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January 1963: The big freeze
Sledging in Coventry, 1963. Pic: Mirrorpix
It snowed on Boxing Day 1962. I remember this well. And then the temperature stayed stuck at below zero for more than two months.
December 1962: First appearance by The Beatles on London area TV
I would like to say that I watched this on television, but I don’t think I did. On 4 December 1962, the Beatles made their first TV appearance in the London region on the Associated Rediffusion children’s programme, Tuesday Rendezvous, where they mimed to their recently released single Love Me Do and part of PS I Love You.
More to follow.
https://www.beatlesbible.com/1962/12/04/television-tuesday-rendezvous/
November 1962: That was That Was The Week That Was
The first broadcast of That Was The Week That Was was shown on 24 November 1962. More to follow.
October 1962: The Cuban missiles crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the USA and the Soviet Union which escalated into an international crisis when American deployments of missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of similar ballistic missiles in Cuba.
More to follow
September 1962: Liston knocks out Patterson in first round
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The full fight on Boxing News online.
August 1962: The death of Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe died on 4 August 1962, apparently by suicide after a drugs overdose. Text to follow.
July 1962: The last Lord’s Gentlemen v. Players match
On Friday 20 July 1962 I went to the last day of what would turn out to be the final Lord’s cricket match between the Gentlemen and Players. Throughout this season sixty years ago, English first class cricket was still played by a mixture of paid professionals (Players) and unpaid amateurs (Gentlemen), and every year a team from each category played a three day game at the home of cricket, as well as a later match at the Scarborough Festival. A small group of boys from my school travelled up to London on the Friday where we bought scorecards, watched the game and hung around at the close of play for long enough to get autographs. I dutifully filled in my scorecard with a stubby pencil and at the end of the day had it signed by one of the most recognisable figures in the amateur team, Rev David Sheppard, sometime captain of both Sussex and England, who went on to become Bishop of Liverpool.
1962 was the year in which sport began to change as the amateur tradition began to fade – the shock caused by Rod Laver turning pro after completing his Grand Slam in the autumn of 1962 surely speeded up the process that brought in the open era in tennis just six years later. Athletics followed, the Olympic tradition of only allowing amateurs to compete was largely devalued by the combination of sponsorship and surreptitious payments in the west and the blatant use of state subsidy in the Soviet bloc. Restrictions began to be relaxed in the 1970s. Rugby Union took a lot longer.
Cricket actually prefigured these other sports. The process to abolish amateurism had taken several years and various committees before being ushered in by a vote of the Advisory County Cricket Committee on 26 November 1962. (The whole event is documented in Charles Williams’s book, Gentlemen and Players, Phoenix 2013, which is an entertaining read.) The last Gentlemen v. Players match (which was actually at Scarborough on 8/10 and 11 September 1962) had been played.
With The Beatles
The Beatles played a staggering 38 live performances throughout the month of July 1962. Nearly all of these were in the Merseyside area but they also travelled to Rhyl and Swindon.
Source: beatlesbible.com
The month’s UK Top Tens
1. Come Outside: Mike Sarne With Wendy Richard
2. A Picture Of You: Joe Brown
3. Good Luck Charm: Elvis Presley
4. I Can’t Stop Loving You: Ray Charles
5. Ginny Come Lately: Brian Hyland
6. Do You Want To Dance/I’m Looking Out The Window: Cliff Richard
7. Green Leaves Of Summer: Kenny Ball And His Jazzmen
8. Ain’t That Funny: Jimmy Justice
9. Stranger On The Shore: Mr Acker Bilk
10. Sharing You: Bobby Vee
Source: officialcharts.com
Films released this month
Source: filmdates.co.uk
June 1962: Come Outside reaches No.1
Come Outside is one of those hit singles which is annoyingly memorable for a couple of reasons. One is the ‘jokey’ patter which provides the lyric, something which sounds much more like harassment to today’s ears. The second is that the uncredited woman became more famous in later life than the singer, Mike Sarne. She is of course Wendy Richard, the actress who went on to star in the 1970s ‘comedy’ (I use the word loosely) Are You Being Served and then became a founder member of the cast of EastEnders.
Come Outside reached No. 1 in the UK Top Ten on 28 June 1962.
Pic: EveryUKNumberOne
More to follow
With The Beatles
June 1962 was the month in which the Beatles travelled to London to record some demo material for HMV. More to follow.
