In a private email, Hawkfall confesses to “not having the confidence” to start this long-overdue thread “in spite of my Mastermind Special Subject knowledge.” In the hope that he’ll join in the fun, then, let’s get some sand on our Mivvis and relive those wonderful years of sunny fun times!
(I should point out that I’m doing this as a favour. I haven’t watched the YouTube clip, from Hawkfall’s private collection, so caveat emptor.)
I went to a roadshow once, in Torquay when on holiday there in about 1984. Simon Bates was the presenter. He was a miserable git who clearly thought he was above it all, until they went on air when he was transformed into the Fab FM wonnerful Radio 1 type you might have expected from a roadshow host. Don’t remember much else about it other than what a huge crowd it drew.
Can I just say a big hello to Dave, Karen, Mental Ernie, Mental Eric and all others in the sixth form please?
And can you play I Love Rock & Roll by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts?
Shouldn’t you be at school, sonny?
As thread curator, I should say that there might be a Radio 1 (FM) pen for anyone who can link to John Peel’s story regarding Tony Blackburn, the wombles and the speedboat.
Me sir, me sir.
Vaguely remembered from Peel’s autobiography, and link below fills the gaps.
1975 Mallory Park
https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/Mallory_Park
Thanks Hawkfall and Rigid. That anecdote made my day!
Peel was a very amusing chap.
Sides splitting here. That story is gold. Not even a punchline or a point to it really, but just the thought of it is hilarious. The womble driving the boat is the cherry on top!
I never went to a Roadshow but I did chance upon a Cheggers OB one Saturday morning in London back in the early 80s.
As with Batesy up there – zero interaction with us kids when cameras off.
And then…
Cheggers to camera – “ooh eck Noel, it’s flippin’ MAD ‘ere, I tell yer! We’ve had jugglers, fire-eaters, acrobats -even a bobby paid us a visit! Probably cos of the noise from THIS lot!! Give us a cheer!”
(Big cheer)
Noel – “Looks like a great party going on down there! Thanks Cheggers!”
Cheggers (finger in one ear) – “Ha Ha – oh I’m sorry Noel, I can’t really hear you!!! Bye!”
It’s over. A now-sullen Cheggers marches immediately to the nearby caravan. We have stopped cheering because everyone’s gone.
Took kids to see One Show in Hunstanton. The Green was filled with half of Norfolk (ie 5000 people). Somewhere in the distance a stage. The sound was dreadful, like listening to the neighbour’s transistor radio (transistor radio). “Dad, can we go now?” And go we did
The Norfolk’s population and collective IQ respectively doubled and halved nine months later
Harsh words
Was Brian Kennedy performing (performing)?
Once at Batley Variety Club, Slade were the guests Noddy in a flat cap think this was pre mirrored 🎩 (at a guess 71).
On checking the DJ was Emperor Rosko according to someone else there.
This comment is so 70s, I think we need to change the background to wood panelling.
@Hawkfall for your delectation
BVC.
Is that you, Hubes? Lovely shiny suit!
My Teflon look
11am – 1pm as I recall every weekday during the summer holidays. Never went to one live but Bits and Pieces, the Mileage Game and so on together with a firmly fabdabbydoozy selection of music was the background to many bored summer days at home in the late 70s.
I remember getting quite excited when this was one, it felt like a big event, normally listening when on my own summer holiday with my parents. Never went to one.
There was also “Seaside Special” a variety show on BBC Sat nights in the 70s during the endless summer hols. Sunny every day if I remember correctly.
Madonna’s first TV show, apparently. She was briefly a dancer for the “Born to be Alive” hitmaker Patrick Hernandez and appeared on one of those Seaside Special summer variety shows. Backstage, she would have been jockeying for position in front of the lightbulby mirrors with Bernie Clifton, the Krankies and the dog that said “sausages”.
Great detective work @Black Celebration.
After those showmates, the only way was up.
The dog that said sausages sounds like it had a remarkable talent. But perhaps not one that was enough for a long showbiz career?
