out their ad hoc rendition of “Woodstock” was so well received that they were encouraged to put it out as a single, something their record company weren’t keen on and only agreed to if CSN&Y’s version didn’t chart in the UK, which fortunately proved to be the case for Matthews.

With the song recorded, released and struggling to sell due to zero record company promotion or support, the third piece of luck kicked in when Tony Blackburn made “Woodstock” his record of the week, duly catapulting the single up the charts to the number one spot, where it stayed for 3 weeks.

Alas, this was Matthews Southern Comfort’s only chart success and the song has predictably fallen into the category aptly titled – ‘One Hit Wonder’.

I grew to love the Joni Mitchell original, and I’ve listened to most versions of the song including an interesting up-tempo interpretation by Stephen Stills, featuring Jimi Hendrix on bass & Buddy Miles on drums, however, the Matthews Southern Comfort version is still the best – well to this 12-year-old anyway!

(*If you want to read more on the Top of The Pops catalogue of albums, Colin posted a great article. Click here for more)

*MUSIC, Turntable Talk

turntable talk: they’re a poet, don’t you know it.

January 23, 2023 onceuponatime70s 2 Comments

Paul and I were, last week, again invited to join the TURNTABLE TALK chat on Dave Ruch’s blog, ‘A Sound Day.‘ This is an excellent site to visit and satisfy your musical curiosity on all genres of music, mainly focused on the 60s, 70s and 80s. Dave is a prolific writer and the articles are filled with fascinating facts and trivia.

Thanks, Dave, for again asking Once Upon a Time in The ‘70s to join the Turntable Talk discussion.

_____

This time around, the topic was They’re a Poet Don’t You Know It... Dave asked us ‘to pick one song that you think has fantastic lyrics, or one you like because of the lyrics, and say a bit about why you love it.’

As I’ve said before on this and other blogs, I’m not so much a ‘lyrics man.’ I’m a bit of a philistine in that regard, I guess. What hooks me into a song is the music; the beat and harmonies; the pace.

When I read the remit, though, one artist immediately sprung to mind. Then two. Three.

All three are poets. Simple. That’s it – poets in their own right. Not musicians with a clever turn of phrase; not an artist that had some weird LSD trip resulting in a profound, life affirming psychedelic vision that inspired them to write in romantic, flowery terms.

Nope. Just poets.

So, ever the rebel, I’m going ignore Dave’s instruction.

OK what I’ll do then, in an effort to keep this concise as possible (that’s a laugh!) is concentrate on the two artists who were around in The ‘70s. That makes sense, right?

I’m going to pass on the wonderful Kae Tempest, simply because I live in the past and Kae is very much ‘present.’ I don’t actually know any songs particularly well, but every one I’ve heard just drips lyrical genius. Not so much in the words that are used, but more the manner in which they are delivered.

Right, here we go, proper: Linton Kwesi Johnson was born in Jamaica but came to UK (Brixton, London) in 1963 at the age of eleven. The late Sixties, Seventies and early Eighties saw considerable racial tension in England, and Linton grew up facing prejudice and persecution from all angles – especially so, the police.

I grew up in Scotland. We didn’t witness anything like the discrimination that was so prevalent down south. So when Linton’s work began to gain airplay on the John Peel radio show, I was engrossed- shocked at the content and that such injustices could be happening only a couple hundred miles away, but also entranced by the delivery of such powerful patois poetry.

Linton Kwesi Johnson’s recitals had me listening hard. They made me focus; concentrate on what he was saying in this ‘foreign tongue’ and so his message became even more stronger.

An added attraction for me is Linton’s use of Dub / reggae music for backing. On many recordings, he would hire Denis Bovell for the mixing desk, percussion, keys. (Dennis is one of my favourite Dub artists , with several of his albums in my collection.)

This particular track, ‘Sonny’s Lettah,’ released in 1978 encapsulates pathos, indignation, retribution, regret and pride in under four minutes. Musically, it combines traditional blues with reggae / dub.

