December 75: Week Three

Monday 15th: 'Read OHMSS. Orchestra cancelled. Watch The Goodies in which they are buried in concrete for 75 years. 10 Days [to Christmas]'

The cancellation of the school orchestra practise was always a cause for celebration, because attendance kept us late at school every Monday evening, and being in the orchestra was a ball ache of epic proportions. As I’d opted to do music ‘O’ level, I was obliged to be in the orchestra, and in order to do so had taken up the clarinet, simply because there happened to be a clarinet available: it had once belonged to my Grandad.

Orchestra was presided over by the school’s ageing music teacher ‘Doc’ Terry. To this day, I have no idea if he was a genuine 'doctor' of anything, but it seems unlikely: he'd once owned a shop selling records and sheet music, and had played in dance bands in the 1930s – my Grandad remembered him. If he had any feel or love for music, it was undetectable in his crotchety, ill-humoured demeanour. "You're about as much use as a sack of potatoes" he would inform someone whose playing wasn't up to scratch ("a sack of potatoes is quite useful" we muttered to ourselves). A bout of throat cancer had left him with a strange croaky voice that sounded oddly like W.C. Fields, but he still smoked a pipe during lessons, unthinkable in this day and age. Music lessons consisted mostly of our listening to ‘set pieces’ whilst following them in a score while he polluted the air. When we weren’t doing that, it was ‘orals and aurals’ which meant singing notes that Doc played on the piano. The only worthwhile thing he ever did for me in three years of music lessons, was telling me I had perfect pitch – I could name any note he played. But that hardly lets him off. My abiding memory of those ‘orals and aurals’ is of Doc hammering the keyboard so hard as to risk destroying the instrument whilst bawling ‘IS THAT THIS NOTE? IS IT?’ at one of our unfortunate classmates who was tone deaf and couldn’t sing a note in tune to save his life (or ours). 

Cartoon of 'Doc' Terry, circa 1977. No idea who the portrait behind him was meant to be.
He called everyone 'Tommy' so as not to have to remember our names.

The orchestra was diabolical. We’d have given the Portsmouth Sinfonia a run for their money. The violin section was the worst, consisting of a few youngsters hopelessly scraping away. Everything was taken at a funereal pace; years later, if I should ever chance to hear a professional orchestra playing one of the pieces in our repertoire, I’d always be surprised at how fast it sounded. Doc’s manner was little better during these practise sessions, but softened somewhat when we were joined by members of the Girls’ Grammar on the other side of town, to whom he presented an avuncular air, whilst keeping his beady eye fixed on the rest of us. He was, without a doubt, the worst teacher I ever had the misfortune to encounter. This blog marks his sole appearance on the internet... which is probably just as well.

Tuesday 16th: 'Carol Concert in evening. No school, really: carol practice morn, games in afternoon. Read OHMSS. See that ATV is making a new Space:1999 series.'

The carol concert was, of course, presided over by Doc, but the choir sounded a lot better than the orchestra, especially when we were accompanied by the school’s impressive church organ, with its full complement of stops, diapasons and enormous pipes. I’ve no recollection of what we performed this particular year, but alongside the familiar carols, there was usually something exotic or ancient thrown in – one year, it was a modern carol by the composer William Mathias – another, it was Adam lay ybounden, a 15th century text with a modern setting by Boris Ord. 

A small announcement in the television column of this evening’s Birmingham Evening Mail offered up the potentially exciting announcement about Space:1999. If I'd known what was coming, I'd have been a lot less enthused...

Wednesday 17th: 'Stay at home instead of going out in evening. Finish special XL5 story. Watch the Benny Hill Show. Read OHMSS.'

‘Going out in evening’ actually meant accompanying my parents on our regular midweek trip to visit our Grandparents, who lived around half an hour away. There was a decent fish and chip shop just around the corner, from where we would usually get cod and chips, bringing it all the way home in the car. Saturday afternoon was similarly set aside, with the ritual of going down to the newsagents’ to fetch our Grandad’s copy of the Birmingham Evening Mail, plus whatever comics my brother and myself were reading at the time.

Thursday 18th: 'Break up! At 2.35 (report). Watch Space:1999, ‘Another Time, Another Place’ (from bk2), Love Thy Neighbour and a new Carry On Christmas. Play guitar. Read OHMSS.'

Yes, we got a school report at the end of every term. It might even survive somewhere, though (perhaps fortunately), I don't have it to hand...

Friday 19th: 'David comes. Go to Mere Green. Get mum’s xmas present. Read OHMSS. Watch Top Cat & It’s the Wolf. See a bit of King Kong.'

Where exactly did I get to see ‘a bit of King Kong’? (And which bit, one might also enquire). Consulting the programme listings for this evening, we find the last in a six-part David Attenborough series on BBC1 at 5.15, Fabulous Animals, which tonight looked at legendary and unknown creatures. Although the listing doesn’t mention Kong, and my diary entry wasn’t more specific, this is almost certainly where I saw him: the programme followed Top Cat (which the BBC still insisted on billing as ‘Boss Cat’).

Saturday 20th: 'Watch Star Trek ‘Wink of an Eye’ and Laurel and Hardy ‘Another Fine Mess’. Go to Nanny & Grandad’s & Wilde [sic] Green. Get film edition of OHMSS. Do more to Supercar annual, leaving written stories until have got typewriter [for Christmas].'

‘Holiday Star Trek’ was a short-lived festive tradition that had got going the previous year (https://sundayinoldmoney.blogspot.com/2024/12/advent-sunday-in-old-money-day-23.html) and now made a welcome return. The season ran until 2 January, comprising a grab bag of twelve episodes from across all three series of which the best were Amok Time (22 December), Dagger of the Mind (23 December) and Operation – Annihilate! (24 December), all of them duly noted in my diary. 

As my diary also makes clear, I knew in advance what I was getting for Christmas – I’d asked for a typewriter, to assist in my comic-making activitites. I still own it to this day, but it hasn’t been used in a very long time. It last saw action when I photographed it to use in the design for the Network DVD sleeve of the series Jason King, (left) a typewriter having featured in the opening titles. The Silver-Reed model featured a ribbon that could print in black or red, the colour being selected by the small switch that can be seen on the far right in the pic below:

Sunday 21st: 'Read OHMSS. Change to Film Edition. Do more to home-made Supercar annual. Play guitar. Watch Holiday Star Trek at 12.00. Listen to the Double Top Ten Show with Hoots Mon by Lord Rockingham’s XI. Watch Goodies Rule – OK? & Punch review.'

I’d never heard Lord Rockingham’s XI’s festive hit until this year, as it had charted before my time and had never been revived in the years since. The XI were the house band on TV’s rock and roll programme Oh Boy!, led by Harry Robinson and featuring the legendary Cherry Wainer on organ. Harry Robinson later conducted and composed the backing for Nick Drake’s song ‘River Man’, as well as many different TV themes. The descendants of the real Lord Rockingham (a title defunct since 1782) mean spiritedly took the band to court over their use of the name. ‘Hoots Mon’ was the XI’s only significant chart hit, reaching number one at Christmas 1958. With its cod Scottish interjections, I think we can rule out a revival in this era of heightened sensitivity to pretty well everything...

Next time: an eight-hour day of television... and the worst Christmas Eve TV schedule to date