The dog that said sausages never quite recovered being outclassed by the Australian dog that could say “Hello Mum!” clear as day, without his owner forcing his mouth up and down to do so.
@hawkfall –
I didn’t believe it, but it turns out Wossy had that dog on.
What a peculiar sub-section of pop culture! Talking pooches are in a class of their own. But as you comment, Hawkfall, that moment in the limelight will not last.
No sooner has your pup has appeared on Blue Peter or Jonathan Ross than there’s a new hound on the block who can say something even more interesting. It is a dog eat dog world.
Finding a dog that can talk is a quest that appeals to every new generation..
It’s like medieval knights… in search of the Holy Growl.
That’s a terrific joke. I think someone should press the golden hamper button and send it to Sweden forthwith.
Disco baby, sexy baby, hot!
Extra points for TrypF for a Mickey Disco reference.
There’s a grimly fascinating extra feature on my DVD copy of “Never too young to Rock” that easily surpasses the miserable forced jollity of the tired main feature. Its a short documentary about the Radio 1 Roadshow,facilitated (and I use that joyless word without irony) by a stern faced Dave Lee Travis. The whole films oozes a chilling dark ambience. The grey brooding seaside sky. The icy whipping wind. A terrified troupe of Boy Scouts huddled against the cold while a wild eyed DLT snarls a series of pop trivia questions in their confused and fearful direction. To top it all off after the Roadshow ends Travis puts on a Frankenstein monster mask and strides away through the horrified crowd like some prototype Micheal Myers. Essential viewing.
I just stumbled across this clip from a documentary about Radio 1, which contains footage from Mallory Park 1975.
Words fail me to describe he madness that was Rollermania
Brilliant!
Yes, I have NEVER understood the Bay City Rollers or Rollermania. Seriously, what was that all about? Even today, they don’t even really have kitsch appeal or anything do they? A sad little dead end for the UK in the seventies.
I recall at the height of rollermania walking towards me in Bradford an elderly gentleman ( though possiby younger than I am now) dressed in full roller uniform as he passed me, the young woman walking behind him looked at me and we exchanged a look that said “What have we just seen?”
Decidedly odd.
He wasn’t smoking a cigar and saying “Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous” in a Yorkshire accent, was he?
That made me chuckle.
As we are enjoying a brief flurry of Rollermania, it seems only right to repost the magnificent clip.
The Rollers! The exquisite Ann-Margret! And the wildest, most enthusiastic audience of senior citizens I have ever seen.
You take a brief snooze and wake up to see your Gran doing her knitting and getting off to the Rollers.
Nope…..they’re still shit.
If it’s magnificent Rollers related clips you want, it’s hard to beat this one
Queuing up to get Mike Smiths autograph for a lady friend (honestly!) at the Worthing roadshow in 1983 I think, Sarah Greene tapped me on the shoulder and asked if she could push in and surprise Mike. He didn’t know she was coming and was absolutely overjoyed to see her, it was really sweet.
Point of order here IP, this comment, great though it is, doesn’t capture quite the tone we’re looking for. We’re looking for stories of scowling, perma-tanned DJs with titanic egos shoving their hands in the faces of autograph book-wielding schoolkids as soon as the “On Air” light goes off.
Hawkfall here writing the textbook on thread curation. Strict but fair.
Did you ask her about the snooker table?
Whack whack oops!
I think one of the things we can explore in this thread is whether we saw the same stroppy behaviour from DJs through the generations from the 60s to the 90s. Then we could perhaps investigate whether the Roadshow lorry was possessed by evil spirits and caused all this. Perhaps they parked it illegally over a sacred burial ground one night in Rochdale. There’s got to be a Stephen King novel in there somewhere. Or at least James Herbert. It would be like The Rats but with Wombles.
You’ll feel be getting a letter from HP’s solicitors
– eh?