(The song relates a letter being sent to a mother back home in Jamaica, explaining why her son – the writer- and his brother are locked up in jail, having been arrested under the ‘Sus Law.’ This was a ‘stop & search’ law that allowed police to stop, search and potentially arrest people on suspicion of them being in breach of section 4 of the Vagrancy Act 1824. The police, it was established, unfairly targeted black and ethnic minority groups and led in part to the riots in Bristol, London, Liverpool and Birmingham in 1980 & 1981. The law was eventually repealed in August ’81)

Altogether, it’s pretty damned powerful, I’d say – as indeed are all the works of LKJ. I could have picked any number of tracks, but this one conveniently displays the lyrics.

John Cooper Clarke is a spoken word performer from Salford, by Manchester. He’s often referred to as The People’s Poet, and more simply as a Punk Poet. As does Linton Kwesi Johnson, John deals with social issues but though he can be downbeat and hard-hitting, like with ‘Beasley Street’ below he more often resorts to humour to make his point – as in the second example, ‘Kung Fu International.’ (I know the latter is not technically a ‘song’ in that it has no accompanying music, but I think Cooper Clarke’s voice ‘sings,’ in a deadpan, Mancunian way.)

Though he now performs solo, and purely in spoken word format, his initial work in the ‘70s was put to music by producer Martin Hannett and a band of Manchester ‘all stars’ including Pete Shelly from The Buzzcocks and Vini Reilly of The Durutti Column, playing under the name The Invisible Girls.

And in keeping with his ‘punk poet’ tag, John Cooper Clarke has been special guest of such luminaries as Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Buzzcocks, while up and coming young whippersnappers like Joy Division, Duran Duran and New Order snapped up the chance to open for him.

People would say in 1981 that The Specials portrayed an image of desolate, urban decay here in UK. From the year previous, try this for size … my favourite verse comes in @ 2’ 40”:

Hot beneath the collar
An inspector calls
Where the perishing stink of squalor
Impregnates the walls
The rats have all got rickets
They spit through broken teeth
The name of the game is not cricket
Caught out on Beasley Street

And finally, if there’s anyone can make being beaten up and having their head kicked in sound funny, Johnny’s yer man!

***Linton Kwesi Johnson & John Cooper Clarke***

Linton Kwesi Johnson and John Cooper Clarke. Two socially conscious men with more in common than just triple-barrel names and a fascination for unprovoked attacks.

(Post by Colin ‘Jackie’ Jackson from Glasgow – January 2023)

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*MUSIC, 18 With A Bullet

Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) by Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel.

January 6, 2023 onceuponatime70s 4 Comments

Paul Fitzpatrick: January 2023

Cockney Rebel were one of those bands that I read about long before I actually heard any of their material.

Signed by EMI in 1973 after only five gigs, the band were hyped by the London-based music press who once counted band leader Steve Harley as one of their own before he pursued a career in music, initially by showcasing his early Cockney Rebel material as a busker in Leicester Square.

Based on the hype and Harley’s chutzpah I already had preconceived ideas about these poseurs, but then I heard the first single – Judy Teen, and much to my disappointment it was really rather good.

I then heard another couple of tracks from their debut album “The Human Menagerie”, which I also liked, but I still had reservations.
You see there were a glut of Bowie impersonators in the mid 70s and I suspected Harley could be one of them – slightly androgynous, plenty to say for himself and a sharp dresser.

Still, I was intrigued enough to buy the second Cockney Rebel album “The Psychomodo” on its release in the summer of 1974, featuring the catchy Mr Soft, and the cult of the Rebel was on the rise

Harley had got off to a pretty impressive start with two critically acclaimed albums in the space of six months but his magnum opus was just around the corner.

I first heard Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) in my dads car in January 1975, we were making our way home from Harrogate, in the middle of a snow storm.
Just as the song was cooking my dad switched to another station in search of a traffic update, unbelievably he was more concerned about getting us home safely than savouring Jim Cregan’s incredible guitar solo.

Next thing I knew, Neil Diamond was on the 8-Track, and that was the day I learned about drivers privilege – whoever’s steering has control of the music.

