Fifty years ago, I was keeping a diary. Mostly, it's a record of what I watched on TV, the books I was reading, the music I was listening to. I never imagined myself re-reading those entries half a century later, and in many respects little has changed: I'm still watching many of the same TV series, and playing the same records. For the month of December, I'm going to revisit my entries week by week, looking at what's changed and what hasn't, what deserves to be remembered and what doesn't...
Monday 1 December: 'Ill. Watch Clapperboard (with an excerpt from A Hard Day’s Night) + Batman. Do Supercar annual. The Goodies in Big Bunny.'
It was unusual for me to watch Clapperboard, Granada’s film review series aimed at younger viewers, partly on account of the fact that Clapperboard tended to be shown at around 4.20pm when I wasn’t yet home from school. On this occasion I was off sick. Back in 1975, it was worth tuning in just to see a small snippet of A Hard Day’s Night: I’d only seen the film once, and wouldn’t get to see it again until a BBC2 season of Beatles films at Christmas 1979.
Monday nights through autumn 1975 had meant a date with The Sweeney, but the series had ended the week before, with the deferred episode Thou Shalt Not Kill – its original scheduled transmission had been cancelled on account of a recent real life hostage situation, the so-called ‘Spaghetti House Siege’ which lasted between 28 September and 3 October. The Sweeney’s intended series finale, the semi-comic Trojan Bus, had been shown in its place on 3 November.
Tonight’s episode of The Goodies was a repeat of Invasion of the Moon Creatures AKA Big Bunny, first seen on 8 December 1973 and never repeated again after this broadcast. Following their chart success with ‘The Inbetweenies’/’Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me’ the following year, and more notably, ‘The Funky Gibbon’ in March '75, the trio were aiming at the charts again with ‘Make a Daft Noise for Christmas’, which only just scraped into the Top 20.
Tuesday 2 December: 'Watch The Invisible Man ‘Klae Dynasty’ and the return of a series of repeats of Are You Being Served, Up Captain Peacock. The Staff Bog.'
US import The Invisible Man had been in residence on Friday evenings since late September, and now began a couple of weeks of being shunted around the schedule as the BBC raced to cram in all the available episodes before Christmas. The premise was unnecessarily clunky: in order to make himself ‘visible’, scientist Daniel Westin (David McCallum) had to don a rubber face mask and wig (presumably fitting the latter over his existing invisible hair?) If ever there was a case of the creators of a series not thinking their concept through properly, this was it. Only twelve episodes were made, and the show was replaced the following year by the very similar, but more straightforward Gemini Man – who only had to flick a switch on his watch to activate his invisibility. Personally, I find posting anything on social media works just as well...
Tonight’s repeat of Are You Being Served, Up Captain Peacock was one I already regarded as a classic: Peacock is rewarded for his twenty years’ service at Grace Brothers with the key to the ‘executive washroom’. This provokes the ire of the much longer serving Mr. Grainger, who at one point in the episode grumpily informs Captain Peacock that he’s going to ‘the staff bog!’ Hence my diary entry.
Wednesday 3 December: 'Film, Our Man Flint with James Coburn about trying to take over the world by controlling the weather on an island. Read Dr. Who and the Abominable Snowmen.'
It seems hard to credit now, but Our Man Flint (1966) was ITV’s big film of the week, earning its star James Coburn the cover of the TV Times. The two Flint films from the mid 60s, tacky cash-ins on the Bond phenomenon, are mostly forgotten today; and who needed Bond by numbers anyway when ITV was giving us the real thing. Dr. No had been on only weeks before, next to which Our Man Flint had all the credibility of Carry On Spying. Probably not even that much, actually...
James Coburn is also largely forgotten today, a name that seldom if ever troubles the compilers of pop culture retrospectives. His star was already well in the descendant by the mid 70s by which time he was in a relationship with the singer/songwriter Lynsey de Paul, even assisting her with her songwriting. As she put it herself in one of the UK’s less impressive Eurovision entries: ‘where are we? Rock bottom…’
Dr Who and the Abominable Snowmen was, of course, the classic Target paperback novelisation of the Patrick Troughton adventure which, in its televisual incarnation had been junked by the time I came to read it. Re-reading the book for the purposes of this blog, I find it hard to understand why the serial is such a fan favourite. There's the usual amount of to-ing and fro-ing, with characters getting locked up, escaping, and so forth, and the Yeti making occasional incursions – but as monsters they simply don't do enough: they can't speak, they use no weapons and whilst they might well have worked on screen, on paper they never come to life. The story is the usual schtick about an alien intelligence trying to take over the Earth, this time by smothering it in goo.