Source: beatlesbible.com
The month’s UK Top Tens
1. Good Luck Charm: Elvis Presley
2. Do You Want To Dance/I’m Looking Out The Window: Cliff Richard
3. Nut Rocker: B. Bumble And The Stingers
4. Come Outside: Mike Sarne With Wendy Richard
5. As You Like It: Adam Faith
6. Last Night Was Made For Love: Billy Fury
7. Ginny Come Lately: Brian Hyland
8. Wonderful Land: The Shadows
9. I Don’t Know Why: Eden Kane
10. A Picture Of You: Joe Brown
1. Good Luck Charm: Elvis Presley
2. Do You Want To Dance/I’m Looking Out The Window: Cliff Richard
3. Come Outside: Mike Sarne With Wendy Richard
4. A Picture Of You: Joe Brown
5. Nut Rocker: B. Bumble And The Stingers
6. As You Like It: Adam Faith
7. I Don’t Know Why: Eden Kane
8. Last Night Was Made For Love: Billy Fury
9. Ginny Come Lately: Brian Hyland
10. Green Leaves Of Summer: Kenny Ball And His Jazzmen
1. Good Luck Charm: Elvis Presley
2. Come Outside: Mike Sarne With Wendy Richard
3. Do You Want To Dance/I’m Looking Out The Window: Cliff Richard
4. A Picture Of You: Joe Brown
5. Ginny Come Lately: Brian Hyland
6. Last Night Was Made For Love: Billy Fury
7. I Don’t Know Why: Eden Kane
8. As You Like It: Adam Faith
9. Nut Rocker: B. Bumble And The Stingers
10. Green Leaves Of Summer: Kenny Ball And His Jazzmen
1. Come Outside: Mike Sarne With Wendy Richard
2. A Picture Of You: Joe Brown
3. Good Luck Charm: Elvis Presley
4. Do You Want To Dance/I’m Looking Out The Window: Cliff Richard
5. Ginny Come Lately: Brian Hyland
6. Last Night Was Made For Love: Billy Fury
7. English Country Garden: Jimmie Rodgers
8. I Can’t Stop Loving You: Ray Charles
9. Stranger On The Shore: Mr Acker Bilk
10. Nut Rocker: B. Bumble And The Stingers
Source: officialcharts.com
Films released this month
Source: filmdates.co.uk
May 1962: Top Cat (or Boss Cat)
The first episode of a new Hanna-Barbera cartoon series, Top Cat, was shown on BBC TV on 16 May 1962. On 13 June, however, the show was hastily renamed The Boss Cat because Top Cat was also a brand of cat food, and could not be named on BBC TV, since this could be construed as advertising. This was of course the era in which Blue Peter presenters routinely referred to Fablon as sticky-backed plastic and covered up the Kellogg’s logo on cornflake packets.
The Top Cat/The Boss Cat change is discussed here on the Yowp blog, along with a scan of a contemporary TV listing.
More to follow.
With The Beatles
The Beatles carried on performing at the Star-Club in Hamburg throughout May 1962. The last of the 48 gigs in this run was on Thursday 31 May.
The month’s UK Top Tens
1. Wonderful Land: The Shadows
2. Hey! Little Girl: Del Shannon
3. Hey! Baby: Bruce Channel
4. Nut Rocker: B. Bumble And The Stingers
5. Dream Baby: Roy Orbison
6. Tell Me What He Said: Helen Shapiro
7. Speak To Me Pretty: Brenda Lee
8. Can’t Help Falling In Love/Rock-a-Hula Baby: Elvis Presley
9. Never Goodbye: Karl Denver
10. Stranger On The Shore: Mr Acker Bilk
1. Wonderful Land: The Shadows
2. Nut Rocker: B. Bumble And The Stingers
3. Speak To Me Pretty: Brenda Lee
4. Hey! Baby: Bruce Channel
5. Hey! Little Girl: Del Shannon
6. Love Letters: Ketty Lester
7. Dream Baby: Roy Orbison
8. Wonderful World Of The Young: Danny Williams
9. The Party’s Over: Lonnie Donegan
10. Never Goodbye: Karl Denver
17 May 1962
1. Nut Rocker: B. Bumble And The Stingers
2. Good Luck Charm: Elvis Presley
3. Wonderful Land: The Shadows
4. Do You Want To Dance/I’m Looking Out The Window: Cliff Richard
5. Speak To Me Pretty: Brenda Lee
6. Love Letters: Ketty Lester
7. As You Like It: Adam Faith
8. Hey! Little Girl: Del Shannon
9. When My Little Girl Is Smiling: Jimmy Justice
10. Hey! Baby: Bruce Channel
1. Good Luck Charm: Elvis Presley
2. Nut Rocker: B. Bumble And The Stingers
3. Do You Want To Dance/I’m Looking Out The Window: Cliff Richard
4. Love Letters: Ketty Lester
5. As You Like It: Adam Faith
6. Wonderful Land: The Shadows
7. Speak To Me Pretty: Brenda Lee
8. Hey! Little Girl: Del Shannon
9. When My Little Girl Is Smiling: Jimmy Justice
10. Ginny Come Lately: Brian Hyland
1. Good Luck Charm: Elvis Presley
2. Do You Want To Dance/I’m Looking Out The Window: Cliff Richard
3. Nut Rocker: B. Bumble And The Stingers
4. Last Night Was Made For Love: Billy Fury
5. As You Like It: Adam Faith
6. Come Outside: Mike Sarne With Wendy Richard
7. Love Letters: Ketty Lester
8. I Don’t Know: Eden Kane
9. Wonderful Land: The Shadows
10. Ginny Come Lately: Brian Hyland
Source: officialcharts.com
Films released this month
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Source: filmdates.co.uk
From Chatterley to the Beatles 