Nonetheless, the song had made an impression and next payday I headed to the record shop, evidently I wasn’t the only one, as a couple of weeks later the song was top of the UK hit-parade, replacing Pilot’s aptly named January.

Forty eight years on, I still love the song, it’s a prime example of 70s pop at its best, and as a 4 minute pop song it’s up there with the best – Bowie, Rod, T-Rex, Roxy or 10cc.

GEETARRR….

Sonically, it’s a great sounding track which is no surprise as it was recorded, engineered and produced at Abbey Road by Alan Parsons – who’d worked on “Abbey Road” for the Beatles and was fresh from engineering Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of The Moon”.

Consumed by the catchy chorus, I misinterpreted the lyrics at the time, assuming they were an open invitation to a young lady, who Harley wanted to come up to see him – so she could make him smile!

As it turns out, I couldn’t have been wider from the mark – it was actually a bitchy ‘f*ck you’ to the original Cockney Rebel line up (drummer Stuart Elliot, apart) who had left Harley in the lurch by demanding more money and more involvement in the writing process just before 1974’s Reading Festival…. quitting the band when he refused.

“You’ve done it all
You’ve broken every code
And pulled the rebel to the floor
You spoiled the game
No matter what you say
For only metal, what a bore“

Far from being a siren song, the chorus was a taunt aimed at his former bandmates, beckoning them to come hither with their tails between their legs, so they could witness what they’d left behind….

“Come up and see me to make me smile
Oh, or do what you want, running wild”

With the next album already written, Harley recruited a new band featuring Jim Cregan on guitar who would play the fabulous flamenco guitar solo on Make Me Smile, before becoming Rod Stewart’s right hand man for many years.

Make Me Smile, is one of those songs that an artist can probably live off for the rest of their career, either through touring – in the knowledge that every evening, the majority of the audience have bought a ticket to hear that one iconic song so they can singalong.

Or, through royalties….. the song’s been used by brands as diverse as Viagra and Marks & Spencer for TV campaigns, and when you think of it “come up and see me, make me smile” is a pretty smart tagline for the treatment of erectile dysfunction!

PF – Any time I see this advert I keep wishing the cocky twat would fall down the stairs

It was a surprise to find that there are over 120 cover versions of the song, as I don’t recall hearing many.

Steve Harley’s favourite rendition?

This version….

As Harley says, it was written as a bitter, bitchy recrimination, so The Wedding Present’s raspy, indie delivery conveys the sentiment of the song perfectly.

Christmas, Family life, Holidays

The Ghosts of Christmas Past (and Present)

December 24, 2022 onceuponatime70s 3 Comments

Paul Fitzpatrick: London, December 2022

I always thought there were three ghosts in Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, but there’s actually four – the ghost of Scrooge’s partner Jacob Marley and the ghosts of Xmas past, present & future.
This ties in neatly with my theory that as we move through the stages of life there are four phases of Christmas….

Stage One – I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day

I couldn’t say for certain when I first became aware of the magic of Christmas, but when I did, it all seemed too good to be true.

Toys, pantomimes, comic annuals and selection boxes – a seasonal novelty which offered more sugar in a day than you normally consumed in a month….

The Wizzard of Xmas, Roy Wood, wasn’t wrong!

Looking back, you could be excused for thinking that the Santa concept is based on some form of cult indoctrination – ‘believe and you will be rewarded’.

So of course, we believed!

The big fella only popped down our lum once every twelve months but like the Sword of Damocles, his presence was evident throughout the year.

“Your report card better be decent if you’re expecting Santa to visit this year“

Machiavellian in the extreme, but it worked and we all went along for the ride… even in the face of logic.

Then, when we were old enough we took onboard the religious aspects, about the Nativity and the fact that Santa was a moniker for Saint Nicholas a fourth-century do-gooder.
It became obvious that Santa and God had a lot in common – both omnipresent with the power to punish or reward.

Any doubts we harboured were unspoken, there was simply no up-side to being Santa-agnostic…. better to keep schtum, play the long game, and reap the rewards.