Thursday December: '2 weeks to break up. Read Dr. Who and the Yeti. Space 1999 ‘Earthbound’ & Dr. On the Go A Run for Your Money. Start OHMSS again.'
Tonight’s Space:1999 was one of the best episodes from series one, with a memorable ending that saw returning character Commissioner Simmonds (Roy Dotrice) blackmail his way onto an alien ship bound for Earth, with disastrous consequences.
Dr. On the Go was rather less memorable. A fun series to watch at the time, I’ve never felt the need to revisit it, despite having owned it on DVD for nearly twenty years, and have no recollection of this evening’s episode.
Having finished with Dr. Who and the Abominable Snowmen, I returned to another snow-covered setting for my second reading of Ian Fleming's On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, easily the best of the Bond novels. My choice of books was sadly not reflected by the weather, which remained resolutely dull, dry and mild. In Greg Lake's Christmas hit 'it just kept on raining', but the Met Office monthly report tells us otherwise: rainfall totals for December ‘75 were below average and the monthly summary was ‘mild in north, cooler in south: mainly dry’. This would not be a white Christmas...
Friday 5 December: 'Read OHMSS (2nd time). Borrow Supercar Annual off David. Read Supercar Annual & do more to own version. Go to Nanny & Grandad’s. Trinity Tales.'
Trinity Tales is a red herring, because I didn't get to see the series until a repeat run in 1977, and the diary entry was added later on, simply to note when the episodes had originally been shown. Alan Plater's serial was a modern day take on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, following a group of rugby supporters on their way to Wembley for a cup final. En route, each occupant of the supporters’ club mini bus tells a story, which is acted out by the cast, of which Francis Matthews and Bill Maynard were the stars. A forgotten series today, it’s probably worth a revival on BBC4 or even Talking Pictures...
The Supercar Annual was a thorny issue: my friend David had nabbed it literally from under my nose at our grammar school’s Christmas bazaar, and I had to make do with a 1967 Avengers Annual instead. As a form of atonement for sniping the Supercar Annual, David had lent it to me for a week or so while I set to work creating an original one of my own. Today, you'll easily find that old Supercar Annual on eBay, but back in the 1970s it was a rare find indeed, and it took me years to track down a copy (thank you Nostalgia and Comics...)
Saturday 6 December: 'Go to Lichfield in morn. Get: Dangerman ‘The Exterminator’ from a book bargain place (must go again), ‘Thunderbirds’ paperback from a bazaar, the 3 Drs and Dr Who Monster book. Go to Sutton in afternoon. Get Space:1999 6. Watch Dr. Who. Film, The Last Voyage. Supercar Annual.'
The Last Voyage (1960) is another largely forgotten flick, a disaster movie before the term had even been coined. Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone and Edmond O’Brien starred in a spectacularly destructive epic depicting the sinking of a cruise liner, directed and written by Andrew L. Stone (a highlight in a mostly undistinguished career). A condemned liner, The SS Ile de France was destroyed in the Sea of Japan for the purposes of the film, grievously annoying its owners who issued instructions that no such practise would be allowed in the future, and insisted that the vessel’s name be obliterated before filming could start. Stunts like this didn’t come cheap: the film had a budget of over a million dollars, but took two million at the box office. I remember it as a decent, if unsubtle effort, the most memorable scene being Robert Stack attempting to reach his young daughter who is trapped on the far side of a massive hole that’s been blown through the decks of the liner. The special effects were much praised at the time of the film’s release, and had the virtue of being done for real.
The Last Voyage was once a staple of BBC action/adventure film seasons and matinees, and was scheduled no fewer than eleven times between 1970 and 2007: 1970 (10 January), 1975 (6 December), 1979 (19 May), 1983 (18 June), 1993 (29 Jul), 1995 (7 September), 1998 (11 April), 2000 (14 Oct), 2004 (18 February), 2005 (9 Sept), 2007 (9 Sept). These days, you'll struggle to find it anywhere.
Sunday 7 December: 'Watch Laurel & Hardy ‘County Hospital’ & Tom and Jerry. Read Supercar Annual & OHMSS. Do more to Supercar Annual. Put up decorations. Listen to Top Twenty & D.T.T. show.'
Just a typical Sunday in 1975 – Jimmy Savile at lunchtime, Laurel and Hardy in the afternoon. When I wasn't watching television, I was drawing, or putting up some old Christmas decorations in my bedroom.
Next time: Christmas in the pop charts... Captain Scarlet in Tiswas... and Space:1999 serves up a stinker.
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