Clearly your book “Deranged Disc Jockeys” covered this story well before Herberts like King came along?? That bit when a Womble is devoured whole by Noel Edmonds described by Malcolm Muggeridge as “A master of prose at his best” rings so true even today
Malcolm Muggeridge can get to buggerage.
A motto for our times.
I notice Hawkfall is all over this thread now it’s taken off. Perhaps I should send a private email to someone.
He’s the one infected, twisted animator. He’s the threadstarter, twisted threadstarter.
Remember, if you’re going to try to convince HP to write a thread for you, it’s not what’s in the email that counts, it’s what’s in the attachment.
Hurrr
Confession – I had a minor part to play in all of this back in the 70s. I had a small business printing T Shirts in Bristol. The whole Roadshow operation was run out of Bristol by Tony Miles (yes, smiley Miley) and he approached me to do some work for him, so I ended up printing all the Radio 1 T shirts (both of those designs in the film), as well as some for Seaside Special. It was something I sincerely regret getting into for all sorts of reasons, not least because I never made any real money out of it.
He wasn’t the nicest person I ever met either – obviously relishing knowing all the fab DJs and spending 6 weeks having larks around grim seaside towns. His brother managed the Wurzels…oddly, they are in that film too.
“His brother managed the Wurzels”….Kinnell, this thread is so seventies it ought to have been printed on a Banda duplicator
You mean a Dymo label printer shirley? Speaking of which, I just dun a search, and they are still going! They’re all internet-aware and everything, too. Plus ça change, or what?
I live in Exmouth now, and they were here last Christmas and they usually crop up at various countryside type events in the summer in the West Country.
No, I didn’t go….
Even Smiley Miley was a bit of a bugger. I’m telling you, that Roadshow truck was possessed. Only Sarah Greene was immune by the look of things.
I am surprise that Dymo has a countryside-type event presence.
If was a truly 70’s thread then surely the Stylophone would put in an appearance?
Ah the faint purple of Banda. My sixth form days madeleine. ‘Now here’s everything you need to know on the execution of Charles 1st’
He was probably killed by those fumes.
@NigelT
Sounds like they should have renamed him
Biley Miley
Sobering to think that it was nearly 50 years ago I was doing that. I’m not going to slag off Tony Miles too much – he was a businessman, I’m guessing a bit of a chancer, but someone who was obviously good at what he was doing. The Radio 1 Roadshows were a phenomenon of the time, and I knew him pretty much at the start I think, and I was young and a hopeless businessman.
A quick google revealed he was planning go bring it all back a couple of years ago…
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife/radio-one-roadshow-returning-bristol-1803834
@mc-escher
Spilage in aisle three.
This is far better than any of that so-called well crafted “comedy” the Yanks will insist on passing off as amusing, Jaygee-y. Well done you!
Really needed a smiley – possibly a winky? – after that “well done you” for full passive aggression.
I had the pleasure of ‘Woo’ Gary Davies and Peter ‘hello mate’ Powell at a particularly dismal Radio 1 roadshow. Davies was all big hair and fake tan, while Powell was sporting a bubble perm and unfeasibly tight shorts. It was all spray-on bonhomie and ego trippage, topped off by the fact that it was raining.
Pity the poor Kane Gang. Their jingle for Gary Davies is vastly better known than any of their actual songs.
I hear it’s being issued as a coloured vinly on the next RSD. A snip at £29.99
is it backed by the Byker Grove theme?
Why aye, yaboogaman
Shame on you, @Moose the Mooche!
The wonderful Kane Gang had a whole pile of wonderful songs. And were big in the clubs as you can see in this vid.
I wish that Afterworder with the Radio 1 logo as his avatar – the cove who thinks I’m Jesus – was here to share his behind-the-scenes insights.
@dr-volume I presume?
PS. You’re not Jesus, you’re John the Baptist. Stephen King is Jesus.
Christ is King! Rejoice!
He is risen!
Well, that’s Helium for you.
@Moose-the-Mooche
Stephen King is Jesus?
An over-inflated claim if ever I saw one
Risible, in fact