Plus, this was our parents and grandparents we were talking about, if we couldn’t trust them, who could we trust??

Stage Two – Who Took The Merry Out Of Christmas

But then it happened.

I can’t remember how it happened or exactly what age I was when it happened, but sure enough the cat got out the bag, and any suspicions we had were confirmed – The big fella was a hoax!

In truth, we saw it coming, but it was still unsettling and was exacerbated by the realisation that all the adults we’d trusted in our life had been playing us like fiddles.

For some poor souls it definitely triggered an existential crisis….

“How about God, is he real then”?
“And the Tooth Fairy? Am I still going to get recompensed for all the teeth I’m about to lose due to these delectable selection boxes”?

On the plus side, once we got over the subterfuge, it sank in pretty quickly that not only were most of the seasonal benefits still in place, they were about to be super-charged with interesting new additions like… Xmas discos and the Kelvin Hall Carnival.

Stage Three: It’s not Christmas until Hans Gruber falls off the Nakatomi Plaza

Moving into the teenage years, we faced a different kind of Christmas with Santa out of the picture.

There were some benefits though.
Like discovering the best social lubricant known to (awkward) teenagers, since tequila – Mistletoe!

Mistletoe – a parasitic plant, with poisonous berries and mystical powers that empowered the shyest amongst us to (attempt to) snog someone we’d never spoken to in our life before.

The transformation was incredible.

Upon sight of the berried twigs timid boys transformed into Warren Beatty and demure girls, Mae West.

As we transferred into the workplace leaving our youth club discos behind, December became a malaise of social occasions and you learned pretty quickly that it’s possible to get too much of a good thing.
(btw, whatever happened to Andrews Liver Salts?)

It was also around this stage that you realised that the 25th of December had transformed from being the most exciting day of your young life to one of the dullest.
Stuck indoors with nowhere to go – this was lockdown 70s style, everywhere was closed on Xmas day in the 70s and there was no Scalextric or Ker-Plunk under the Xmas tree to wile away the hours any more.

By this point the essence of Xmas as you knew it, had vanished. There were no more surprises – unless someone thought outside the box and bought you something other than soap-on-a-rope.

Stuck in the house, the new highlight of Xmas day was whatever blockbuster was being premiered on TV that year.

In the mid 70s this would have been a Hollywood star vehicle like The Towering Inferno or The Poseiden Adventure.

In recent years, the Xmas movie of choice for the masses has been Die Hard…

Yippee-Ki-Yay mo-fo!

Stage Four: Step (Back) Into Christmas

Then, just as you’re getting used to the idea that Xmas is nothing more than a capitalist racket and the primary cause of ulcers, kids come along, and whether it be your own, or nephews or nieces, you start to experience Christmas through their eyes, witnessing the spontaneous joy in their innocent little faces as they embark their own Christmas journeys.

And before you know it, you’re getting jumpers and gloves for Xmas and you’ve stepped into your parents shoes, where establishing your own Xmas family traditions is part of the gig.
For us it’s the usual stuff – watching It’s A Wonderful Life, playing Phil Spector’s Xmas album, listening to the Queens speech and being a bit too competitive in the Xmas-day, family quiz.

I’m guessing the four phases of Christmas are still relevant in some form or another for millennials, although I’m pretty sure that the digital age and the new licensing laws have moved things on a bit from the 70s.

What’s always been around however is Christmas Songs, and the 70s produced a few decent tunes.

My go-to comes from Xmas 73, it’s not the deepest or the most meaningful, but it takes me back to a happy place and encapsulates the season of goodwill.

“So merry Christmas one and all
There’s no place I’d rather be
Than asking you if you’d oblige
Stepping into Christmas with me“

No Surprise then that Elton makes it onto my playlist of Xmas songs I listened to in the 70s.
In the words of Noddy Holder…. It’s CHRISTMAS!!

Obligatory 70s Xmas Playlist…

*MUSIC, Christmas, GENERAL '70s MUSIC ARTICLES, Music

now that’s what I don’t call christmas.

December 23, 2022 onceuponatime70s 2 Comments

IF there was any justice in the world, I’d be sitting in my plush 30-roomed mansion this Christmas surrounded by the trappings of untold wealth.

But there’s not…and I’m not.

So where did it all go wrong? Well, I’m blaming several unscrupulous record company A&R types who snaffled five original Christmas songs I’d sent them, gave them a tweak and passed them off as their own.

I’ll be the first to admit my song-writing showed signs of immaturity, but I can put that down to, erm, being immature.

I penned my batch of Christmas tunes as a teenager back in the early 1970s and sent them off to all the big record companies in the hope of getting them recorded.

I never heard anything back, not so much as a rejection slip. Ever since then I’ve suffered in silence as, one by one, the songs have gone on to be huge festive hits worth squillions of pounds.

Not a penny has come my way in royalties down the years and those wounds run deep. Angry? Yep. Bitter? You betcha.

Now I’m not saying these hit songs are exact replicas of the ones I wrote, but there are more than enough similarities to suspect an element of plagiarism is involved.

Anyway, I’ll lay out the facts as I see them for my original songs and let you decide for yourselves.

Slept In To Christmas

Back story: This was my first ever attempt at writing a song and the inspiration was my paranoiac fear of missing out on my Christmas tips by sleeping in for my paper round. I’d knocked my pan in all year, hadn’t shirked a single shift and was relying on the gratuities to pay for Christmas pressies. The lyrics bounce between my thoughts and those of my customers, but I thought it worked well.

Favourite lyric: Welcome to my Christmas song, I’d like to thank you for the year, So I’m leaving you this Christmas tip, To say it’s nice to have you deliver here.

Plagiarised?

Little Plumber Boy

Back story: A mate of mine had just landed a job as an apprentice plumber and told me how his time-served mentor would always hum away to songs on the radio without knowing the words. This is where the pa-rum-pum-pum-pum part of the song comes in. When I sent off the tune to the record companies I even suggested it should be a double act of an old crooner and a young rock legend.

Favourite lyric: Come they told me pa-rum-pum-pum-pum, A U-bend leak to see pa-rum-pum-pum-pum, Our finest tools we bring pa-rum-pum-pum-pum

Stolen?

Fast Christmas

Back story: This one came about after one particular Christmas Day when I somehow squeezed in two dinners – one with my family and the other at my girlfriend’s. I was so bloated when dessert came around for the second time that I handed over my serving to my girlfriend. It was intended to be some sort of love token, but it went down like a lead balloon. The whole experience made me think seriously about fasting at Christmas.

Favourite lyric: Fast Christmas I gave you lime tart, But the very next day you gave it away, This year, to save me from tears, I’ll give you some Tartan Special

Pinched?

All I Want For Christmas Is Yule (Log)

Back story: I had long since abandoned any thoughts of fasting by the following Christmas mainly thanks to my mum’s baking prowess. She knocked out a home-made chocolate Yule log to die for and I was smitten enough to write a song about it.

Favourite lyric: I just want you for my own, More than you could ever know, Make my chocolate wish come true, All I want for Christmas is Yule.

(Little Saint ) Nicked?

Sherry Xmas Everybody

Back story: This was inspired by my grandma who was tee-total all year round but would let her hair down on Christmas Day by having a wee sherry or two. The challenge for us grandkids was to prise her glass away – no mean feat, I can tell you – hold it up for all to see and say: “Whose sherry is this?” Then we’d all shout: “It’s grandmaaaaaa’s”. I even made this the intro to my song as a tribute.

Favourite lyric: Does your granny always tell ya, That Cockburn’s is the best, Then she’s up and drinking Rolling Rock with the rest.

Ripped off?

I can’t help feeling I’ve been stiffed and wish I’d known something – anything, in fact – about copyright laws back then. Who knows? It might have been kerchingle bells for me.

Mmm..I feel another song coming on.

(Post by George Cheyne from Glasgow – December 2022)

Once Upon a Time in The '70s